Towards the end of April, The Athletic dropped an anonymous NBA player survey in which Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers was somehow named as the most overrated player in the NBA by his peers.
With Indiana being on the verge of an NBA Finals appearence, the notion that Haliburton is somehow overrated seems as egregious as ever. Look, I don’t want to accuse NBA players of ‘not knowing ball’ – the sample size of that survey was rather small and I’d assume there may have been some personal element to that as well. But there’s a reason why basically every single aggregated offensive model grades Haliburton among the most impactful players in the NBA.
In all likelihood, he’s the best playmaker in the league, but it’s not that easy to come to the conclusion just by casually watching a Pacers game from the comfort of your couch (or any other piece of furniture, it’s really up to you).
It’s when you start to put together scattered bits of statistical information and film into a cohesive playmaking mosaic the true impact of Haliburton reveals itself. The Pacers are known for their relentless pressure and depth that has played a huge part in two consecutive deep playoff runs, but Haliburton is absolutely key to their offense.
During the regular season, Haliburton had a 38.9% assist rate (on just 21.6% usage), good for 6th in the NBA. The Pacers were the 7th highest scoring team and ran 7th fastest pace, but despite their speed of play, they rarely turned it over – a 11.8% turnover rate was good for 5th best.
That was spearheaded by Haliburton who posted a 9.8% turnover rate, a remarkable feat for a player that sets up his teammates so often.
Possessions are the most valuable commodity in basketball; the increase in pace we’ve observed during the last 10 years or so is aimed at generating as many shots as possible, but ball security and offensive rebounding are two other often underrated aspects to the game that allow teams to optimize possessions.
The Pacers are one of the best at doing that. Per Synergy, Indiana scored 1.057 points per posession, good for 3rd in the NBA, trailing only the Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder. Per databallr, the Pacers had a 119 offensive rating with Haliburton on the floor and 111 with him off; the turnover rate dropped from 14.6% to 11.9% when Haliburton was playing.
And as I write these pretentious-looking phrases like ‘optimizing possessions’ and ‘valuable commodity’ in the context of some nerdy basketball numbers, i realize how unsexy these last paragraphs were and why some people think Haliburton may be overrated – he lacks the easy-on-the-eye flash associated with all-time passers. He’s no Steve Nash or Jason Kidd, mercurial playmakers who, at their peak, had the flair and the skill to get you off your seat with their passing on a nightly basis.
Most efficient offense
While doing my Cooper Flagg season review thread on Twitter, I had a preposterous-sounding thought – I see flashes of Haliburton in him. Or at least I can draw some paralells between them.
Flagg is the consensus #1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft; if you’re the Dallas Mavericks, winners of the draft lottery, you’re probably already printing jerseys with the name ‘Flagg’ on the back. He had such a great season for Duke that we’re basically running out of superlatives to describe him – a historic season, a generational prospect, a two-way monster who looks like he was created in a lab for the modern NBA.
But if you go on Twitter, Reddit or somewhere else and ask a question about who’s the best playmaker in this year’s NBA Draft, you’re unlikely to see Flagg’s name pop up in those conversations. Egor Demin, Kasparas Jakučionis, even Nolan Traore – sure, but not Flagg, though I personally think that he is actually the best playmaker in this year’s draft.
And I kind of felt that Flagg, in a way, suffers from a similar treatment like Haliburton. First of all, I think Flagg’s other traits overshadow his playmaking. Also, he’s also a great playmaker on a more substantive layer, rather than flashy.
Anyone who has spent time dabbling with statistical filters on Bart Torvik this year probably ended up with some ridiculous playmaking queries where you have a bunch of high usage star offensive engines, alongside one or two outlier wings, seemingly looking like a polar bears in Arlington, Texas in comparison to all of those small, shifty guars. One of the few forwards consistently popping on those queries was Flagg.
In reality, if basketball playmaking was Arlington, Texas, Flagg is no polar bear. Let’s look at the numbers: Flagg is the only freshman in the Bart era (2008-present) to log 30%+ usage, 25%+ assist % and ≥2 assist to turnover ratio. He led a #1 rated offense and the 17th lowest turnover rate in the country for Duke. The Blue Devils, per Synergy, scored 1.084 points per posessions, 2nd best in the country, just behind St. Thomas from the Summit League.
Interestingly enough, Haliburton has never come even close to a 30% usage rate in his career – per Basketball Reference, he logged his highest usage in 2023-24 season at 24.6%.
The Pacers run an egalitarian offense based on player and ball movement. Haliburton is a strongly pass-first type guard which presses down his overall usage – the story is a bit different for Flagg as he’s more agressive hunting for his own shot, a trend that’s likely going to continue in the NBA as Flagg continues to improve his ballhandling skills.
For the sake of comparison, Flagg took 26.3 field goals and 11.3 free throws per 100 possessions, compared to 19.7 FG’s and 4.4 FTA’s for Haliburton.
Aesthetic bias
But at the same time, despite high usage last season, it’s pretty easy to picture Flagg in a Pacers-style egalitarian offense because he’s just so malleable on that end of the floor. If we look at how Flagg generates shots for himself, the profile is incredibly diverse: per Synergy, his most frequent scoring action is pick and roll, but it sits at just 19.4% and there’s a bunch of other actions which are a common, efficient source of shots for Flagg.
Offensively, Flagg is a chameleon; at Duke he showed he could be thrust into almost any role and be effective.
I already mentioned Demin and Jakucionis as go-to answers to the ‘best playmaker in the draft’ question.
They have fantastic court awareness and technical passing prowess, yet, as ball-dominant guards, they lack the tools to consistently access their skill. Demin is a terrible shooter, a bad ballhandler who crumbles under pressure and picks up the dribble way too easily. Jakucionis doesn’t have the burst, is overreliant on screening to create advantages and turns it over way, way too much.
With Flagg, it feels like the opposite is true – he has so many ways of hurting you that he doesn’t ever have to force the issue, resulting in an outstanding assist-to-turnover ratio. Flashy passing is awesome, but it really gets overrated if the playmaker doesn’t have the tools to access his court vision to the fullest, or if the flashy passing comes alongside a heavy dose of turnovers.
If the defense has counters to his him running the pick and roll, Flagg (and his coaching staff) doesn’t need to spam that action with the hope that it’s going to work out eventually.
Instead, you can easily invert picks with Flagg. Because of his ever-improving shooting, he’s a threat to pop and make a three, but he can also roll to the basket and make plays out of a short roll. It helps having Khaman Maluach, a 7’2” rim rolling big that’s a 99th percentile play finisher at the rim.
The aesthetic bias, curiously enough, is one of the reasons why Haliburton gets underrated as a playmaker as well. Efficient playmaking is way less sexy than behind the back wraparound pass for a dunk.
Where paralells start (and end)
Over the course of the season, one of the most impressive aspects of Flagg’s playmaking I picked up is how he’s able to make plays and throw skip passes going to his weak hand, something you can see in Haliburton’s playmaking game as well.
Though Flagg’s handle has ways to go, he’s does a fantastic job at manipulating defenses with his pull-up threat and quick decision making; if the corner defender sinks too deep to help cover off a rolling big, Flagg easily rises up high, using his long frame to throw a skip pass to a corner shooter. If he doesn’t, Flagg picks the defense apart by hitting a rolling big.
Passing manipulation is a trait that almost all elite playmakers, like Haliburton, have. Flagg does a great job always playing with his head up and manipulating defenses with delayed passes, fakes and eyes. At just 18, the game is already so slow for Flagg, he’s toying with defenses like a veteran playmaker.
The second clip is a good example of just how much gravity Flagg’s athleticism and downhill ability generates in transition – literally three defenders are trying to prevent him from scoring a layup, something which Flagg immediately recognizes and drops off a pass to a wide open Tyrese Proctor, without looking at him the whole way.
Both Haliburton and Flagg are aggressive attacking the nail area and are excellent at timing live dribble passes after collapsing opposing defenses. Again, Flagg excells with the quickness and precision of his reads. He’s able to keep his options open as he drives towards the nail and makes his decision at the best moment available.
Obviously, I’m not making a direct comparison between Flagg and Haliburton; there are better comps for the soon-to-be Dallas Maverick for sure. Haliburton is a guard, which means that his pick and roll usage is significantly higher. It’s highly unlikely Flagg would be able to maintain the current level of efficiency if he scaled up to Haliburton’s pick and roll frequency.
Flagg has some other stuff going his way though. It felt like Duke’s low frequency post-up offense limited that aspect of Flagg’s game. In brief flashes, his ability to read the game and turn double teams into advantages for his team popped immensely. North Carolina was a team that in particular found out that hard doubling Flagg in the post is not necessarily a good idea.
They’re obviously very different and I don’t think Flagg will ever be as good a playmaker as Haliburton, but the fact that we can reasonably draw at least some paralells between those players shows how good of a creator Flagg is. If he’s not the best playmaker in 2025 NBA Draft class, he absolutely has to be in the conversation.
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