{"id":85319,"date":"2024-07-09T18:18:03","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T22:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=85319"},"modified":"2024-07-09T18:18:03","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T22:18:03","slug":"pacers-tyrese-haliburton-shuts-down-suns-draft-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/07\/09\/pacers-tyrese-haliburton-shuts-down-suns-draft-rumors\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacers\u2019 Franchise Star Shuts Down Suns, Draft Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Indiana Pacers star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/halibty01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyrese Haliburton<\/a> denies that he prevented the Phoenix Suns from drafting him, as former head coach Monty Williams suggested he did.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/arizonasports.com\/story\/3550290\/tyrese-haliburton-was-open-to-suns-drafting-him-had-zero-pre-draft-communication\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">No, that\u2019s incorrect<\/a>,\u201d Haliburton tells Kellan Olson of Arizona Sports. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely not the case. I was open to going anywhere that wasn\u2019t those two teams. And any team that didn\u2019t pick me, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Pacers\u2019 Tyrese Haliburton Shuts Down Suns, Draft Rumors<\/h2>\n<p>Olson notes that ESPN\u2019s Jonathan Givony reported that Haliburton\u2019s team was selective about sharing his medical information ahead of the 2020 NBA Draft, as he was rehabbing a broken wrist. It logically follows that the Suns could have been one such team, especially in light of Williams\u2019s comments. However, Haliburton has explicitly stated that he only told the Atlanta Hawks and Cleveland Cavaliers not to draft him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe truth is I told one or two teams not to draft me. It was Atlanta and it was Cleveland,\u201d Haliburton told now Los Angeles Lakers head coach J.J. Redick on <em>The Old Man and The Three<\/em>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Our guy Tyrese Haliburton on the commitment he had to Sac and what he learned from suddenly being traded. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/L9MUlmx6to\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/L9MUlmx6to<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 TheOldMan&amp;TheThree (@OldManAndThree) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OldManAndThree\/status\/1497240015146999818?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 25, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI told Atlanta don\u2019t pick me because they have this guard-heavy room,\u201d Haliburton reiterates, \u201cand I told Cleveland not to pick me. You just picked two back-to-back point guards\u2026 From there, it was open season for everybody and they didn\u2019t pick me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As Haliburton notes, both the Hawks and Cavs\u2019 had backcourt logjams that were ill-suited to optimize team chemistry. Adding Haliburton to that mixture could have been explosive. However, instead of a fireworks display, those franchises might have been home to Mount Vesuvius.<\/p>\n<p>The Suns\u2019 backcourt weren\u2019t an ideal environment for Haliburton\u2019s growth either though. True, they didn\u2019t have young guards battling it out for minutes like Atlanta and Cleveland. Nonetheless, he would\u2019ve been playing behind future Hall of Fame inductee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/paulch01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chris Paul<\/a> and franchise star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bookede01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Devin Booker<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The route to him starting could\u2019ve been as long as Aaron Rodgers\u2019s was when he was playing with the Green Bay Packers.<\/p>\n<h3>The Last Word On Tyrese Haliburton<\/h3>\n<p>Ultimately, all is well that ends well in Haliburton\u2019s case.<\/p>\n<p>Though the Sacramento Kings ended up trading up just a year and a half after drafting him, he\u2019s emerged as a top-tier point guard. One of the increasingly rare pass-first point guards, Haliburton may not have landed with the Suns, but he\u2019s still drawn comparisons to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nashst01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steve Nash<\/a>. The Wisconsin native is now a perennial All-Star. Indiana is a bonafide playoff contender.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, Phoenix might have been in a better position had they drafted Haliburton.<\/p>\n<p>The Suns ended up trading Paul for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bealbr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bradley Beal<\/a> last season, a move they may not have made if they had Haliburton waiting in the wings. They might have targeted a frontcourt player, leading to a more connected and thus formidable team. In fact, if they had Haliburton during their Paul-led playoff runs, they may have had enough talent to win a championship by now. Instead, the Suns drafted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/smithja04.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jalen Smith<\/a>, who\u2019s fighting <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/07\/01\/former-top-10-draft-pick-inks-deal-with-the-bulls-how-does-he-fit-in-chicago\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">just to be in a rotation.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton denies that he prevented the Phoenix Suns from drafting him, as former head coach Monty Williams suggested he did. \u201cNo, that\u2019s incorrect,\u201d Haliburton tells Kellan Olson of Arizona Sports. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely not the case. I was open to going anywhere that wasn\u2019t those two teams. And any team that didn\u2019t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":85354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1608,62,556,28,29],"tags":[98,2607],"class_list":["post-85319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pacers","category-basketball","category-nba","category-nba-draft","category-suns","category-kings","tag-nba-draft","tag-tyrese-haliburton"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}