Tyrese Haliburton, the NBA star that no one had in their plans: he perfected himself with a video game and now seeks to upset LeBron James

Tyrese Haliburton, the figure of the Indiana Pacers that this Saturday at 10:30 p.m. in Argentina they will play the final of the In-Season Tournament, He is the new star of the NBA and explains why Rick Carlisle, his current coach, was so desperate to take him in the 2020 Draft.

On that occasion, at the height of the pandemic that prevented players from being analyzed as would be done under normal circumstances, the name of this point guard who was 20 years old at the time did not attract the attention of (almost) anyone. After his time in college basketball at Iowa State, He was one of the bunch.

However, Carlisle, who managed the Dallas Mavericks, set his sights on him. “I’ve been a fan of your game for a long time.”, Told him. She regretted that the Sacramento Kings They “stole” it, keeping it with the twelfth pick in the Draft. He even nominated him for the award. Rookie of the Year of that 2020-21 season. I saw something in him.

While all eyes were on Lamelo Ball as the best of the rookies, he coach He insisted that this young man would give something to talk about. And he was not wrong. His numbers at the beginning of this campaign are at the level of those of Stephen Curry in 2014-15, when the Golden State star won his first MVP. The story of the boy who excites the Pacers.

Haliburton was born on February 29, 2000 in Oshkosh, state of Wisconsin, and grew up watching the videos that his father John showed him of Magic Johnson, five-time NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers. And this Saturday, precisely, he will seek to win his first trophy against another of the great stars of the Los Angeles franchise: LeBron James.

John Haliburton is a basketball coach and, when the new NBA star was still a child, he coached a high school girls’ team. They trained on one half of the field and little Tyrese played on the other half, who thus had his first contacts with the orange ball that would end up becoming his main work element.

He is happy to see his son succeeding at a high level and wears his shirt in every game, but he never put pressure on him. In fact, she also showed him the way to other sports and, as he told Fieldhouse Files, the newsletter about the Pacers, he “wanted me to be a football player.” Then he added: “Basketball was always his focus. He played football for fun, but he always focused on basketball.”

His first coach, since he was six years old at a summer camp at his school in Oshkosh, was Frank Schade. They did ball handling and shooting exercises, and then played games against older kids. It was the best time of the day for him. “I did that every summer of my life from the age of six until I was 16,” told on the podcast Knuckleheads. And today he continues to use his free time to perfect his game.

His next step was to the Cyclones of the Iowa State University (ISU), where he arrived as a complete unknown. He had a good level, but he did not stand out as a particular talent. Other players like Marial Shayok, Talen Horton-Tucker and Lindell Wigginton overshadowed him. His future was not so promising, but an injury to Wigginton himself opened a door that was no longer going to close.

After a first season with low averages in the NCAA (the American college basketball league), he held onto the starting job at Iowa and good performances led him to the United States Under-19 National Team. Over there He was world champion in Greece 2019, without standing out.

The following year, he finally managed to make the jump to the NBA, but the flashes at the 2020 Draft ceremony went the other way: Anthony Edwards, James Wiseman and Lamelo Ball were the first three picks; He was chosen in 12th place by the Sacramento Kings.

Today he is the name everyone is talking about, after leading the Indiana Pacers to eliminate Jason Tatum’s Boston Celtics from the In-Season Tournament in the quarterfinals and Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Milwaukee Bucks in the semis.

However, He didn’t have a smooth path. His story is one of effort and it continued that way even in the elite. After ups and downs in the Kings and a period of adaptation and finding his place in the NBA, only in 2023 did he reach what Rick Carlisle imagined of him. His current coach is one of the few who is not surprised by what is being seen today.

And he attributes his current high level, in part, to the influence of a video game. “Honestly, a lot of my basketball knowledge of how to play comes from NBA 2K. That camera angle of the game, being able to see everything in front of you, helps me a lot when I’m on the field.”he commented in an interview.

The Pacers, who They reached the NBA Finals in the 1999-00 season and four conference finals in the 1990s, They are excited by the hand of Haliburton, their new star, to recover those times in which the figure of Reggie Miller He took them high. This Saturday, the first step.