{"id":685562,"date":"2026-03-29T06:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T06:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/685562\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T06:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T06:30:20","slug":"tyrese-haliburton-reveals-who-hed-pick-for-sure-if-he-had-an-mvp-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/685562\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyrese Haliburton Reveals Who He\u2019d Pick \u2018For Sure\u2019 if He Had an MVP Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nine months ago, Tyrese Haliburton<\/a> was living every basketball player’s fantasy. The Indiana Pacers<\/a> guard had orchestrated the franchise’s first Finals appearance since 2000, making four clutch shots in the playoffs while leading the league’s most entertaining offense. The championship that eluded even Reggie Miller was within one game.<\/p>\n

Then Game 7 happened.<\/p>\n

Five minutes into the first quarter against the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> at Paycom Center, Haliburton’s already-strained right calf gave out. The Achilles tendon ruptured as he drove to the basket. He pounded the floor in frustration before teammates helped him off the court. Indiana lost 103-91.<\/p>\n

Now, as Haliburton rehabs through his injury and works as a contributor on NBA<\/a> on Prime, the Thunder look primed to run back their title. OKC sits atop the Western Conference, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> is chasing his second consecutive MVP award after breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s record for consecutive 20-point games at 127 earlier this month.<\/p>\n

With the race tightening in its final weeks, Haliburton made his choice clear during a recent Nightcap appearance.<\/p>\n

“If I had a vote, it for sure would go to SGA for back-to-back,” Haliburton said. “I think what Wemby is doing in San Antonio is amazing. I would vote for SGA. I see the campaign that’s going on for him and it’s with well reason, but I would definitely vote for SGA.”<\/p>\n

Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 31.4 points on 55.3% shooting this season. His streak of consecutive 20-point games now stands at 133, a mark no other active player has come within 90 games of reaching.<\/p>\n

Tyrese Haliburton Defends Victor Wembanyama’s MVP Campaign<\/p>\n

On the same broadcast, Haliburton praised Victor Wembanyama<\/a>‘s public push for the award while acknowledging his rival’s case.<\/p>\n

“He’s a rightful candidate. I’m not mad at him at all for that,” Haliburton said. “I think that’s where our league has been headed for a long time, where you see guys say ‘I want to be all- defense this year’ and magically he gets all-defense votes. That’s how our league has worked, I feel like, since I came in the league, so I’m not surprised by it.”<\/p>\n

Haliburton added that he probably would have done the same thing in Wembanyama’s position.<\/p>\n

The San Antonio Spurs<\/a> center has been scorching lately. Wembanyama is averaging 24.2 points, 11.3 rebounds and 3.1 blocks this season while anchoring the league’s third-ranked defense. San Antonio has won 18 of its last 20 games and holds the second-best record in the NBA at 56-18.<\/p>\n

NBA.com’s latest MVP ladder<\/a> placed Wembanyama at No. 1 for the first time, edging past Gilgeous-Alexander. The race figures to come down to the final week, with fewer than ten games remaining for each contender.<\/p>\n

Related: NBA Analysts Choose Victor Wembanyama Over Luka Doncic for Their Playoff Teams for 1 Reason<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Mar 29, 2026, where it first appeared in the NBA<\/a> section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nine months ago, Tyrese Haliburton was living every basketball player’s fantasy. The Indiana Pacers guard had orchestrated the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,126,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,1279,969,474,209,312,278,2474],"class_list":["post-685562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-basketball","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-oklahomacity","tag-oklahomacitythunder","tag-reggie-miller","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-thunder","tag-tyrese-haliburton","tag-wemby"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116311063177560111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}