Pacers guards Tyrese Haliburton and rookie Bennedict Mathurin spoke at length with Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer about their chemistry during Indiana’s surprisingly solid 5-6 start to the 2022/23 NBA season, Mathurin’s willingness to be coached up, how they may have been overlooked in their drafts, and much more.
Haliburton was selected with the No. 12 pick in 2020 out of Iowa State, and Mathurin was drafted sixth overall this June out of Arizona.
The 6’5″ Haliburton is averaging a career-best 21.6 PPG, 9.9 APG, 4.6 RPG and 1.8 APG this year for the Pacers. The 6’6″ Mathurin is averaging 20.4 PPG, 3.5 RPG, and 2.2 APG. That scoring average ranks Mathurin behind just No. 1 pick Paolo Banchero‘s 23.5 PPG among rookies.
The full conversation is well worth a read, as is par for the course when it comes to O’Connor. Here are some highlights.
On their quick chemistry:
“We play off each other well,” Haliburton said. “I think his game complements mine in the sense of, I play a lot of spread pick-and-roll where I’m attacking downhill or getting the floater, but also facilitating out of it. When teams have to tag on the big or come over to help on me, I can give it to him on the second side. He’s such a downhill force getting to the cup and scoring the basketball, he’s really hard to guard on the second side of actions. So, I think naturally, it just is a good fit.”
“A player like Ty, he is really good with the ball in his hands, so I don’t need to have the ball as much in my hands,” Mathurin added. “I’m trying to do the stuff, cutting and just the other stuff, just so we can just be great on the court together.”
On Mathurin’s stated desire to improve his game with the help of head coach Rick Carlisle:
“We had practice yesterday, and then I wasn’t going too hard, and I told him, ‘I don’t take anything personal,'” Mathurin said. “‘If I don’t do this right, just tell me,” and I feel like today, he made sure he was on me a little bit. He told me to run harder and to do stuff at a good pace.”
“He’s the only guy I’ve ever seen watch film with the head coach in the back of the plane,” Haliburton said of Mathurin. “He’ll watch all of his. I watch film with our video guys and stuff. He goes back there with Coach and watches his film after games, good or bad. And that just shows he’s hungry, wants to get after it. You don’t see guys in the NBA do that. We’re young guys and we both just want to be great. But you see the hunger that he has.”
Haliburton on how the two Pacers guards may have been undervalued in their respective drafts:
“Talent evaluation’s not easy. And there’s misses… You can’t evaluate the willingness to get better. You can’t evaluate their growth in IQ, their want to learn, their want to be coached hard. You can’t evaluate those things. So there’s so much more that goes into it that you can ask all the questions you want. You can go ask somebody’s college coach, you can go ask their parents. You can go ask whatever you want. They’re going to lie. Of course they’re going to lie. They want their guy to get drafted higher. Definitely there’s guys that got drafted ahead of me, I know I’m better right now. I knew I was better than at the time. I know [Mathurin] feels the same way right now.”
Wow these guys sounds like winners. I still can’t believe the Kings let that kid go
Halliburton is right, about talent evaluation. But scouts have all the time to do that. I do it from a screen and only use my talent vision.
(Talent Vision = IQ of the gm and eye for talent).
I wanted to tank for Mathurin. I wanted to trade up for Mathurin. Knicks missed on hiring me, that’s for sure. I don’t need to talk about Halliburton do I.
If your not a hopping, spinning, contorting, wiggling run in a straight line dunk type you will not get drafted high.
Solid on the floor players that play under control are not valued by the scouts.