Tyrese Haliburton’s “mission” is to use the Indiana Pacers’ success in the In-Season Tournament and the regular season to recruit star players to the team, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
“This is a team with salary cap space and draft picks. And [Haliburton] knows that his team president Kevin Pritchard has been really aggressive in the last year trying to chase players like Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby in Toronto, offering big trade packages for players who could become free agents in the near future.
“And what changes the equation for the Pacers now is that they know they have a Pied Piper in Tyrese Haliburton that guys are going to want to play with. And as Haliburton said to me, ‘I’m going to get you shots, I’m going to make life easy for you, and we are going to win.’
“And that is really Haliburton’s mission right now, to use this tournament, to use this season to start making the case to star players around the league, ‘Come play with me in Indiana,'” said Wojnarowski.
Haliburton had 27 points and 15 assists in leading the Pacers to the final of the In-Season Tournament against the Lakers.