8 hours ago
The timing of Skip Bayless' Tyrese Haliburton ‘no-show' tweet couldn't have been worse
With one post, Skip Bayless managed to unite all of NBA Twitter against him.
The sports pundit had an all-time bad take about Tyrese Haliburton in the early moments of Sunday's NBA Finals Game 7 between the Pacers and Thunder, and it aged horribly wrong moments later.
'The Pacers brilliantly took the big-game pressure off Haliburton, who routinely no-shows, by planting the 'injury excuse' that the media swallowed whole,' Bayless posted to X in the first quarter.
Mere minutes later — after rising to the Game 7 moment with three early 3-pointers — Haliburton was writhing on the ground with what was later deemed an Achilles injury.
Skip Bayless at the 7th Annual IAVA Heroes Gala on Nov. 12, 2013 in New York City.
WireImage
Haliburton suffered a strained right calf in Game 5 of the Finals, but played through it in Game 6 and to start Game 7.
Bayless, though, theorized that the Pacers had somehow 'planted' the calf injury in order to ease the external pressure and expectations on Haliburton.
The post enraged fans from just about everywhere.
'Truly one of the worst tweets ever. My goodness,' said one user in a post that got 16,000 likes.
'Wow,' wrote another, 'you might be the worst person to ever have a platform in the sports world.'
Bayless did not delete his post, but he did follow it up with several posts that were sympathetic to Haliburton.
'OK, now Haliburton looks hurt. Hope it's not too bad,' he wrote after the point guard went down with the Achilles injury, then adding: 'Unfortunately, that Haliburton injury looked like more than a calf pull.'
IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Later in the game, he wrote: 'HATE THIS FOR TYRESE HALIBURTON. ACHILLES, AS SUSPECTED. SIMILAR INJURY KEVIN DURANT SUFFERED IN THE FINALS, ALTHOUGH HE'D BEEN OUT A MONTH (9 GAMES) WITH A CALF PULL.'
He doubled down on that a few minutes later, writing: 'Even as a Thunder fan, the last thing I wanted to see was Haliburton getting hurt. The LAST.'
Bayless, 73, is a Thunder fan who was born and raised in Oklahoma City.
The Thunder went on to win their first title with a 103-91 triumph over the Haliburton-less Pacers.
Bayless was an original member of ESPN's 'First Take' in 2007, before starring on the show with Stephen A. Smith from 2012-16.
He then starred on Fox Sports 1's 'Undisputed' with Shannon Sharpe from 2016-24.
The timeline for Haliburton's return to play has not been outlined, but it can often take athletes between 8-10 months to fully recovery from an Achilles injury.
