The Athletic caused a stir when it released the results of a player poll last month. As part of the poll, Indiana Pacers star guard Tyrese Haliburton was voted the league’s most overrated player by his peers, even though the voting sample wasn’t huge (with Haliburton garnering a league-high 13 votes in the category out of 90 responses).
Through the individual and collective success that Haliburton has enjoyed in these playoffs, he has made the opinion that he’s the NBA’s most overrated player age poorly. The Pacers hold a 3-1 lead in their Eastern Conference Finals series against the New York Knicks, and Haliburton is averaging 19.4 points and 9.8 assists per game across 14 playoff contests.
ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith was asked why he thinks Haliburton was labeled the league’s most overrated player, and he said the size of the voting pool wasn’t the only reason why. Smith implied that there were personal reasons behind some of the voting from Haliburton’s peers.
“There were people — and this is not fair to Tyrese Haliburton,” Smith began. “I wanna preface my comments by saying it’s not fair to him. But you had people that didn’t like him, didn’t like his bravado, his swag, whatever. They thought it was a bit premature.
“And they did not like how his father annoyed people, which is what led to his father ultimately having that encounter with Giannis [Antetokounmpo] that got him banned from about eight games. These are facts…but he didn’t deserve that.”
Haliburton’s dad got into a heated confrontation with the Milwaukee Bucks big man when his son’s Pacers beat the Bucks in Game 5 of their first-round series and eliminated them from the 2025 NBA Playoffs. Antetokounmpo alleges that Haliburton’s father approached him waving a towel and swearing at him, leading to the exchange.
Granted, Haliburton’s dad did at least go on to apologize to Antetokounmpo and the Bucks organization on social media. Antetokounmpo has also said that he and Haliburton’s dad are “in a good place” now.
Haliburton can punch his ticket to the NBA Finals for the first time in his pro career with a victory over the Knicks in Thursday’s Game 5. The guard is no stranger to making deep playoff runs, however, as he also helped the Pacers to an Eastern Conference Finals appearance in the 2024 NBA Playoffs, even though they ended up getting swept by the Boston Celtics.
If the wheels don’t completely fall off for Haliburton and the Pacers and they win one more game in this best-of-seven series to reach the NBA Finals, they will take on the Oklahoma City Thunder with a championship at stake.
The Pacers would have their hands full against the Thunder, as OKC finished the 2024-25 regular season with the NBA’s best record and also made quick work of the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals, winning the series in five games.
