Melissa Rohlin
FOX Sports NBA Writer
We’re witnessing something unprecedented: The coronation of a superstar in hyperspeed.
Usually the rise is gradual. We see it coming. The tide rises slowly, like the ebb and flow of waves, before the tsunami hits.
But Tyrese Haliburton’s ascension has been different.
He’s a spark that turned into a raging inferno in record-setting time, catching everyone by surprise. The NBA has never seen anything like it.
Just last summer, Haliburton used self-deprecating humor to cope with the disappointment — and embarrassment — of hardly getting any playing time for Team USA during the Olympic Games. He posted a photo of himself on Instagram wearing the gold medal and wrote, “When you ain’t do nun on the group project and still get an A.”
In February, he didn’t make the All-Star team after a lingering hamstring injury prevented him from training much over the summer.
And heading into the postseason, he was voted by his own peers as the most overrated player in the league in a poll by The Athletic.
Haliburton wasn’t even on the radar for becoming the league’s next superstar, with names like Victor Wembanyama, Anthony Edwards, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic towering over him.
But in a whiplash-inducing span of just under two months, Haliburton has completely rewritten the narrative.
Said LeBron James: “Players will run through a wall for certain guys, and they will do that for Hali.” Added Dwyane Wade: “Haliburton is a f—king superstar.”
(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
The thing is, Haliburton’s greatness is impossible to ignore. It’s flashy and gaudy and has come in the form of four buzzer-beaters or go-ahead shots in the final five seconds of the fourth quarter or in overtime this postseason. (He has five in his career.)
Only one player has made more clutch shots than him, James, who has had eight such shots over his 22-season career.
Making four of those shots in a 47-day span is stunning. To do it during the playoffs? That’s something else altogether.
They instantly went viral on the internet. They were replayed on every sports show. They were visceral. They were digestible, leaving even people who don’t care about sports with their mouths ajar.
Haliubrton has slapped us all across the face with his superstardom. It’s different from any other player’s.
Take Nikola Jokić, for example. You can watch him dominate for two hours and still be surprised that he had 20-plus points, 20-plus rebounds and 20-plus assists. His dominance is subtle, artful, easily overlooked.
Perhaps the excitement of Haliburton’s run this postseason can most easily be compared to the awe that Stephen Curry inspires when he has his famous shooting explosions. But we saw Curry’s rise. When he led Golden State to their first championship in 40 years in 2015, the Warriors had the best record in the league that season. We watched him for seven months before he crowned himself as a superstar in the playoffs.
Really, with everyone else who has become a superstar in the NBA, we have had our finger on their pulse. We saw the pressure they faced, we watched them overcome obstacles, we cheered (or heckled) them as they crossed the finish line.
Kobe Bryant’s went from air-balling the ball four times in a playoff game his rookie year to turning himself into the Black Mamba. James went from being a 16-year-old who was labeled “The Chosen One” into a 40-year-old who was top-five in MVP votes this year. Michael Jordan went from being the Detroit Pistons’ punching bag to becoming a six-time champion.
Haliburton is obviously nowhere near their level. But we’ve had our eyes fixed on the young players in the league, waiting to see who was going to become the next face of the league. If Edwards was having this type of performance in the postseason, no one would’ve batted an eye. If Doncic had led the Lakers three wins shy of a championship, as Halibuton has with the Pacers, we would’ve understood how that happened.
But Haliburton? The Pacers weren’t even necessarily expected to get past the first round of the playoffs.
He seemingly came out of nowhere. And he has done it in the most dramatic of fashions, helping the Pacers cheat death four times this postseason. In each of those games, he made either a buzzer-beater or the go-ahead bucket.
- In Game 5 of the first round of the playoffs, the Pacers won after trailing the Milwaukee Bucks by seven points in the final 35 seconds, The dagger: Haliubrton made a layup with 1.3 seconds left to force overtime.
- In Game 2 of the second round of the playoffs, the Pacers won after trailing the Cleveland Cavaliers by seven points in the final minute. The dagger: Haliburton made a 3-pointer with 1.1 seconds left.
- In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pacers won after trailing the New York Knicks by 14 points in the final 3 minutes, The dagger: Haliubrton made a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime.
- In Game 1 of the Finals, the Pacers won after trailing the Oklahoma City Thunder by nine points in the final 3 minutes, The dagger: Haliubrton made a 21-footer with 0.3 seconds left.
Haliburton’s rise has quite simply been incomparable.
To go from being considered the most overrated player in the league to the face of the postseason in fewer than two months?
We’ve never seen anything like it.
It’s hard to define a superstar. Does a player need to win an MVP to deserve that classification? A championship? Do fans determine who gets that label? Do former superstars crown the next generation?
This much is for sure: Haliburton has taken the basketball world by storm.
We didn’t even know to be watching for him.
Now, we simply can’t take our eyes off him.
Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.
Tyrese Haliburton
Indiana Pacers
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