The Pacers Went 19-63 Without Him. Tyrese Haliburton Says There Are No Restrictions Now.

The last time Tyrese Haliburton played a competitive basketball game, he was on the floor in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals with a torn right Achilles. Everything that followed — a full season on the sideline, a 19-63 record, a 26th-place net rating — was the price of that moment.

On September 28, at Indiana Pacers Media Day, Haliburton closed that chapter himself. "I am healthy," he told reporters. "There will be no restrictions." He also made clear he'd been tracking the doubters, and that he'd had to "turn this s*** off" when the rival New York Knicks won the 2025-26 title.

That's the single most consequential development of the Pacers' week, and it's not close. Indiana's entire 2026-27 outlook is a bet on one man's Achilles.

What the gap year actually looked like

The numbers from Haliburton's absence are brutal. Indiana averaged 112.4 points per game last season while allowing 120.4 — a minus-8.0 point differential across 82 games. For context, the 2024-25 team that reached the Finals went 50-32 with a plus-2.2 differential. That's a ten-point swing in efficiency, and it happened without the offense's engine.

Haliburton's last full season (2024-25) produced 18.6 points and 9.2 assists per game on 47.3% shooting and 38.8% from three across 73 games. He isn't just Indiana's best player; he's the reason the Pacers' pace-and-space identity exists at all.

The Zubac wrinkle changes the formula

Here's what makes this return more interesting than a simple "star comes back" story: the roster around him is different.

Indiana acquired center Ivica Zubac from the Clippers in February 2026. In 48 games last season, Zubac averaged 14.1 points and 10.6 rebounds on 59.8% shooting — a legitimate interior presence, but not a fast-break center. Local analysis has framed the season's defining question plainly: the Pacers' pick-and-roll volume will decide their new identity, and Zubac and the Pacers will need to find a middle ground on pace.

That's the real tension. Indiana's old identity was sprinting. Zubac's strengths live in the half court. If Rick Carlisle can marry Haliburton's playmaking to a functional pick-and-roll game, the offense could be more potent than the version that made the Finals — not just a return to it.

Why the market is still skeptical

The betting markets are treating Indiana as a fringe contender, not a favorite. Championship odds sit around +4000, and the posted win total is 43.5 — a line that implies a playoff team, but not a top seed. That's the market saying prove it: prove the Achilles holds up, prove Zubac fits, prove last season was a gap year and not a cliff.

The supporting cast has question marks too. Haliburton's extension eligibility is the front office's hardest unresolved storyline, and the team has been stockpiling veteran camp bodies like James Johnson for leadership rather than on-court value.

The first real data point

Indiana opens its preseason at home against the Minnesota Timberwolves on October 7 — the first live look at Haliburton in a Pacers uniform since June 2025. It won't decide anything, but it ends the speculation phase.

If Haliburton is genuinely unrestricted, the East suddenly has a problem. The Knicks are the defending champions. The Pacers, health permitting, are the team with the longest memory and the most to prove against them.

If he's not, Indiana is one injury away from a second straight lost season — a scenario the fanbase has already called unstomachable.