When the Indiana Pacers suited up against the Atlanta Hawks for a preseason game on Saturday, October 10th, they did so without Tyrese Haliburton.
Haliburton, who has missed over 500 days of games since he tore his Achilles in the 2024-25 NBA Finals, has tweaked his ankle and is, as such, missing out on the next few preseason games after his dramatic reintroduction on his home campus at Iowa State against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
To address the elephant in the room, a tweaked ankle is not the end of the world. It is arguably the single most common injury that is actually worth sitting out for and is certainly not worth the worry or danger of aggravating it for the sake of preseason basketball.
Additionally, this is not an injury that will take away from Haliburton's regular season, nor will it prevent the Pacers from being whoever they were meant to be this year. For Better or worse, Indiana will go as Haliburton does, and he will go no matter the state of his ankle in early October.
However, Pacers fans just spent all of last season seeing how hard it is to navigate a team that is constantly dealing with new dings along the roster while simply trying to maintain a rotation through any injury concerns.
The Pacers cannot afford another gap year, and if last year proved anything, it was that this team cannot function without Tyrese Haliburton. Understanding that this is a minor injury and not anything to freak out about, it is no less scary to know that Haliburton is human and that a re-injury could be around the corner, waiting to derail any hopes that Haliburton or the Pacers had for a dramatic return to Championship contention.
Take a deep breath
With the way that last section ended, it feels like we need to burn some sage here.
Tyrese Haliburton, before his Achilles tear, was a relatively consistent performer. While he played only 58 games as a rookie, he played 77, 69, and 73 in 2021, 2023, and 2024, respectively. It's obviously not surprising that Haliburton had his best year both in the playoffs and, as far as accolades go, in his healthiest year, but it's also the year in which his team took by far the greatest step forward.
If Indiana wants to return to the Finals, it will have to happen through Haliburton, and if Haliburton wants to be the catalyst to a new era of Pacers basketball or even an extension of the old one, he will need to be on the court.
The old saying that the best ability is availability was always a little asinine. Would you rather have the player who is simply average at everything they do but plays 82 games, or the player who is absolutely excellent but has some struggles with injury concerns? For one of those players, you can justify a max contract and building a team around them; for the other, you're happy to have them as one of your starters, but little more.
However, maybe the saying is better worded as: every ability comes second to availability. It's not that the most important thing is seeing the court; it is simply that you can only see everything else when you see the court.
If Haliburton misses time, maybe we'll have a real referendum about this exact topic.
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