Indiana’s promising young backcourt, Tyrese Haliburton (left), 21, and new teammate Chris Duarte, 24, pose together before the 2022 Rising Stars Challenge in Cleveland (Instagram/@Pacers).

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Caitlin Cooper, contributing writer for SB Nation’s Indy Cornrows, has experienced quite a memorable 2021-22 Pacers season so far. Although the team stands at 20-40 at the All-Star break, well below expectations, it boldly traded 25-year-old two-time All-Star Domantas Sabonis, just days before the deadline, in a package that most notably returned super-talented second-year guard Tyrese Haliburton from the Kings. Caitlin discusses Indiana’s team-building process, why Sabonis was ultimately dealt, what Haliburton’s arrival means for Malcolm Brogdon’s Pacers future, why she’s excited about some of the franchise’s lesser-known youngsters, the magic of Lance Stephenson’s return, and that’s not even all. Enjoy some notable excerpts below:

3:33-4:15: “When you go from Sabonis to Halliburton, both of them have really good feel for the game, and they process what’s out on the floor very quickly; it’s just that you’re doing it at two very different positions. Knowing that they were moving on from Domas, they were mainly going to be losing what he does as a hand-off operator, his roll gravity, interior gravity, his ability to generate side-to-side action. They don’t really have any other bigs that can do that to the level that he does, but I think the thought process was…I don’t think the Pacers have ever in my lifetime had a point guard the caliber, even just after seeing these four games, of what Halliburton can do in terms of no-look passes, pass fakes to shake help defenders and get guys open and get everybody involved.”

13:43-14:40: “I think that the skill that has stood out the most to me…is just the way that he [Haliburton] can freeze defenders. I mean you don’t notice it right away sometimes even. But then I’ve watched the games back and been like, ‘Oh, the reason Terry Taylor was just so open in the dunker spot is because he used a slight hand fake over to the corner and that defender jumped and then that was open.’ Or, he’ll look in transition to the opposite slot and then throw it to Isaiah Jackson on the roll. He has a really nice fake little lob pass that he’ll throw that can even open up the lob even further. … Part of what’s so exciting about his potential is that I can see areas that he can be better in in each of these games that we’ve watched, and then I’ll look and be like, ‘Oh, that was pretty close to a 20-20 game.’”

17:47-18:08: “We never actually got to see the two of them [Sabonis and Myles Turner] in a playoff series together as starters, but I think that at a certain point in time, the team kinda realized that like, ‘Hey, we’ll never fully know what the group with Brogdon and Victor [Oladipo]/Caris and T.J. Warren and Turner and Sabonis could have been, but we can’t keep waiting forever for when they’ll finally be healthy at the same time.'”

31:30-32:08: “It’s really tough to explain, and I’m even from Indiana. I live it. I’ve watched Lance [Stephenson] play since back in the 2013-14 era when they went to the Eastern Conference finals, and it’s even hard for me to fully describe what the connection is between Pacers fans and Lance Stephenson and just how every single time, even since he’s come back, when he enters a game, you’ll start hearing the crowd get excited, and it’s because Lance is going in. Even more so than watching Sabonis as a two-time All Star, or even sometimes what the reaction has been with Tyrese Halliburton getting introduced. He’s said it before, it’s like he gets superpowers when he plays with the Pacers.”

42:49-43:11: “They do need to settle on, going into next season, exactly what type of defensive team they want to be because I don’t think they’ve really ever solved that. When they headed into the season, what Rick Carlisle said that he wanted to do for this team, his top two priorities were togetherness and defense, and before they made these trades, I’m not sure that they really accomplished either one of those two outcomes.”

*Stories referenced during the discussion:

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Music: “Who Likes to Party” by Kevin MacLeod.