When Will Tyrese Haliburton Return? The Pacers Are Taking the Slow Road, and They Should
Tyrese Haliburton has not played an NBA game since he tore his right Achilles in Game 7 of the 2025 Finals. That was 15 months ago. He missed all of the 2025-26 season.
The good news: the Pacers are hopeful he is ready for the start of the 2026-27 season, according to reporting from NBA insider Chris Haynes. Training camp opens September 29. Opening night is in October.
The better news, if you are an Indiana fan who thinks in terms of April and May rather than October: the Pacers appear ready to bring him back slowly. That is the right call and it is not particularly close.
Why Rushing Him Would Be Malpractice
Achilles tears used to end careers. They no longer do, but the recovery arc is nastier than people admit. The first year back is almost always the worst year. Explosiveness returns last of all, and the opposite leg picks up extra load while the tendon catches up, which is its own injury risk. Trusting the thing at full speed takes months of game reps on top of that.
Haliburton’s recovery also got interrupted. He was diagnosed with facial shingles in February, which is not a basketball injury but absolutely disrupts a training block. Any timeline built before that needed to be rewritten.
Then consider what he actually is as a player. Haliburton has never won on raw burst. His whole game is change of pace, stopping and starting in ways that make big men guess wrong, manipulating a defender’s balance with his feet before the pass is ever thrown. Every bit of that lives in the Achilles. He needs it fully back, not mostly back.
The Season Does Not Start in October
Here is the part Indiana has to keep in mind. The Pacers survived a season without him. They know what that looks like. There is no scenario where winning three extra games in November matters more than Haliburton being at full strength in a playoff series.
Rick Carlisle has earned trust in exactly this area. Indiana has been careful and deliberate about load management with its core, and the front office has never been the type to panic over an early-season record. If the plan is 20 to 24 minutes for the first month with no back-to-backs, take it and say thank you.
There is also a roster argument for patience. The Pacers spent last year giving reps to everyone else, which means the supporting cast can carry more early than it could two years ago. Indiana can afford a soft launch.
The one thing that would worry me is if Haliburton himself pushes. Competitive players hate minutes restrictions, and he has been out for over a year watching a team he led to the Finals play without him. The urge to prove something on opening night will be enormous. Indiana needs to overrule that urge.
My expectation: Haliburton plays in October, on a restriction, with load management through at least the first month and probably through the new year on back-to-backs. He will look tentative at first. There will be a stretch where people on the internet declare he is not the same player. Ignore all of it.
Give it until February. Achilles guys look like themselves in the back half of year one far more often than the front half. Indiana’s whole season is about having him right when it counts, and they seem to know it.
The slow road is the only road worth taking here.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.