Sports
Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton heard the haters, and now he and Indiana are clapping back
The trolls finally got one, but not for long.
NBA social media has become a cesspool of negativity, where fans come together to commiserate about why this player is overrated and that team is garbage. Today’s athletes are so inundated with criticism from the anonymous morass that most of them have learned to push it away.
Even when it affects them, they rarely admit it publicly. Bullies only get their power from the acknowledgment. But everybody has their moments.
For the first month of this season, as his Indiana Pacers were losing and he was playing his worst basketball in years, that was Tyrese Haliburton. To the outside world, it looked like his dominant form from 2023 may have been a mirage. Internally, Haliburton started to wonder if they were right.
“I got too caught up in outside noise and allowing myself to think such negative thoughts about myself internally,” Haliburton shared with The Athletic recently. “It was the first time in my life that I had real self-doubt behind everything I was doing. … I feel like my personal struggles were leading to the team’s struggles.
“A lot of our games early, that we were right there to win, I just wasn’t playing my best basketball and I think that was taking away from us winning games.”
Last season, the Pacers marched on to the Eastern Conference finals, even if Haliburton’s form fell off after a midseason hamstring injury. They entered this campaign with hopes of taking the next step, but things went south early on as their star player still looked like a shell of himself.
When Haliburton was in a funk in the past, he would pull out his phone and seek the trolls trashing him. He often would do it during halftime, looking for fuel to power the Pacers’ redlining offense. Proving haters wrong was the cathartic release he needed to get in touch with himself and his game.
The problem was — from the moment this season started — he knew better than anyone that he couldn’t clap back. He went scoreless in the second game of the season, a blowout loss to the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, and knew something wasn’t right.
Haliburton was telling confidants that he was playing poorly, reading his mentions and actually agreeing for a change. That’s when his skills trainer Drew Hanlen could see the pressure was getting to the 24-year-old.
“This year, for whatever reason, it was just hurting him,” Hanlen said.
The more he struggled, the more he receded into old habits. Haliburton lost his aggression to attack the paint, unable to beat defenders with a first step off of that recovering hamstring.
He looked tentative, trying to sit back as a distributor and losing some of the edge that made him a two-time All-Star. The problem was twofold, starting with his health.
“He rushed back early last year to make the All-NBA 65-game rule and he was never fully healthy,” Hanlen said. “Then at the Olympics, he re-aggravated it. So after the Olympics, he couldn’t work out and had to let it heal. So he worked out zero times the entire summer.”
The breaking point came in Charlotte on Nov. 8, a 20-point loss that sent the team spiraling below .500. He once again missed every 3, couldn’t get to the line and fully accepted he was the problem.
“It was so bad,” Haliburton said. “That was the first time I was so frustrated with myself, so frustrated with the group. But it was more about myself. How can I be better?”
Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton hit rock bottom in a loss at Charlotte on Nov. 8. (Robert Goddin / Imagn Images)
It started with cutting out the distractions and sources of anxiety. He deleted X from his phone in an attempt to go cold turkey on immersive doomscrolling. He started going back to church, recognizing he was getting caught up within himself and wanting to look at the positives in life.
“That’s been good for me to read my Bible more. It’s been good for me,” he said. “My relationship with the Lord has been really big for me internally, to be the best version of myself and just trying to pour energy into our group and that’s been helping us.
“After that, things have clicked and changed for me. I feel light years better.”
Haliburton was not the same player entering the season, but the Pacers changed as well. Andrew Nembhard showed in the postseason he could be the two-way guard the team needed, while Bennedict Mathurin’s return from a torn labrum added another scorer to the mix.
This roster did not call for Haliburton to dominate the ball like he did in the past, especially with his quickness in the half court diminished. To figure out his future with the Pacers, he had to tap into his past.
When he was drafted by the Sacramento Kings in 2020, he had to squeeze his distinct skill set into a crowded backcourt. De’Aaron Fox was the star point guard and Buddy Hield was the shooting guard, two traditional representations of the positions. Where did a fluid playmaker fit into the dynamic?
Hield taught him how to move in space to make himself open, even when the opposing coach wrote on the locker room whiteboard with a cascade of underlines to not let that happen. Though Haliburton said he initially couldn’t stand the way Hield played, they eventually found a synergy playing off each other. When the two friends were traded to the Pacers together, coach Rick Carlisle put the ball in Haliburton’s hands full time and they started running the two-man actions they were developing in Sacramento.
While the focus on Haliburton’s struggles in early 2024 focused on his hamstring injury, it coincided with Hield being traded to Philadelphia. But Nembhard’s emergence allowed Haliburton to operate as more of a two-guard, putting into practice the lessons he learned from Hield.
“Since Buddy’s been gone, I’ve learned to play off the ball a little bit more,” Haliburton said. “It’s been part of the growth figuring out how I can stay involved while off the ball, how I can use my gravity as a shooter. I just try to use my gravity to impact the game in other ways. I think that’s what I learned from Buddy, playing aside him for so long.”
Haliburton is not the typical point guard who can beat anyone off the bounce. He has a high dribble, is not overtly physical and doesn’t have a bag of go-to shots like most All-Star playmakers. He is someone who thrives in chaos, getting where he wants when he is up in transition or attacking against the grain of the defense.
Nembhard running point allows Haliburton to leak out in transition earlier, so he can then run around screens to catch the ball on the move. It also allows Haliburton to set up a cross-match early in a possession, like when he got Miami’s Haywood Highsmith off him before the play began so he could attack Tyler Herro in space.
Now Haliburton is finally starting to get downhill more consistently from give-and-go actions with Myles Turner by refining that combo guard role he first learned in Sacramento. In recent weeks, Turner and Haliburton have looked more in sync, as evidenced by Turner knowing where Haliburton was cutting even when getting the ball at an awkward spot on the floor.
“I think that Ty is finally starting to realize that he can get guys so much more open than just passing the ball,” Turner told The Athletic. “He talks to me, like, ‘Yo, go right here and do this and do this, and do that.’ And then lo and behold, I get the ball. So I think he’s starting to analyze the game a lot more, and then he picks and chooses his spots to start scoring.”
The true turning point came at the end of 2024. Haliburton had his worst performance since the first week of the season when they blew a fourth-quarter lead in Oklahoma City on Dec. 26 and then looked passive the next night in a blowout loss to the Boston Celtics.
But they stuck around Boston and he looked more aggressive than ever in a rematch two nights later, scoring 10 of his 11 baskets inside the arc to take the Celtics out in crunchtime. Sprinting over Turner screens while Nembhard handled the ball, getting to the rim suddenly seemed easy.
Haliburton recorded 33 points and 15 assists with six 3s and no turnovers at Miami last week. The only other time that has happened in NBA history was on Nov. 14, 2023 — by Tyrese Haliburton.
With Nembhard back in the lineup, Haliburton finally looks free.
“Their importance to each other is evident,” Carlisle said. “They complement each other well. Andrew allows Ty to play off the ball and when Ty has the ball, Drew knows the game and knows how to play without the ball too.”
Indiana fell into a hole when Nembhard missed 12 straight games in November due to left knee tendinitis, but the Pacers have flipped their season around since his return in early December. He is the spirit of their defense and the glue to their offense. Multiple players on the team called him their X-factor to winning.
They enter Friday’s game versus Golden State at 10-3 since Dec. 13, ranking fourth in the league in net rating at plus-8.7 over that stretch, per Cleaning the Glass. Indiana (20-18) has gone from 11th to sixth place in the Eastern Conference entering Friday, and Haliburton is finally starting to look like the All-Star he was a season ago.
He’s averaging 20.4 points and 9.6 assists per game while shooting 40.2 percent from 3 during this time. Of the 25 lineups with at least 300 possessions played this season, the Pacers’ starting group with Nembhard has the league’s best defensive rating, per Cleaning the Glass.
They are finally coming together now that Haliburton has the backcourt partner he needs to free up his game, looking like an evolution of the team that nearly beat the Celtics four times in the conference finals but never sneaked away with a win.
As Carlisle made clear recently during a West Coast trip in late December, the Pacers welcome all those expectations that were earned from last season’s run.
“We’re trying to win a championship,” he reminded a room full of reporters.
His presence alone is proof positive of their mission, as the coach who won it all with Dallas in 2011 came to Indiana a decade later with the expressed intent of turning this team into a legitimate title contender.
Their group moved closer toward that goal with the Pascal Siakam trade last season, landing the two-time All-Star forward who signed a four-year, $189.5 million extension in the summer. And when the Pacers stumbled early — due to a rash of injuries to nearly half of Indiana’s rotation — Carlisle wasn’t about to let any of the outside skepticism seep into his program. So he kept pushing.
“There’s nothing wrong with high expectations,” said the 65-year-old Carlisle, who is 11th all-time in wins among coaches. “What you don’t want is a situation of apathy, where expectations are low and all you’re ever doing is selling hope. That’s not why I came here, that’s not why (Pacers president of basketball operations) Kevin Pritchard is doing his job and that’s not what our ownership is about.”
Health remains an issue. Small forward Aaron Nesmith (left ankle) has been out since Nov. 1. There was the Nembhard injury. Second-year guard Ben Sheppard missed a month with an oblique and rib injury. Big men Isaiah Jackson and James Wiseman, who were slated to support Turner down low as key reserves, both suffered torn Achilles’ tendons within days of one another at the start of the season. The Pacers had to hit the transaction market earlier than expected to bring in Thomas Bryant as the new backup big.
The Pacers are over .500 now, but their identity is solidifying as the team gets closer to full health. The championship aspirations that seemed farfetched a few weeks ago are at least reasonable once again.
“It’s just not being satisfied. That was the message in training camp,” Turner said. “Obviously, we had a hell of a run last year, but let’s stop talking about last year. That’s over and done with. And yeah, we’re pushing toward a (NBA) Finals run. That’s really where all of our eyes should be in this locker room.”
The fans still flooding Haliburton’s mentions will probably laugh at that notion. He is still searching for consistency and will have to push through his latest mild ankle sprain to ensure he doesn’t fall back into old habits again. But he won’t have to face that music now unless he wants to.
“(Fans) can’t wait for a team to be doing bad so people can dunk on you on Twitter, you know what I mean? The s— is so stupid,” Haliburton said. “It’s just part of it. People want to see us not do well so they can talk s—.”
Now that Haliburton is in a better place, maybe he can crack his phone open, see a bunch of trash emojis and crack a smile. They can talk all they want, but he’s ready to clap back on his terms, one drive at a time.
(Top photo of Haliburton: Catalina Fragoso / NBAE via Getty Images)
Sports
Folarin Balogun admits that red-card reversal affected USA World Cup teammates: ‘A lot of outside noise’
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The United States Men’s National Team had all the momentum when Folarin Balogun’s red card from the Round of 32 was suspended, giving him a chance to play in the Round of 16 — at least, that’s what American soccer fans thought.
The day before the USMNT’s Round of 16 game against Belgium, which Balogun was originally supposed to miss because of a red card in the previous game, FIFA ruled that he would be eligible.
The ruling added to what was already a huge controversy, as it was argued Balogun should not have been red-carded in the first place. Nonetheless, Balogun was active despite an appeal and strong reaction from Belgium.
United States forward Folarin Balogun kicks the ball against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Round of 32 of the 2026 FIFA World Cup at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. (David Gonzales)
However, it was hardly a needle-mover, as Belgium embarrassed the Stars and Stripes with a 4-1 win. If anything, the needle might have moved the wrong way, Balogun himself said.
“My initial reaction was I was happy to be back in the team, but when I kind of started to reflect, I knew it was going to cause a lot of controversy, and I could almost see within my teammates a bit of nerves, because it is something that is so unique,” Balogun told CBS on Tuesday.
“The closer we got to the game, I tried to just focus as best as I could, but it was difficult. A lot of outside noise and that’s hard to avoid.”
Balogun said the entire situation was “confusing,” as the team was initially practicing without him. But the team found out on the bus to practice that Balogun would be active.
“Everybody was screaming and shouting,” Balogun said.
BELGIUM MANAGER PRAISES CLASSY GESTURE BY FOLARIN BALOGUN AFTER RED CARD CONTROVERSY: ‘I REALLY LIKED THAT’
Folarin Balogun of the U.S. celebrates scoring their first goal during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Round of 32 match against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Santa Clara, California. (Phil Noble / Reuters via Imagn Images)
But that did not change the whirlwind of emotions, which may or may not have contributed to the loss.
“It’s more just being able to separate the emotion from the job at hand. We’re all professionals, so it’s not something I think was too difficult to be able to separate once we got over the initial announcement. You saw it was a difficult game against Belgium and that can kind of overshadow whether we were focused or not. From me being inside the camp and inside the setup, I know we had full concentration going into the game,” he said.
President Donald Trump admitted to calling FIFA President Gianni Infantino to ask for a review of the red card.
“All I did was, I asked for a review, because I didn’t think it was a foul,” Trump said. “And again, I’m good at this stuff. I didn’t think it was a foul. I thought it was two great athletes who crashed into each other and got entangled. That was not a guy punching somebody in the face or anything that would be different.
Team USA striker Folarin Balogun celebrates scoring a goal during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Round of 32 match against Bosnia and Herzegovina at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
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“I think it’s a terrible… if they wouldn’t allow a top player, maybe the best, maybe among the best on the team, to play, I think it would have had a big stain. I relayed it. I didn’t tell him what to do. I don’t believe he made the decision. I think it was a committee that made the decision, and they made the right decision because, No. 1, it wasn’t a foul, and you want to see a game with your best players.”
Belgium was knocked out by Spain in the quarterfinals, and Spain will face France in the first semifinal match Tuesday in Atlanta.
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A day after general manager Raegan Pebley was fired, the Sparks were in Atlanta and seemingly still focused on trying to reach the playoffs this year.
The suggestion that Pebley’s removal was a sign that the team is performing poorly didn’t sit well with coach Lynne Roberts.
“I don’t think we underachieved last year and this year is still going,” Roberts said in Atlanta on Monday before the team’s loss to the Dream. “For where we want to get, that’s not where we want to be, but we tripled our win total in my first year — that’s not underachieving. We haven’t hit our stride, we’ve been injured all year. Hopefully we get [Kelsey Plum] and Cam [Brink] back. Our system is designed around KP. I’m not close to thinking we are underachieving.”
Pebley and the rest of the Sparks’ organization signaled a clear intention to compete this season, signing veterans Nneka Ogwumike and Erica Wheeler in the offseason, signing Dearica Hamby to a three-year deal and trading for Ariel Atkins.
The Sparks’ Rae Burrell protects the ball under pressure the Chicago Sky’s Natasha Cloud at Crypto.com Arena on July 10.
(Luiza Moraes / Getty Images)
They are still in the playoff race midway through the season, but have the second-worst defensive rating in the WNBA and sit a game below the postseason cutoff line.
They have competed without Plum, their top scorer, for 12 games and former No. 2 overall pick Brink during the past nine contests.
But even with their struggles, culminating in an 82-64 loss to Seattle on July 6, the Sparks responded well with consecutive home wins against Indiana and Chicago. After those games, Roberts seemed to think the team was moving in the right direction, but team owners made a major change.
The Sparks have a decision to make about how hard they want to push the rest of this season as the team flirts with missing the playoffs for a sixth consecutive season. With the trade deadline on Aug. 2, they could make some moves to improve this season or sell off their veteran assets and attempt to rebuild again.
The Sparks haven’t made the playoffs since 2020 and have made some controversial moves while trying to snap out of the slump.
In addition to the questionable trade of 2024 fourth overall pick Rickea Jackson to Chicago for veteran Atkins this offseason, Pebley traded the picks that would become Storm post duo Awa Fam and Dominique Malonga for Plum and Kia Nurse. In her sole season with the Sparks, Nurse averaged 7.6 points per game.
Pebley also traded the No. 8 pick in 2024 (that later was used to draft Alissa Pili) to Chicago for Julie Allemand and Li Yueru, then lost Allemand in the expansion draft. Yueru was sent to Seattle in the Plum trade and is now playing with Dallas. The Sparks’ 2025 first-round draft pick Sarah Ashlee Barker was left unprotected and went to Portland in the expansion draft.
The Sparks waived their top pick in this year’s draft, Ta’Niya Latson, after barely playing, and she has gone on to join Las Vegas. Sania Feagin, a 2025 first-round draft pick, was waived and signed with Portland.
Most of those moves, though, came after the Sparks lost the top spot in the 2025 draft lottery to Dallas, which selected Paige Bueckers with the No. 1 pick. Before the lottery result, it seemed like the Sparks — who went 8-32 in 2024 before that draft — were lining up for a youth movement led by Brink and Bueckers. A lineup of those three, a healthy Feagin, Barker and Allemand would be an entirely different kind of team.
Once that failed, they focused on adding veterans who could win now and have only managed modest improvement.
The Sparks have their next two first-round draft picks and four players still on rookie contracts after this season (Brink, Chance Gray, Kate Martin and Pili). Brink is their lone lottery pick left from their disappointing past six seasons. (Pili was a top-10 pick, but she has struggled to stay on a WNBA roster and just signed a player developmental contract with the Sparks this month.)
Pebley told The Times in an interview on Friday that she was open to making moves to compete at the deadline this year.
Players on the Sparks’ bench celebrate during a win over the Chicago Sky at Crypto.com Arena on July 10.
(Luiza Moraes / Getty Images)
“We are in a space where we are here to win,” she said. “This is a city that wants to win. We have an ownership that wants to win. You see what they’re doing with the Lakers. You see what they’ve done already with the Dodgers. … We have to always continue to invest in the roster. We have a responsibility to always listen and be aware of what’s out there.”
A league source not authorized to discuss trade conversations publicly told The Times that Pebley had been aggressive ahead of the deadline, and now teams are unsure what approach the Sparks will take moving forward.
“I found out when everybody else did,” Roberts said of Pebley’s firing. “It was a surprise. She’s a good friend of mine. I think the tone is set that we need to keep building and get the Sparks back to where they have been. That’s been the tone. Raegan did some great things for our org in that regard and improved a lot of things. That work can’t go undenied. It’s full-steam ahead and I’m focused on what I can do.”
It would be difficult to move some of their heftier contracts, especially since WNBA teams cannot take on more salary than their remaining cap space allows in a trade. Hamby, 32, is signed for two more years for more than $1 million per season. Atkins is also signed for two years at $1 million-plus and is having a career-worst offensive season, shooting 36.4% with 8.7 points per game.
Wheeler, 35, has another year left on her deal, but a $625,000 cap hit for a player who would be a backup point guard on most teams is a tough sell.
Plum and Ogwumike are on expiring deals, and the Sparks’ most valuable roster asset, Rae Burrell, is a restricted free agent, but one of the few young players left on the Sparks’ roster.
The Sparks have a limited $86,000 in cap space, too, so if they decide they want to buy at the deadline, they have to find a way to clear space.
They enter the trade deadline period in a difficult spot as a team in purgatory that just fired its general manager.
Yet what they decide to do in the next month might be the most clearest sign of their ambition and hope for the future.
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ATLANTA — The FBI and Atlanta Police Department are getting ready for a massive security operation ahead of the World Cup semifinals between England and Argentina at Atlanta Stadium.
Both agencies have used drones to search for potential threats on the ground and in the sky. The FBI is enforcing the Federal Aviation Administration’s Temporary Flight Restrictions around the venue.
The FBI has confiscated more than 600 drones nationwide since the World Cup began. Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Atlanta Field Office Marlo Graham said 86 of those drones were seized in Atlanta.
Graham said the FBI uses a “mechanism” that allows agents to see unauthorized drones in restricted airspace. Agents then work to mitigate the threat posed by unknown drones.
“We’ve been able to safely land drones that have been unauthorized in the flight restricted area,” Graham said.
The FBI has confiscated more than 600 drones at World Cup events since the tournament started. (FBI Atlanta)
While the FBI treats every drone as a potential threat, Graham said the threat level can increase depending on the size of the drone and how close it gets to the stadium.
“Obviously, the closer to the venue, the larger the crowd. We are fortunate here in Atlanta that we have a closed dome stadium,” Graham said. “We don’t want the game to be impacted because a hobbyist couldn’t control their drone, and it lands right when one of our star players was getting ready to score a goal.”
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The Atlanta Police Department’s Drone Unit has helped the FBI track down people suspected of flying in restricted zones.
Sgt. Kindu Franklin said most of the people caught flying drones around World Cup venues are hobbyists with no intent to harm the crowd of soccer fans below.
“In some cases, they just recently bought a drone just for FIFA to get some of the cool footage that they want to put up on their social media,” Franklin said. “There are different ways that you can weaponize these drones. So, we’re operating in a proactive manner.”
The Atlanta Police Department’s drone mission at the World Cup focuses on surveillance. (FOX)
The Atlanta Police Department’s drone mission is focused on surveillance. Officers are looking for potential threats, traffic issues and people the FBI suspects are flying drones illegally.
“So, what we want to do is give our command staff a view that they can’t get from the ground,” Sgt. James Cunningham with APD’s Drone Unit said.
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Cunningham’s unit can launch drones remotely from handheld controllers. Other drones are launched from docking stations strategically placed across the city, and officers control them from the back of an SUV using a computer and a PlayStation controller.
The Atlanta Police Department launches some drones from docks strategically placed across the city. They are controlled by a computer and a PlayStation controller. (Fox News)
The drone docks are used year-round to help the police get an aerial view of emergency situations before officers arrive. The computer shows the drone pilot where all the police body cameras and vehicles are in the area, allowing them to communicate better with officers on the ground.
For the World Cup, the drone docks let the department have more eyes in the sky and respond to emergencies faster.
“It’s going to cut down time. We’re going to get there quick. And then you’re going to get an aerial perspective of what you can’t see on the ground,” Cunningham said.
The Atlanta Police Department launches some drones from docks to get more eyes in the sky and respond to emergencies faster. (Fox News)
Cunningham said the drone unit has completed more than 1,400 flights and logged more than 550 flight hours since the beginning of June.
“Some people haven’t even done that in years or haven’t even reached those numbers in the life of their drone unit,” Cunningham said.
“We train for the environment. We live here, so we know what to expect,” Anais Paredes, an APD drone pilot, said.
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The FBI is asking that hobbyist drone pilots know the Temporary Flight Restrictions in their area before taking off.
There is a one-mile restriction around World Cup stadiums on non-match days, and a three-mile restriction on game day.
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