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Chad Buchanan has lofty hopes for Tyrese Haliburton

Tyrese Haliburton, Chad Buchanan, Pacers
(Dylan Buell/Getty Images)

Chad Buchanan has lofty hopes for Tyrese Haliburton

When Indiana Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan traded Domantas Sabonis to the Sacramento Kings in a six-player deal at the most recent trade headline, it was quite startling that the Kings’ brain trust sent young budding point guard Tyrese Haliburton in return.

Regardless, both players seemed to work out with their new respective franchises. Sabonis assembled a fun tandem with De’Aaron Fox, averaging 18.9 points, 12.3 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game in his 15-game sample with the ball club.

Haliburton, meanwhile, was playing some of the best basketball he’s ever played. He tallied career-bests in points (17.5 ppg), assists (9.6), rebounds (4.3), steals (1.8 spg) and efficiency (62.9 TS%).

And I guess it’s safe to say Buchanan and the Pacers brain trust have higher hopes for the 22-year-old guard than perhaps anyone could’ve imagined.

“We’re gonna build our team around him,” Buchanan told Basketball News‘ Alex Kennedy this week. “We see him as hopefully being the next Reggie Miller. We had a Reggie Miller mural painted on a building in downtown Indianapolis, and I think our dream is that one day Tyrese will have [his own] up somewhere in downtown Indianapolis.”

I’m sure plenty of Pacers fans hope that, too.

Although it’s harder for players to stick around in today’s NBA because, frankly, you don’t know what most players and/or their agents (i.e. Klutch) are thinking about their respective situations.

The player empowerment era has obviously sparked plenty movement, which is fun for the league as a whole but, in Haliburton’s case, might trigger tension with the organization that drafted him just years earlier. Though his personality doesn’t seem to fit that mold, at least from my perspective on the outside.

Nevertheless, Buchanan throwing Haliburton in the same sentence with Reggie Miller — whether in the context of loyalty, accolade or stats-wise — is nothing short of a bold comment that assigns lofty expectations.

After trading away Malcolm Brogdon to the Boston Celtics, it was all but certain that Haliburton now had the keys to a Pacers offense that ranked in the top-half of the league post-trade. They added Ben Mathurin and Kendall Brown in the draft while retaining Jalen Smith and Oshae Brissett, among others, to the mix in hopes of building off the foundation it established at the tail-end of 2021-22.

Indiana hasn’t made the playoffs since the 2019-20 season (The Bubble), when it earned the No. 4 seed at 45-28. So Haliburton’s growth as a initiator (which he’s already very good at), scorer and defender will be key to their future success. It’s not a project that will be solved overnight.

“As a kid, I would’ve f****n’ killed for this, so it’s fun to be a part of,” Haliburton said. “And at the end of the day, it’s just basketball. And the things in life that come with it, I’m just gonna be who I am and share my values on certain things… I just take it naturally and have fun with it. It’s a great opportunity for me.”

Since Haliburton’s arrived in Indiana, Buchanan’s been very bullish of his infectious energy, one that could hopefully ignite a spark to a young, but hungry Pacers franchise.

“He’s just one of those guys that just brings energy to our gym every day, and it’s so, so hard to find guys like that,” Buchanan said. “I mean, there are some out there, but our league is very ‘me’ centered and Tyrese is a ‘we’ kind of guy. It’s very refreshing to have a guy with those qualities, and I think it’ll rub off on a lot of people around our team moving forward.

“Even if he wasn’t playing right now — like, if he wasn’t an NBA-caliber player — he’s the type of guy you’d want on your staff, whether it be as your assistant GM or assistant coach or player-development guy. Tyrese is one of the few guys that I’ve been around during my time in the NBA where [that’s the case]… It’s hard to describe what he brings for us culture-wise because there are so many good traits that he has and we’re just trying to tap into as many of them as we can and put as much talent around him as we can to build this team.”

Full quotes here.

Personally, Haliburton is one of my favorite young players to watch in the league — on both sides of the ball too. And he’s only going to get better. Factoring in the trades of Sabonis and Paul George, the Pacers are a franchise that deserves a star player that wants to remain with them for the rest of their careers. Maybe Haliburton becomes that guy, but maybe he’s not.

But as long as Buchanan — who was hired as Indiana’s general manager ahead of the 2017-18 season — is there, the brain trust will try to do everything in his power that Haliburton becomes that guy.

“If you look at his personality, he’s very, very humble, very hardworking, very team-oriented, which have always been traits of the Pacer teams over the years,” Buchanan said. “I think he has an appreciation of the history of both the Pacers but also just basketball in general, and he’s a lot like our average fan here in Indiana who grew up loving basketball, knows the game and appreciates guys who play the right way.

“He really epitomizes almost all those qualities, so it’s been a seamless fit for him with our culture. He has an appreciation for the game of basketball. He loves it as much as anybody I’ve been around since I’ve been in the NBA, so I’m very optimistic about his future because of that quality.”

Full quotes here.

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