Tyrese Haliburton NBA Highlights: Iowa State Point Guard Dominates

Tyrese Halliburton is currently taking the NBA by storm

He's leading the league in assists, running the league's best offense, and quickly becoming a bona fide superstar at the young age of 23

So how is it that this scrawny zero-star recruit became one of the NBA's fastest rising stars

Today in this video, we tell the story of the NBA's next great and potentially generational point guard, Tyrese Halliburton

Heralding from a smaller town in the Midwest with a population of 66,000 people, Tyrese didn't receive a Power 5 scholarship offer until the summer before his senior year

And although he had a huge love for basketball at a very young age, playing in the NBA never seemed to be something that was that tangible

But it was his dream and he never stopped believing. As he got to high school, he was starting to receive small offers from mid-major schools

And at 16, he had decided he was going to go to Northern Iowa, a mid-major college in the Missouri Valley Conference

He wanted to conquer this thing called greatness as a young kid

Tyrese was never one to play on big AAU teams. He'd just play on his local team with his buddies

And so because of this, he never really received a lot of national interest

According to ESPN, he was a three-star recruit. But according to Tyrese's own words on Paul George's podcast

I was no star. I was supposed to redshirt. Then I end up starting game two, and the next thing I know

middle of the game, they're like, it's a three-star point guard. I'm like, three

What are y'all talking about? I don't have no stars. ESPN had my name spelled wrong for the first two weeks of the season

His final AAU tournament in his senior year, he played against Team Rio

who had a couple of highly recruited five-star players. Ball his life was there to catch footage of those guys

and every major college in the country was also there. I wasn't able to find who won the game, but according to Tyrese

he went absolutely off and instantly Nebraska offered him a scholarship Michigan wanted to come

visit and Iowa State came to the table with an offer as well the buzz certainly picked up and

he committed to Iowa State rather quickly once enrolled in his freshman season in Ames Iowa he

knew immediately his goal was to fight to get to the NBA similarly to George's Niang and Monte

Morris a couple years before him he knew it would take him all four years of college to have that

And in his freshman season, he was expected to redshirt, but ended up starting in his second game

And from there on out, averaging 6.8 points per game, 3.6 assists and 3.4 rebounds

This was a good Iowa state team that had the likes of Taylin Horton Tucker on it as well Even though his stats weren all that impressive NBA scouts saw something in Tyrese that season and he was invited to play at the Under World Cup for Team USA According to Tyrese this was huge for him

He played alongside Cade Cunningham, Jalen Green, Scotty Barnes, Jalen Suggs, Evan Mobley

and to directly quote Tyrese, this gave him the confidence that, if these guys are NBA players, so am I

In his sophomore season at Iowa State, he became the guy, averaging 15.2 points per game

6.5 assists and 5.9 rebounds. And at this point, he was soaring up the draft charts

expecting to be an NBA lottery pick and even potentially go as high as in the top five

Unfortunately for Tyrese, he would fracture his wrist, blocking a shot in transition

late in his sophomore season, which would hold him out for the rest of the year. And then COVID-19

happened and the whole world shut down, including the NBA season, meaning it would be a long nine

months between Tyrese's last game he played and NBA draft night. The 2020 NBA draft was held

on November 19th, 2020. At number one overall, the Timberwolves would select Anthony Edwards

After an interesting choice at number two with the Warriors selecting James Wiseman

the Charlotte Hornets would take Lamella Ball at three. And here's where the rest of the draft

would get super interesting. Was this former zero-star recruit really about to get drafted in the top five

of the 2020 NBA draft? At number four, the Bulls took Patrick Williams

And then at five, the Cavaliers went with Isaac Okoro. At number six, the Hawks took Anyeka Okonwu

And then at seven, the Pistons, Killian Hayes. At eight, the Knicks, Obi Toppin, and so on

all the way down to the number 12 pick in the draft where the Kings finally selected Tyrese Halliburton with their pick

It was a slide that confused a lot of people and had people wondering if maybe general managers were just overthinking Tyrese Halliburton

Landing in Sacramento meant that Halliburton would have a lot of work ahead of him

The Kings were not the Kings of last season at this time. They hadn't been to a playoff game in 14 or 15 years

And even though Tyrese's first season was a solid one where he ended up on the All-NBA

Rookie First team, averaging 13 points and 5.3 assists, the Kings would miss the playoffs

and go 31-41. Going into Tyrese's second season in the NBA, everyone was salivating over the Kings front

court of De'Aaron Fox and Tyrese Halliburton. Imaginations ran wild in Kings fans' heads that this duo was going to be the ones to finally break the streak

But on February 8, 2021, the Kings were 20-36, and the NBA trade deadline was two days away

In shocking fashion Kings general manager Monty McClare would trade away his rising 21 star alongside veteran three shooter Buddy Heald and Tristan Thompson to the Indiana Pacers for

DeMontis Sabonis, Jeremy Lamb, Justin Holliday, and a 2027 second round pick

Woj said it best. The league is stunned at this trade. If they knew they could have traded for Tyrese Halliburton, they would have been knocking

at the door. Everyone thought he was untouchable. And so did Tyrese

he found out he was going to be traded about 30 minutes before the Kings GM called him and said

the deal is done. This trade really rocked Tyrese to his core stating, I really, really, really was

all in on Sacramento. And I wasn't shy about it. I would tell people straight up, I want to be the

next C-Web for this city. That was my whole mindset. I wanted to become one of those players

who got drafted somewhere and built a legacy on and off the court. I wanted to become someone that

people of Sacramento knew was in their corner. At the end of the day, the Kings believed internally

that Fox and Halliburton were never going to be maximized working together

And so instead they decided to trade Halliburton for a fringe all-star big man

in Sabonis that they thought would be a better fit for their future. As shocking as this trade was at the time

we can't fully knock the Kings too much for it because we're sitting here in 2023

and the Kings just finished as the third seed in the Western Conference last year

breaking the longest playoff drought in NBA history of 16 years. But even so, it's still shocking to see a second year ascending superstar get traded like that

It doesn't happen in the NBA very often at all. But if there was any silver lining in all of this

it was that the Indiana Pacers were now Tyrese Halliburton's team. Indiana went and got him

This was their guy. This Midwest kid was back in the Midwest, and it was now his time to shine and have the opportunity to bring the Indiana Pacers back to its Reggie Miller days

There is one thing Tyrese said after this trade about Indiana that I thought was super powerful

You know, I love being there and I love the people, but, you know, coming here, I'm going to do the same thing

You know what I'm saying? They've showed me none but love since I've gotten here. And they're another organization taking a chance on me when they have no reason to

So I'm going to put everything I got into this. In Tyrese's third season, it was his first full one with the Indiana Pacers

he would average 20.7 points per game on 10.4 assists, become an all-star, and increase his

shooting volume while his field goal percentages stayed roughly the same. As exciting as it was to

see Tyrese make that leap from his sophomore season into becoming the guy and doing it well

in his third year, the Pacers still missed the playoffs, going 35-47 and finishing 11th in the

In the 2023 NBA offseason Tyrese would sign a max extension of five years million And with that extension the Pacers front office put their money where their mouth was stating that this is our guy

and he is going to lead this team for the next decade which leads us to the beginning of this

NBA season where quite frankly Tyrese Halliburton is making the superstar leap before our very eyes

He's currently leading the NBA in assists with 12.3 per game. He's averaging 25 points per game, which is a five-point jump from last season

all the while shooting 52% from the field and 46% from three on over eight attempts per game

But the most impressive thing to me is the Pacers are eight and six, and they currently have the best offensive rating in the NBA, and it's not particularly close

Sitting atop at a 122.7 offensive rating with the Hawks in second at 119.5

They're also scoring a league-best 128 points per game. And I know we're only 14 games into the season

but the league record for points per game is held by the 1982 Nuggets with 126.5

And speaking of the Atlanta Hawks, the Pacers just played them a couple days ago and beat them 157 to 152

Tyrese had 37 points and 16 assists, all the while locking the Pacers into a spot in the quarterfinals

of the NBA in-season tournament in Las Vegas. I'm recording this video on Thanksgiving, and just last night, the Pacers played the Raptors

and Tyrese again had 30-plus points and 16-plus assists, making him the second player ever to do

so, and the first since Tiny Archibald did in 1972. He truly is one of the most fun players

to watch in this league. His sheer playmaking and ability to create shots, create space

and get his teammates the ball when and where they need it is an extremely rare trait to have

in today's NBA. Currently right now, he's number four on the basketball reference MVP tracker

Like I said earlier, he's currently averaging 25.3 points per game and 12.3 assists

It's early, but if he keeps this up, he would be the first player in NBA history to do so

with the next closest being Magic Johnson scoring 23.9 points per game and 12.2 assists in 1987

So I guess you can say I am all aboard the Tyrese Halliburton train

I spent a lot of research doing this video and listening to him in podcast interviews

He's just such a likable guy and such a down-to-earth person. It couldn't have happened to a better human being

and I'm so excited to see him absolutely ball out for the Indiana Pacers for years to come

If you enjoyed this video, check out the video I just did on what the NBA looked like 12 years ago

Thanks for watching, and as always, we'll see you on the hardwood