Tyrese Haliburton is a highly entertaining player to watch on the court, though fans of opposing teams won’t see it that way, given the number of times he has broken their hearts. The Pacers star had a great run of clutch performances this past season’s playoffs, punishing the Bucks, Cavs, and Knicks.
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No group has been more psychologically scarred by Haliburton than fans of the New York Knicks. It’s now been two seasons in a row that Hali has eliminated Jalen Brunson and company from the playoffs. The pain is so overbearing that the Knicks’ fans have replaced Trae Young with him as the primary object of their derision.
Despite years of practice, Knicks fans don’t take losing well. So they’ve given Haliburton a rather unfortunate, if macabrely clever, nickname: Haliban, for the way he has continually terrorized them.
Haliburton, while talking about what it’s like playing in front of such a hostile Madison Square Garden crowd on the Impaulsive podcast, was asked by cohost Mike Majlak about the nickname. “Obviously, the Taliban is a terrible group of people,” Hali said, laughing in embarrassment.
“And it’s unfortunate that on social media it’s become the thing. Obviously, I can never publicly acknowledge it or respond. People will come in my Twitch chat and just spam that,” he added.
Logan Paul was a little slow on the uptake, and he asked, “Wait, they call you the Haliban because you’re a terrorist on the court? That’s the thing?”
Haliburton quickly replied, “Yeah, but we were in New York!”, pointing out how much worse it made the nickname due to the city’s connection to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“Unfortunate. I do not condone that. I do not condone that at all. I can tell people, ‘Don’t call me that,’ but that doesn’t stop them,” added Hali, who has become one of the NBA’s rising stars not only for his clutch play, but for his winning personality.
Haliburton demonstrated it here in the face of a question that could have really gone sideways. Just as he did in his hilarious post-Olympics post on X and the heartfelt message after his Achilles surgery, he handled a difficult situation beautifully.
The Pacers have already ruled Haliburton out for all of next season, but he’s still staying busy. He got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Jade Jones, last month, and has been rehabbing with fellow Indiana star Caitlin Clark. This past weekend, he hosted a youth basketball camp for over 300 Indianapolis-area kids.
