Tyrese Halibruton just proved a bunch of NBA players have no idea what they are talking about.
The Athletic published their annual anonymous NBA player poll on Tuesday, just ahead of Game 2 between the Indiana Pacers and Milwaukee Bucks. Over 150 players were surveyed for the exercise, which included the following question: Who is the league’s most overrated player? Ninety players ended up casting votes for this category, and the most common answer was…Tyrese Haliburton.
This is preposterous on its face, and requires no rebuke from Haliburton. He delivered one in Game 2 anyway.
Haliburton is carving up the Bucks' playoff defense
The raw numbers do not say that Haliburton churned out an epic performance against the Bucks on Tuesday night. He finished 8-of-19 from the floor, and was a plus-two during his minutes in a game the Pacers won by eight.
This sentiment can be applied to his overall production for the series. After Game 2, Haliburton is averaging a rather pedestrian-looking 15.5 points, and shooting just 3-of-17 from beyond the arc (17.6 percent).
Still, these numbers do not even begin to adequately reflect Haliburton’s impact.
For starters, he added another 12 assists to his tally in Game 2, mirroring what he dished out in Game 1. More than that, he continues to be Indiana’s ultimate pace-setter, getting their offense up and running, even when it’s not actually running.
Yes, Indiana’s transition attack remains dangerous. It has nearly doubled up Milwaukee’s fast-break points through two games, winning the battle 26-14. But we have seen the Pacers be more efficient than they are now in those situations. The mere threat of their transition attack is what's doing a ton of lifting at the moment.
Haliburton is the driver of the speed. Indiana gets out on the break waaaay more often with him in the lineup, which puts constant pressure on the Bucks. And equally critical, he keeps things clicking, organized, and spunky when the team is in the half-court.
this angle of Tyrese Haliburton going to work in the paint 🤌 pic.twitter.com/kr41vQzM7M
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) April 23, 2025
Look no further than how he has carved up Brook Lopez, one of the league's premier rim protectors. Haliburton almost single handedly rendered him a liability in Game 2. When Lopez was in drop coverage, Hali manipulated the in-between, until spraying out to his teammates, or getting up a patented push shot. When he catches Lopez straight-up on a switch, he's basically cooking him, invariably blowing by him to the same in-between range, delivering the same dose of playmaking, or change-of-cadence shot-taking.
Again, the efficiency doesn't always line up with Hali's value. He is shooting 53.3 percent on twos for the series. That is noticeably down from the 58.8 percent clip he posted in the regular season. But overall-team results trounce individualized marks.
To that end, the Pacers are averaging 1.36 points per possession when Hali is defended by one of the Bucks' bigs (Lopez, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kyle Kuzma, and Bobby Portis Jr.). Bear in mind the league's best offense this year, helmed by the Cleveland Cavaliers, put up around 1.21 points per possession.
This is the Hali effect. So is possession control. He has just four turnovers against his 24 assists. Only four other players have matched those benchmarks through the first two games of playoff series over the past 30 years: Mike Conley, Jrue Holiday, Steve Nash and Chris Paul, who has done it twice, because of course he has done it twice.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Indiana is dominating in scoring off turnovers. The Bucks have scored eight points in two games off Pacers mistakes. Indiana has generated 29 points off turnovers—almost four times as many.
Haliburton doesn't need to prove anything
Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle was asked about Haliburton being named the NBA's most overrated player by his player's peers. His response was on-brand, and also on-point:
"I want to see the faces of those guys," Rick Carlisle says of The Athletic player poll, pointing to Jimmy Butler and Giannis also being on the list that has Haliburton at the top. "The whole thing is bullshit... it's a shameful thing."
— Tony East (@TonyREast) April 23, 2025
Haliburton's own rebuke was not nearly as impassioned. When asked about it, he said that he "couldn't care less." Spoken like someone who just averaged over 18 points and nine assists with fewer than three turnovers per game for the third time of his career, something that's only ever been done by Gary Payton, and you guessed it, Chris Paul.
There is no wrong way to handle dunking on this farce of a "vote." Be loud about it. Downplay it. Ignore it completely. It all works.
Really, the whole "Tyrese Haliburton is overrated" schtick doesn't matter. It is disinformation; simply flat-out wrong. It also isn't representative of a huge sample size. He received the biggest share of votes cast, but that amounts to 14.4 percent of respondents, which comes out to 13 players.
If it's all the same, though, it'd be nice to know which games these 13 Haliburton-is-overrated truthers are watching. Because it certainly isn't Pacers games.
Dan Favale is a Senior NBA Contributor for FanSided and National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.