Jamal CollierOct 13, 2026, 07:00 AM ETCloseJamal Collier is an NBA reporter at ESPN. Collier covers the Milwaukee Bucks, Chicago Bulls and the Midwest region of the NBA, including stories such as Minnesota’s iconic jersey swap between Anthony Edwards and Justin Jefferson. He has been at ESPN since Sept. 2021 and previously covered the Bulls for the Chicago Tribune. You can reach out to Jamal on Twitter @JamalCollier or via email Jamal.Collier@espn.com.Multiple AuthorsOpen Extended ReactionsTHE SWEAT FROM Tyrese Haliburton’s Indiana Pacers jersey almost immediately began to seep into his blue warmup shirt.For 16 months, the two-time All-Star guard had been patiently — and then not so patiently — and then practically champing at the bit to leave his seat on the sideline and play minutes in an NBA game.On Oct. 7, he finally did.
The Pacers were playing in Ames, Iowa, at Iowa State University, Haliburton’s alma mater, where it was a two-part homecoming.It was his first game at his college arena in six years. Students began lining up the night before the game to get into the student section and grab a yellow shirt with Haliburton’s face on it over the moniker “Cyclone Hali.” And it was also Haliburton’s first seven minutes in a game since tearing his right Achilles during Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals.With 4:27 remaining in the first quarter of the Pacers’ preseason opener against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Oct. 7, Haliburton relished a different moment: his first break.”I was tired as hell,” Haliburton said with a laugh after the game. “But even through that, I just kept feeling like, ‘Man, I’m playing again.'”On Indiana’s first possession of the game, an antsy Haliburton fired a no-look pass, intended for Andrew Nembhard, out of bounds. But with that out of the way, on the next possession, Haliburton ran a 2-on-1 with Pascal Siakam that Haliburton finished with a crossover into a 15-foot jumper for his first basket in more than a year.The adrenaline of the night carried him through 16 minutes of action.
Haliburton finished with seven points and six assists in the Pacers’ 123-112 win.”I have my own internal expectations,” Haliburton told ESPN. “But our goal is to win a championship. That has never wavered.”The Pacers’ season — and Indiana’s road back to contention — depends on those expectations.The last time Haliburton was healthy, he electrified the NBA with one of the greatest clutch postseason runs in NBA history, with a game-tying or winning shot in each of the four rounds of the 2025 playoffs.Indiana led in the first quarter of Game 7 in Oklahoma City before Haliburton tore his Achilles, and the Thunder marched their way to the record books.While Haliburton spent the 2025-26 season recovering, the Pacers won 19 games.It makes Indiana one of the most perplexing teams coming into the 2026-27 NBA season. Despite making the conference finals in 2024 and the conference finals in 2025, the Pacers are projected to win a modest 42 games and ranked 10th in the Eastern Conference, according to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index.”I don’t look too much into it,” Haliburton told ESPN.
“Our whole team can relate to that. We’ve all felt that way one way or another.”The Pacers are the last team to beat the champion New York Knicks in a playoff series. But in a more competitive East than the last one he left, Haliburton is out to prove that the Pacers can reclaim their spot at the top.”Finding that magic again, that’s no guarantee,” Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan told ESPN. “But our core guys believe in each other.
They feel like people have written them off already. That’s what’s happened those two years we made runs — people just kind of discarded us. That’s what fuels them.”THE ZERO IN the middle of the jersey was orange, matching the trim on a jersey that had been shaded with blue in the middle. As Haliburton picked up the sheet of paper, he scoffed.”Who drew this one?” he asked.
“Orange and blue on a Pacers jersey?””Knicks colors,” his wife, Jade, said with a knowing smile.With training camp still a few weeks away, the Haliburtons visited children at the Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis.Haliburton was there as a spokesperson for the Indiana Donor Network to raise awareness for organ donation. The five kids in attendance are recipients of kidney transplants.Sitting around a table, Haliburton and the children, some as young as 6, gathered sheets of paper to color. A raucous debate immediately ensued.”What’s your favorite color?” Haliburton asked his tablemates, launching an animated discussion.”Red!” one kid said. “Blue!” said another.
“Yellow!””Rainbow!” another said, inciting another debate as to whether all the colors can be considered one color. He insisted it could.”But is there a rainbow marker?” Haliburton prods, presenting the question as a color-form of checkmate. When Haliburton suggests his favorite color is grey, the kids recoil. “You never hear that, huh?” he says with a smile.Haliburton spent much of the past year in Indianapolis launching himself into projects such as these.He helped the Pacers revitalize their charity softball game earlier this summer, featuring players from the Indianapolis Colts and Indiana Fever.
Fans packed Victory Field, a 12,000-seat Triple-A baseball stadium in downtown Indianapolis.Haliburton’s connection to the Midwest is deep. He was born in Wisconsin and met and eventually proposed to his wife in Ames. His bond to the region has only deepened since he was traded to Indiana in 2022.It’s why he has poured so much into the community.”It’s a different perspective on life now,” Haliburton told ESPN. “I’m just thankful to be playing basketball again and to be doing all the different things that I can do in the community because when something like that happens, it’s like your life flashes before your eyes.”During his first vacation a few months after surgery, he could barely walk down the stairs at a house they had rented and needed assistance getting around when they left.
His surgeon had warned him, but the reality had set in. He wept in the shower.”Just having to come to terms with going from being on top of the world to the complete opposite of that in an instance,” Haliburton told ESPN.”It’s such a crazy thing to say because it’s a basketball injury that no matter what … there’s a time put on it. You know you’re going to be good in that amount of time. We have the best doctors in the world, the best therapists, all those things.
You know you’re going to be good, but it’s a scary thing.”He spent most of his recovery in Indianapolis, finding a spot on the bench for game nights, home and road, even as the season went south. But in the middle of his rehab, he dealt with a bad case of the shingles, too, gaining 30 pounds and suffering from severe face swelling as a side effect of the heavy medication. The illness, which is highly contagious, kept him away from his teammates on the sidelines. It was another blow in a long season.”In the league, especially when a star player like that is injured, what that means for the next year, sometimes they’re on their own little schedule, ‘Hey, I just got to do what’s right for me,'” Buchanan said.
“That’s not how Ty’s wired. Ty is wired to know what does the team need from me, rather than what I need to do for the team.”During his lonely, arduous recovery, he would occasionally fire up some of his old highlights.”Just to feel something,” he said. “I once could do that. I miss that feeling.”At one point, he even rewatched the 2025 Finals, he said.
His focus remained on Game 4. The Pacers were leading 2-1, but the Thunder rallied from down double-digits in the second half as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 15 of his 35 points in the final 4:38 of the game.”Game 4 will forever live in my brain,” Haliburton said. “You win that game, the whole series changes.”The thought sat with him as he watched his team go through its worst season in franchise history, realiz
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