Tyrese Haliburton has a shot at Indiana immortality, an NBA ring and inner peace

New York Times

2 days ago

INDIANAPOLIS — There's a 60-foot mural on the side of the building at 127 E. Michigan St. in downtown Indianapolis. It depicts the city's most beloved basketball player.
The one who went toe-to-toe with Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing and Shaquille O'Neal. The one whose posters still line the walls of local bars and barbershops. The one who, every time he comes home, receives a champion's applause — even though he never was one.
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'It will always haunt me not winning a chip,' Reggie Miller recently said on the 'All The Smoke' podcast. 'I had opportunities, and that's why it just burns me.'
Miller isn't just a legend in these parts. The greatest Indiana Pacer ever is a folk hero. Invoke the Hall of Famer's name around those who witnessed him in his prime and they'll say Miller still deserves a ring, despite falling two wins short of one in the 2000 NBA Finals. Even without it, they'll also argue that Miller deserves a lot more than that mural.
WATCH: Have you seen this incredible mural of Reggie Miller in downtown Indy?! Our #SKY59 drone shows it towering the city at 60 feet tall! More: https://t.co/qxNk06PjZW pic.twitter.com/tT6k7hIhBm
— Olivia Purevich (McClellan) (@OliviaPurevich) October 19, 2018
He deserves his own statue, which may be built someday, but for now, only one athlete in the city has a statue outside of his old office: Peyton Manning.
The former Indianapolis Colts quarterback and Hall of Famer is immortalized in nine feet of bronze in front of Lucas Oil Stadium. He's the only athlete loved just as much as, if not more than, Miller is in and around Indianapolis.
Tyrese Haliburton could join them.
The 25-year-old's late-game heroics in these playoffs have galvanized the city, if not the whole state. And for gray-haired Hoosiers, Haliburton's clutch gene has elicited memories of Bobby Plump. The local luminary is known for making the most famous shot in Indiana high school basketball history, a last-second pull-up jumper that lifted Milan (161 students) to a massive upset of Muncie Central (1,662 students) in the 1954 state final. The movie 'Hoosiers' was inspired in part by Milan.
Haliburton is in the middle of directing his own 'Hoosiers'-like run while trying to lead a No. 4 seed to an NBA title for the first time in 56 years. It's as if the movie's star player, Jimmy Chitwood, is whispering his famous line, 'I'll make it,' in Haliburton's ear before he drills yet another clutch shot. There have been four of them this postseason run — one in each round, to be exact. Four times the Pacers have trailed in the last five seconds of a game, and four times Haliburton has either tied or won the game with a big-time bucket.
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The latest example? A 21-foot jumper with 0.3 seconds left to silence the Oklahoma City Thunder in his NBA Finals debut.
'I never lose belief in our group. I never lose belief (in myself),' Haliburton told ESPN's Scott Van Pelt after Indiana's one-point victory in Game 1. 'If I lose belief in taking a shot at the end of a game, we're probably screwed. So, I just gotta stick with it and stay confident and keep making plays.'
Kevin Pritchard, the Pacers' president of basketball operations, saw Haliburton's potential before many others. He didn't wait for Haliburton to stun a sellout Thunder crowd to share his conviction publicly. Pritchard anointed Haliburton, whom he acquired from the Sacramento Kings in a February 2022 trade, as the next Indianapolis icon before he even played a game for the Pacers.
'We feel like when we put the ball more in Tyrese's hands that he can really blossom into something special at 21 years old,' Pritchard said hours before Haliburton's franchise debut. 'For me, when you get those kinds of guys, it's like getting the Peytons and the Andrew Lucks.'
When Pritchard uttered those words, knowing that it's nearly impossible for any newcomer to live up to Manning's impact in Indy, it felt like he did Haliburton, a promising yet largely unaccomplished player, a disservice. Even mentioning Haliburton with Luck, who was on his own Hall of Fame trajectory before injuries forced him into an early retirement, felt extremely premature. Manning led the Colts to two Super Bowl appearances and won one in 2007. Luck led the Colts to the AFC Championship in just his third season.
But Haliburton, for all of the weight he was under to flip the Pacers' fortunes — which was multiplied by Pritchard's bold vote of confidence — he has already delivered. In only his third full season with the franchise, he's led the Pacers to their first NBA Finals appearance in 25 years, where they're tied 1-1 with the Thunder as the series shifts to Indiana for Wednesday's Game 3. He'll need to be better than he was during a blowout loss in Game 2 (17 points total but only five points through the first three quarters), but he is trusted to bounce back.
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Their conviction is backed by the resilience they've witnessed all season, as Haliburton has navigated the increased scrutiny of stardom.
'I'm just proud of the way he's handled everything,' Myles Turner, the longest-tenured Pacer, said of Haliburton the night Indiana ousted the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals. 'It's a lot of pressure being that main guy. … It's all happened so fast, but he's done a great job of composing himself and showing up when it matters the most.
'So yeah, when you want to say he's the Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck of the city, it makes sense.'
Since Haliburton's trade to Indiana, his career arc over the last three-plus seasons illustrates someone who likely will have his jersey in the rafters of Gainbridge Fieldhouse someday. Two NBA All-Star nods, two All-NBA third-team selections, an Olympic gold medal and an NBA Finals appearance have placed Haliburton in rarefied air. The only other player to accomplish similar feats while wearing a Pacers uniform is Miller.
But despite how some may view his rapid rise, Haliburton is the first to admit he's experienced his share of turbulence.
Amid the iconic moments — like when he jumped on the scorer's table after ending the Milwaukee Bucks' season with a game-winning layup in the first round, or when Dwyane Wade called him a 'cold motherf—–' after he quieted the Thunder with his game-winning jump shot in the finals — there have been seeds of doubt, coupled by windows of vulnerability. And unlike most athletes, Haliburton refuses to regurgitate the same clichés that have been ingrained in the sports lexicon.
Instead, he's often used his media availability as an extra therapy session.
'You want me to lie?' Haliburton asked rhetorically as he left the interview room at Gainbridge Fieldhouse earlier this season. 'I can't lie.'
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If heartbreak had a face, it would be the one Haliburton wore during his first media scrum after being traded from the Kings to the Pacers. He didn't downplay the painful sever. He leaned into it.
'It's scary. I put a lot of love, a lot of trust into Sacramento,' he said. 'Part of my best trait is (being) somebody who just loves hard. … It can be my biggest upside, but it can be a big downfall, too.'
Last season, as Haliburton navigated the worst shooting slump of his career, he candidly admitted to snapping on his inner circle. 'Everybody's answer to me right now is just, 'You need to smile. Have more fun.' And I think me being honest, I've had these honest conversations like, 'What the f— is there to smile about?'' he recalled.
Even at the beginning of this year's magical run, there were still lonely, scary hours. After going scoreless in a loss at New York in the second game of the season, Haliburton could feel himself slipping into what he described as basketball depression before he finally came clean to his loved ones and asked for help.
'I (was) struggling to look at myself in the mirror,' he told The Athletic.
Haliburton's nonlinear-yet-meteoric ascension has doubled as a journey of self-discovery and self-certitude. Now, as he plays on the biggest stage of his life, with Indiana just three wins away from its first NBA title, he believes the dark days have helped him approach these upcoming ones with the right blend of perspective and passion.
'Just understanding that I'm a human being, I think that's the most important thing for me,' Haliburton said last week. 'When I do well, I think that I'm put even higher (in public perspective), and when I'm not doing well, you're always put lower. People are gonna say things to you that might dehumanize you a little bit. … So, just knowing where your peace is.
'For me, that's become my friends and family. That's become the Lord. Those have been two big things for me to just ground myself.'
Miller, who was courtside commentating for TNT when the Pacers punched their ticket to the finals, has enjoyed watching his successor find his way. The new face of the franchise shares a similar bravado Miller once wielded — complete with the funky jumper and occasional choke sign — and Haliburton's willingness to defy himself as the status quo of the league has given him a chance to do what those before him couldn't.
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'The way his teammates look at him,' Miller said during NBA All-Star weekend in Indianapolis. 'They look at him like they look at LeBron (James). They look at him like they look at (Nikola) Jokić. They look at him like they look at Giannis (Antetokounmpo). Like, 'We can do anything with this dude out there.'
'I really do believe that he can carry this team to a championship.'
Haliburton has earned his own murals around Indianapolis while revitalizing the Pacers, though none of them are as big as Miller's. But that's not what he's chasing. To truly be immortalized, it's going to take more than paint.
And even if he receives a statue like Manning one day (after Miller, of course), it's going to take more than bronze for him to be satisfied.
It's going to take a ring, with diamonds forged from pressure that can only be found in the finals.
'If we were to win a championship, I don't want to win any other way,' Haliburton said of facing the Thunder. 'I don't want to go around or go over. I want to go through. You want to go through the best team. You want to go through the best challenge.'