Tyrese Haliburton is a top ten player.
That’s what consensus is saying, at least. The Ringer ranked him seventh in their latest top 100 update, putting him ahead of guys like Jalen Brunson and Jayson Tatum. A great playoff run has quickly taken the “Tyrese Haliburton is overrated” campaign and flipped it on its head, and rightfully so. And yet, despite his amazing play, Haliburton might not even be the best player on his team.
Newly minted Eastern Conference Finals MVP Pascal Siakam isn’t a popular name. He’s almost universally respected— nobody really hates him— but he’s never gotten the same level of hype as other players of his caliber. His three All-Star and two All-NBA nods came surprisingly for some but were undoubtedly deserved. It’s the same case for his latest trophy— even Haliburton himself thought the award would be his and not Siakam’s.
Haliburton is often likened to the engine of Indiana’s offense— that’s the metaphor commonly used for lead playmakers, after all. However, he feels more like the driver, the guy who is making decisions and steering the vehicle. It’s actually Siakam who is the team’s engine. He’s the go-to scorer, the guy who the team wouldn’t run without. Even if Haliburton is the team’s closer, it’s Siakam who can be leaned on for the full 48 minutes of a playoff game to put pressure on the defense as both a scorer AND a playmaker. Haliburton has had more memorable moments in the postseason, and that makes it too easy to forget the Pacers wouldn’t be here without Siakam.
The two guys play very different styles of ball and they impact the game in different ways. Haliburton is already an all-time table setter, a passing maestro whose mistakes in a game can be tallied on one hand. He elevates the role players around him— Myles Turner, Aaron Nesmith, Obi Toppin, etc.— with his ability to set them up in the spots where they’re most effective. He’s a leader, he’s dependable, and he energizes the operation. He’s the fire, and Siakam is the ice. The only time you’ll hear Siakam is when he’s yelling “AYYYY!” to get a foul when he drives. Otherwise, he’s a silent killer who can tally 25-30 points in the scoring column on any given night in a way that you have to watch closely to notice. He’s not a highlight producer, he’s just a fundamentally elite basketball player. The Cameroonian is a matchup nightmare with the size and strength to punish small defenders and the skills and quickness to brush off bigs.
Oftentimes, the best player on a championship team has traits that more closely match Siakam’s. Teams don’t win titles without a go-to scorer. Most would suffer if their leader went 2/7, 3/8, or 3/13 in a postseason game like Haliburton has this spring (see the James Harden-led Clippers and Rockets). Teams also *usually* don’t win titles with a guard as their top guy. Only one team in the 2020s has won a championship with a guard at the helm— the Warriors in 2022 with Steph Curry. Oklahoma City may change that this year, but Shai is a legit 6’6” which makes him a slightly different case.
So, with that in mind, the Pacers completing a championship run with Haliburton being considered the top dog would make him a serious anomaly. Which, maybe he is. But, the mantle of Indiana’s best and/or most important player should be more up in the air than what people think. It’s no coincidence that the team started making deep runs after acquiring their All-Star forward. So, who truly is the best Pacer, Haliburton or Siakam? That question will be answered in the Finals.
Indiana hasn’t yet faced a perimeter defense as good as OKC’s in these playoffs. Milwaukee, Cleveland, and New York didn’t have the personnel to properly cover Haliburton’s pick-and-rolls, so he torched them as a playmaker and subsequently a scorer. The Thunder don’t have the same deficiencies. Alex Caruso, Lu Dort, and Cason Wallace can stay glued to Haliburton and prevent him from getting easy advantages. Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein are not incompetent defensively like Karl-Anthony Towns. He won’t be allowed to waltz around screens and embarrass scrambling help defenders anymore. Haliburton is pretty clearly a better playmaker than bucket-getter because he can’t quite create separation and get his shot off against good defenders in the same way guys like Siakam can. For that reason, if he’s going to drop 20-balls consistently against an OKC defense that eats guards for breakfast, he’s going to have to do some legitimately special stuff.
On the other hand, Siakam should prove to be more of a headache for the Thunder. In the Conference Finals, we saw how Julius Randle was able to score efficiently in iso and ultimately command triple team traps in the paint. Siakam is a more polished scorer and playmaker than Randle, so OKC will have to be laser focused on stopping him or else he’ll do some serious damage.
The overarching question is this: if Pascal Siakam can bend defenses on basketball’s biggest stages while filling the typical “best player on title team” role and also being a leader (just a different kind than Haliburton), then why are people so hesitant to say he’s at least equally as important to the Pacers as Haliburton? This article isn’t meant to be disrespectful to Haliburton, he’s just frankly not playing so much better than Siakam to the point where he should be talked about as a top ten player and Siakam should be ranked below Jalen Williams. At minimum, both guys should be in the discussion for top fifteen.
As mentioned, how the Finals shake out will greatly shape this conversation. If Haliburton is able to do what no guard has yet done against OKC, which is cook them, then he will flat-out earn the right to be talked about the way that he currently is. However, if the Thunder’s defensive demons make him look mortal and have a tougher time with Siakam, then the NBA community will need to reevaluate the way they’re currently ranking Haliburton relative to Siakam.
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