Why it was important for Tyrese Haliburton to be around the Pacers team this season

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — While Pacers star guard Tyrese Haliburton was out for the entire season, he was still present, sitting on the bench at games, as well as attending practices and team meetings.

“I try to be around as much as possible,” Haliburton said. “I just love being around the game as much as I can, whether it’s practice, or the game, or team meetings, or whatever.”

But it wasn’t always something that Haliburton wanted to do. Head coach Rick Carlisle encouraged him to.

“I’m going to be honest here, a lot of it had to do with Rick (Carlisle),” Haliburton said. “I was like, ‘Man, these team meetings, do I have to be around? Can I just wait until you guys are in the gym for practice?’ And Rick was honestly on me a lot about being in meetings as much as I can, just my voice, being able to talk through things, so honestly having a veteran coach helped a lot, him saying that. And I didn’t really understand early in the year, honestly. I’m like, ‘I’m out for the year, why do I have to sit in a team meeting on certain things? We have film on a team we play in game two and game 80. Why do I have to sit in this?’ But I think Rick made a great point to me, ‘There’s always something you can learn.’ And using my voice the right way. There’s something I can say in film that a young guy might not know, so honestly it’s a big shoutout to Rick, and Jenny (Boucek), and LP (Lloyd Pierce), and all the co...