OK fine, the Tyrese Haliburton trade wasn't *exactly* a win-win

Good morning. As the Indiana Pacers move closer to the NBA Finals, we revisit the moves that got them there. Let's basketball.

Game 4 of Knicks-Pacers was very good and very entertaining. There were a ton of free throws, sure, but New York kept it reasonably close and was within two possessions late, only for Indiana to close it out 130-121.

Tyrese Haliburton had 32 points on 59% eFG plus 12 rebounds, 15 assists, 4 steals and zero turnovers, the first 30-10-15 triple-double without a turnover in playoff history. (There have only been two regular season games like that ever, one by Nikola Jokic and one by Nets-era James Harden.)

The Pacers are now one win from the NBA Finals. And I think, my friends, it's time to acknowledge that the Tyrese Haliburton-Domantas Sabonis trade was not, in fact, a win-win.

Yes, the Kings got much, much better upon flipping Haliburton and Buddy Hield to Indiana for Sabonis in 2022. Sacramento, powered by Sabonis, De'Aaron Fox and Malik Monk, were legitimately good for two years. Even if you discount the No. 3 seed finish in 2023 on account of the West having a down year, the team still won 48 games, and followed it with 46 in 2024. Sabonis made the third team All-NBA in both seasons, and Fox had his best two seasons as a King in those years. These triumphs magnified by the deep failure the franchise had experienced over nearly two decades leading up to the trade. Simply being competitive was new and exciting, and Sabonis was the team's best player. It all felt worth it, even as Haliburton became an All-Star and joined Sabonis on third team All-NBA in 2024. (Haliburton earned the same honor this season.)

But at no point were the Kings even remotely considered a threat to have a deep playoff run. The Kings won just 40 games, were eliminated in the play-in for the second straight year, traded Fox for a package led by Zach LaVine, don't have a point guard and might be soon trading Sabonis at the point of a bayonet (also known as free agency).

Meanwhile, the Pacers have made back-to-back conference finals, are highly likely to make the NBA Finals and Haliburton is quite possibly a top-10 player in the NBA at a crucial position. The Pacers embody his style, and despite the notions of a few hateratin' NBA players in The Athletic's now-infamous poll, Haliburton is somehow underrated.

The fact that the Haliburton-Sabonis trade is looking more lopsided in favor of the Pacers every week isn't about Sabonis, who has been better than advertised with the Kings. It's about Haliburton. It's about the Kings, desperate for a likeable star you could build around for-literally-ever, trading a 21-year-old sweet-shooting low-mistake tall point guard because Luke freaking Walton couldn't figure out how to make it work perfect sharing the court with Fox and a very underwhelming supporting cast.

Sabonis ended up being a likeable star. Fans really do love him. And you could sort-of build around him! But he's older, controls far less of the game, plays a far less important position, isn't nearly as exciting and – crucially – isn't as impactful as Haliburton.

Yes, the Kings won as a result of the Sabonis trade: they had their two best seasons in decades immediately after the deal. (Technically, the 40-42 season they just finished was their third best season since 2006. That's how bad things were for so long.) But the cost was giving up early on a player who has turned into the second coming of Steve Nash. Had Sacramento been thoroughly convinced that Haliburton and Fox couldn't co-exist – it's easy to forget that it looked pretty bad by the end, though coaching and supporting cast were key ingredients in that – the Kings really should have traded De'Aaron. The issue is that trading Fox wouldn't net you a player the caliber of Sabonis. For his part, Monte McNair was unsentimental in those trade talks: he had drafted Haliburton and inherited Fox, but traded the latter to build around the former. That was the wrong move. The trade appeared to crush Haliburton, who had embraced being the personable young star Sacramento had thirsted for. It looks like he got over it, though. Sacramento has not.

(The irony that the Kings passed on Luka Doncic in 2018 in part because Vlade Divac didn't think he could thrive alongside Fox and then McNair traded Haliburton because there was evidence he couldn't play next to Fox and then the franchise alienated Fox by firing the head coach and appearing to try to pin it on him in the media, resulting in a forced and low-leverage trade that netted Zach LaVine, a player Divac signed to a huge offer sheet in 2018 to pair with Fox ... wait, is this irony? Or just a mood spiral?)

The Haliburton deal is the keystone trade that got the Pacers here, though we shouldn't sneeze on the bold move to land Pascal Siakam at the deadline last season, especially since Siakam appeared to be available to every team with assets. (In the alternate universe where they didn't trade Haliburton for Sabonis in 2022, you wonder if the Kings could have centered a Siakam trade on Fox in 2024.) The Pacers sent three firsts to Toronto for Spicy P, who might actually win Eastern Conference Finals MVP over Haliburton if the Pacers close this out. Siakam has been incredible in this series and for the Pacers broadly. I think he's clearly a top-20 player in the league, and a player like that who fits well positionally with the incumbent core is well-worth the picks.

Leveraging the trade market is a huge part of Indiana's story, and unfortunately it's also part of the story for the teams mired in mediocrity. There can be mutually beneficial deals in the NBA. For a time, the Sabonis-Haliburton looked like it could one of those deals. Haliburton's incredible growth as a player and Indiana's refinement around him, however, have made it clear that the Kings once again screwed up. So it goes.

The Knicks!

This is a really good team and they should run it back until they can't anymore. Indiana is attacking the hell out of line-ups featuring both Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson, so Tom Thibodeau did as much staggering minutes as he could with two players who should be at 40 minutes barring foul trouble or injury in a crucial playoff game. There are moments when it's clear that the key players are still learning how to play with each other. That Siakam and Haliburton made the East finals last season after just a few months together, and that the Celtics won the title in their first season with Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, and that the Wolves have made a deep run in Year 1 with Julius Randle as the No. 2 star – all that belies the fact that it takes time to learn how to play with other stars. The 2008 Finals provide my favorite example of this: those new-fangled Celtics had a whole season together to get the defense tight and learn each other's tendencies, while Kobe Bryant didn't get Pau Gasol until the second half of the season. It showed a bit in the Finals – the Lakers were still figuring it out, and did figure it out to the tune of the next two championships.

The Knicks have had a whole year, but there's still some marinating to do. And a bench to reinforce. Tom Thibodeau is searching. This series isn't over – wouldn't 3-1 be a truly fitting comeback for these Knicks? – but New York shouldn't lose hope for the near future once it is.

Welcome, Ghosts

The Oklahoma City Thunder have an opportunity at home to clinch a spot in the NBA Finals for the first time since May 28, 2016, exactly nine years ago.

Time for an exorcism? Or are the Wolves going to embody some haunting spirits? 8:30 PM Eastern on ESPN.

Be excellent to each other.