{"id":791171,"date":"2026-07-20T07:46:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T07:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/791171\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T07:46:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T07:46:51","slug":"indiana-pacers-extremely-optimistic-that-tyrese-haliburton-will-be-available-for-2026-27-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/791171\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana Pacers ‘extremely optimistic’ that Tyrese Haliburton will be available for 2026-27 season opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keaton Wagler<\/a> on comparison: “I would say Tyrese Haliburton. I just think based off of our size that we both have and how we have the ball in our hands and can make plays, and knowing when it’s our time to score the ball and when it’s our time to get others involved and make the right play. That’s a big thing for him is that he always makes the right play, and that’s something that I always do too, is look to make the right play and play the right way.”<\/a> \u2014 7\/1\/2026 YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n

“I look back at videos of me and I can see how swollen my face is,” Haliburton said. “I’m glad that’s beyond me and past me now. I feel great. My body feels great. I’m able to do everything.<\/a> I feel like I’m operating like I’m a healthy NBA player for the first time in a long time, which is exciting. The fact that I’m able to come here without having to answer questions from anybody in our organization about my health, that I’m just able to jump in and do some things with the kids, that means the world to me. It’s something I don’t take for granted after the last 12 months.” \u2014 6\/27\/2026 Indianapolis Star<\/a><\/p>\n

After an Achilles tendon tear in his right leg in the first quarter of Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals last June stole from Tyrese Haliburton a chance to give the Pacers their first NBA title and kept him out the entire following season, his shingles diagnosis in February knocked what to that point had been a steady recovery process off course. The illness — a product of the re-activation of the virus that causes chickenpox — attacked his face and his right eye in particular.<\/a> He suffered from nerve pain, lost the hair in his eyebrow and wore glasses just to keep himself from relentlessly scratching at it. \u2014 6\/27\/2026 Indianapolis Star<\/a><\/p>\n

Tyrese Haliburton can already sense that it helps him play through contact on both ends of the floor. “My body feels great,” Haliburton said. “I feel great moving. I feel great playing. My body just feels great in all honesty. I’ve never felt this strong.<\/a> I still gotta get in a little bit of shape but I feel great. It’s exciting and it’s only what, the end of June here. I still have three more months. I feel like I’m in good shape, NBA shape, but there’s a difference between NBA shape and Tyrese Haliburton shape. I’ll get there.” \u2014 6\/27\/2026 Indianapolis Star<\/a><\/p>\n

NBA Base: Tyrese Haliburton: “I never thought I’d be able to go to WrestleMania in my career because I’d always be in the playoffs, but happened to not be in the playoffs this year. So, good to go.”<\/a> \u2014 6\/26\/2026 x.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Law Murray: Keaton Wagler on who he watches: “I watch a lot of, you know, good NBA guards like Haliburton and SGA and a couple others. So I try to just steal little things out of, you know, each of those players, but I think the closest person is probably Haliburton, just off of size and the way we play, being able to have a really good feel for the game and use wall screens to create advantages.”<\/a> \u2014 6\/24\/2026 x.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Tragedy struck a bachelorette party hosted by Tyrese Haliburton’s fianc\u00e9e, Jade Jones, in St. Barts earlier this month when one of her friends died<\/a>… TMZ Sports has learned. Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ Sports … 26 year old Makenzi Kern passed away unexpectedly from health complications … and the family does not suspect that foul play, drugs, or alcohol contributed to her death. \u2014 6\/16\/2026 TMZ.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes when older guys are talking about the sport, sometimes it can sound a little, \u2018Back in my day,\u2019 whereas I think getting my perspective on things, as a guy who is having success currently, is just a little different,\u201d Haliburton said.<\/a> \u201cI think it\u2019s interesting to hear their perspective on things and have rebuttals and conversations which I\u2019m appreciative of, because obviously Steve (Nash) and Dirk (Nowitzki<\/a>) played in a different game versus myself. So I\u2019m very appreciative of those different perspectives. I think that\u2019s what makes our game beautiful.\u201d \u2014 6\/2\/2026 USA Today Sports<\/a><\/p>\n

While athletes in tennis and even the NFL have double dipped in broadcasting and playing, the trend of active player contributors continues to gain steam in professional basketball. NBA players Kyle Lowry and Tyrese Haliburton joined Prime Video as athlete contributors.<\/a> On the WNBA side, Kelsey Plum signed on as a player contributor for Prime, Sophie Cunningham is working as a studio analyst for USA Network and Caitlin Clark made multiple appearances on NBC\u2019s studio show for NBA games. \u2014 6\/2\/2026 USA Today Sports<\/a><\/p>\n

It is far too early in the recovery process to predict when Donte DiVincenzo will return to action. Tearing an Achilles tendon is among the most serious injuries in the game, often keeping players out for a year or more.<\/a> Boston<\/a>\u2019s Jayson Tatum<\/a> returned in less than 10 months, but that is considered an outlier. Still, DiVincenzo is trying to follow Tatum\u2019s lead. He flew to New York for surgery less than 24 hours after suffering the injury, following a similar timeline that Tatum went through. DiVincenzo has spoken to Tatum, Tyrese Haliburton and Damian Lillard<\/a>, all of whom have recently suffered the same injury, about their recoveries. \u201cI just asked a million questions, and they\u2019ve all helped me in different ways,\u201d DiVincenzo said. \u201cBut all their journeys are different.\u201d \u2014 5\/27\/2026 New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keaton Wagler on comparison: “I would say Tyrese Haliburton. I just think based off of our size that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":791172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,45,125,372,113,126,3866,65725,77,42824,10094,3844,6,1220,10728,114,278],"class_list":["post-791171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indiana-pacers","tag-basketball","tag-boston","tag-damian-lillard","tag-donte-divincenzo","tag-indiana","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-indianapacers","tag-indianapolis-star","tag-jayson-tatum","tag-keaton-wagler","tag-kelsey-plum","tag-kyle-lowry","tag-nba","tag-nba-finals","tag-nowitzki","tag-pacers","tag-tyrese-haliburton"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116951203387787544","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791171","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=791171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}