A Tearful Tyrese Haliburton Reminds Us Again How Moms Are The Real MVPs At His Max Contract Presser
This is just the type of wholesome content everyone can get behind. Tyrese Haliburton is one of the most criminally underrated players in all of the NBA. In part because he's on the Indiana Pacers, and got traded from Sacramento just before the Kings' improbable ascent last season.
Can't really say Haliburton is underrated anymore I suppose since he just signed a max contract to the tune of five years and at least $207 million (possibly up to $260 million). But yeah...my favorite moment of Kevin Durant's career by far was when he called his mom the real MVP during his MVP press conference as a member of the Thunder.
That's basically what Haliburton says here, praising his mom for sticking with him, and my favorite bit is how she didn't miss a single game of his until his freshman year at Iowa State. Plane problems prevented Haliburton's mom from getting to Lubbock, Texas, in time for her to watch her son and the Hawkeyes take on Texas Tech. Think we can cut her some slack!
I don't claim to know a ton about Haliburton's background, but you can see how he's encountered some form of adversity at every turn in his basketball career. He grew up in Wisconsin and was only a 3-star recruit coming out of high school. Iowa State is a respectable program but not even close to a blue blood like Duke, UNC, Kansas or Kentucky, etc. Once his scoring average jumped from 6.8 to 15.2 as a sophomore, Haliburton declared for the NBA Draft, where he fell further than expected to 12th overall.
The fact that Haliburton almost tumbled out of the lottery in 2020 is still wild to think about. Maybe the weirdness of COVID made evaluations trickier, not to mention his uber-unconventional shooting form. All told, the Kings cashed in on a hell of a trade by controversially shipping him away, while the Pacers got their new face of the franchise and one of the NBA's very best combo guards.
With the offseason additions of Bruce Brown, Obi Toppin and high draft pick Jarace Walker, Indiana has done a fine job building out the rotation around Haliburton. Now that the 23-year-old stud is locked up for the foreseeable future, the Pacers have a major selling point for players to join their smaller-market operation.
While I think Indy can seriously threaten for a top-eight seed this coming season, it's probably another year away before they really make noise in the East. Haliburton's press conference just reinforces that the Pacers have bet on the right guy to carry them into contention.
Some interesting bonus tidbits on Haliburton's mega contract if ye be interested:
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