Tyrese Haliburton Admits He Keeps ‘Bookmarks’ of What People Predict About Pacers

Bleacher Report's final win-loss predictions have the Indiana Pacers going 46-36 this season. Indiana finished 19-63 last season, 14th in the Eastern Conference, while Tyrese Haliburton recovered from a torn right Achilles tendon.

The individual rankings have followed Haliburton back. He made ESPN's list of the top 20 players in the NBA after missing all of last season. Bleacher Report ranked him the 17th-best shooter in the NBA entering the season, and he was named the second-best creator in the league in another preseason list.

Pascal Siakam came in 27th on Bleacher Report's ranking of the league's best players after averaging 24.0 points in 62 games last season.

Haliburton reads the preseason predictions and projections across the league.

"I think you have to, right?" Haliburton said. "You want to see what people are talking about. Before I was an NBA player, I was just a basketball fan like everybody else. So I still follow a lot of writers, a lot of NBA Twitter, all those things. It's fun to see."

"I got a lot of the bookmarks," Haliburton continued. "I got a lot to keep in my head. But to be fair, the NBA is really hard to predict, and especially now with all the parity in our league. So I try to be fair as much as I can. But of course, I keep it all in my head, and I like to see where people have us, good and bad. And nothing I think can live up to the expectations that I have for this group. So looking forward to it."

Indiana went 47-35 in 2023-24, Haliburton's second full season with the team, and reached the Eastern Conference finals before the Boston Celtics swept it. The next year, the Pacers started 10-15 and still finished 50-32.

That team eliminated Milwaukee, Cleveland, and New York in the East playoffs. It took Oklahoma City to Game 7 of the Finals and came within one win of the franchise's first NBA championship. Haliburton was hurt in the first quarter of that game.

Maturing and staying together over the years is what Haliburton credits for how this group approaches each day.

"It's funny, like looking back on it," Haliburton explained. "The year we went to the conference finals, going into the year after that, the story was that we're not the hunter anymore, we're the hunted, and then we went to the Finals. So it's like people know who we are. We have a clear identity as a group, and me as an individual, us as a group, and I think that people know what to expect when we come in their building, and so teams are prepared that way."

"They know we're a good team, so I think we'll be prepared," Haliburton continued. "And I think just approaching it a day at a time, like, as far as expectations and how people view me or this group, [I don't] really get too caught up in that. I know who I am. I'm very confident in my own skin. So I think it will be an exciting year for us."

Haliburton has made two All-Star teams and earned All-NBA Third Team honors in 2024 and 2025. In 2024-25, he averaged 18.6 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 9.2 assists.

For his career, he has averaged 17.5 points and 8.8 assists in the regular season and 17.9 points and 8.4 assists in the playoffs. He signed a five-year max extension with Indiana in July 2023.

Most of the group around him is back. Indiana's projected starting lineup has Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Siakam, and Ivica Zubac, who arrived from the LA Clippers in a Feb. 5 trade.

Haliburton's core is the same group it has been, with the same coaching staff for a long time now.

"The expectations outside of this building have never been bigger than they are in the building," Haliburton said. "So there's no real worries. Us as a group of guys and as a team know what our goals are, and that's to win a championship. It's been that way for the last few years. So that doesn't change."

"But we got to get back to building championship habits and just taking it a day at a time," Haliburton added. "It's a long season, so can't get too high, can't get too low. You just got to take a day at a time, and we're really excited."

The East field Indiana is chasing includes the defending champion New York Knicks, a Detroit Pistons team that won 60 games last season, and a Cleveland Cavaliers team that won 52. LeBron James now plays for the Philadelphia 76ers, who visit Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Oct. 28.

The season opens Wednesday in New Orleans against the Pelicans, with an 8 p.m. ET tip. Indiana has 11 nationally televised games on its 2026-27 schedule.