Pacers News: Expert Gets Real About Tyrese Haliburton's Return to Post-Achilles Superstardom

Will two-time All-NBA Indiana Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton ever recapture the magic he had before he tore his Achilles tendon during the first quarter of the seventh game of the 2025 NBA Finals?

After Indiana lost the 6-foot-5 pro, 25, the team's frenzied pace-and-space attack sputtered — especially down the home stretch of the contest. The eventual champion Oklahoma City Thunder looked tenuous and occasionally struggled to score, but the team eventually came into its own enough during the second half of Game 7 to pull away, claiming its first title since moving from Seattle.

Now, Haliburton has been ruled out for the duration of the forthcoming 2025-26 season as he recovers from the Achilles tear. And it's fair to wonder what he'll look like when we see him again.

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It's a legitimate concern, as Sean Highkin of The Rose Garden Report acknowledges.

Many players never quite regained their prior performance levels upon returning, HIghkin allows. Notably, 18-time All-Star Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard Kobe Bryant tore his own Achilles late into the 2012-13 regular season and limped into retirement by 2016.

Highkin allows that "there are far more examples of players that come back from a torn Achilles and aren't the same than there are players who are. Kevin Durant is an outlier in that regard."

Durant, a 15-time All-Star, essentially returned to his pre-injury reform after a year-and-a-half of rehab in 2019-20. Even now, the 37-year-old remains one of the league's most lethal scorers and shooters.

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"There are way more players, even great ones like John Wall, Klay Thompson and DeMarcus Cousins, who were pretty much finished as All-Star-level players after tearing their Achilles," Highkin writes. "Even looking at the other two superstars who will likely miss the entire upcoming season with Achilles injuries [beyond 35-year-old now-Portland Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard], Jayson Tatum is 27 and Tyrese Haliburton is 25."

Wall, Thompson and DeMarcus weren't just All-Stars, they were All-NBA-tier talents. While all of them had occasional good moments upon returning — especially Thompson on the champion 2021-22 Warriors — none of them could be counted on to serve as the best player on their teams ever again.

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