Basketball <\/p>\n
Speaking on Monday to reporters, Pacers president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard<\/a> confirmed that star point guard Tyrese Haliburton<\/a>, who tore his right Achilles tendon during Game 7 of the NBA Finals last month, will miss the entire 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n “I have no doubt that he will be back better than ever,” Pritchard said<\/a>. “\u2026 He will not play next year though. He would not jeopardize that now. So don\u2019t get any hopes up that he will play.”<\/p>\n Pritchard\u2019s update doesn\u2019t come as a real surprise, given how late in the spring Haliburton\u2019s injury occurred. He suffered the Achilles tear on June 22 and underwent surgery<\/a> the following day.<\/p>\n It typically takes upward of a full calendar year for players to fully recover following Achilles surgery. By the time the NBA postseason tip-off next April, Haliburton will be fewer than 10 months into his recovery process. There\u2019s no guarantee Indiana will make a deep playoff run, or even make the playoffs at all, without him available in 2025-26.<\/p>\n Pritchard said Haliburton\u2019s absence will create “opportunities to grow” for some of Indiana\u2019s players. While Andrew Nembhard<\/a> and T.J. McConnell<\/a> are the top two candidates to take over point guard duties, it wouldn\u2019t be a surprise if Bennedict Mathurin<\/a> also assumes more of a ball-handling and play-making role as he enters the final year of his rookie scale contract.<\/p>\n As Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star relays<\/a>, Pritchard went on to joke that Haliburton will have to serve as his general manager until he\u2019s healthy and that he\u2019ll “probably be better than (actual GM) Chad (Buchanan).”<\/p>\n Haliburton has expressed no regrets about trying to play through a calf injury to win a championship, suggesting he\u2019d do it the same way over again if he could, even knowing he\u2019d suffer a far more significant injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pritchard doesn\u2019t share that sentiment, Dopirak notes,<\/a> even though the Pacers\u2019 top basketball executive believes the club would have won Game 7 if Haliburton didn\u2019t get hurt.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n