Tyrese Haliburton missed five games with a strained hamstring, an injury that can be tricky to return from. He pushed to be back against Portland last Friday because he wanted to play with newly acquired Pascal Siakam. Except Haliburton didn’t look like himself in that game, then sat out two nights later because he aggravated that same hamstring.
Now he will miss the next three games at least, starting with Tuesday night against Denver, the Pacers announced.
Tyrese Haliburton (left hamstring strain injury management) will miss the next three games, per Coach Carlisle. He will be re-evaluated on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/Q9tDh3GTyW
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) January 23, 2024
The short-term concern is the All-Star Game, where Haliburton is on pace to be a starter for the East. That is three weeks away. Hopefully, his hamstring will be healthy by then, and he can stand in the spotlight he has earned.
Haliburton has 41 million bigger concerns — that’s how much money he stands to lose if he doesn’t play in 65 games this season and meet the league’s new requirement to make an All-NBA team.
Haliburton signed a max contract extension last summer — five years, $205.9 million — but that number can go up by $41 million if he makes an All-NBA team. If that voting were today, he would. However, after the next three games off he will have missed 12 games this season — miss 18 and he misses out on the extra money. If this hamstring strain takes longer to heal than expected, and/or he has some other minor injury this season that keeps him out a few games, he will not make the threshold.
The Pacers have other concerns, having dropped two straight games and, at 24-19, they have slid to the No. 7 seed and the play-in in the East. This team is not the same without Haliburton’s playmaking and they need him back.
