Tyrese Haliburton said he was shocked to discover that his regular-season return from a torn Achilles tendon, one of the more anticipated NBA comeback stories heading into the new season, was not scheduled for national television when the NBA released its full schedule earlier this week.
Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers star, sat out the entire 2025-26 season after tearing his Achilles in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals. He is making his regular-season return when the Pacers open on the road at the New Orleans Pelicans on Oct. 21. The two nationally televised games that day are the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Miami Heat and the Golden State Warriors at the Los Angeles Lakers.
Speaking on a podcast, Haliburton made his case that a player of his level returning from a torn Achilles and a 16-month absence deserved better placement on the schedule. He challenged listeners to name any comparable player who tore their Achilles and missed 16 months and ask whether their return would go untelevised nationally, whether it would be an away game and whether it would be in New Orleans. He said he was shocked when he saw the schedule but said he would move on.
The context behind the frustration
Haliburton has been one of the more compelling stories in the NBA over the past three years, developing into an All-Star point guard, making the Pacers relevant in the Eastern Conference playoffs and doing so in a way that generated genuine fan interest. Haliburton’s injury in the Finals, suffered at the worst possible moment of the highest-stakes game, extended a story that millions of basketball fans have been following.
The NBA schedule is not set democratically, and television placement reflects decisions by the league and its broadcast partners about which matchups will generate the most viewers on any given night. On Oct. 21, the Timberwolves-Heat and Warriors-Lakers games carry the marquee designations. The Pacers returning from a playoff run with a rehabilitated star playing his first game back lands in New Orleans with no national broadcast.
Haliburton’s frustration is understandable from a personal standpoint, and his willingness to express it publicly reflects a comfort with his own standing in the league. Players who do not believe they belong in national spotlight conversations typically do not make them.
The Pacers’ early schedule
Indiana makes its home debut two days later on Oct. 23 against the Dallas Mavericks, and the Pacers will play their first nationally televised game on Oct. 28 when they host the Philadelphia 76ers, which will be a matchup with LeBron James and Jaylen Brown.
That matchup, the Pacers against the remade 76ers, is the kind of nationally televised game that gets scheduled based on narrative weight. The 76ers with James have enormous broadcast appeal, and Indiana hosting them makes for a logical national window.
Haliburton playing in New Orleans on Oct. 21 without a national broadcast does not mean his return will go unnoticed. It means the league and its television partners made a different calculation about what drives viewership on opening week. Whether they were right is a separate question from whether Haliburton’s frustration is valid, and he made a reasonable argument for it before moving on.
What the return means
His Achilles recovery has been closely watched since the injury because of how it happened and what it interrupted. The Finals appearance itself was a significant achievement for the Pacers franchise, and his absence last season removed one of the more interesting teams from the playoff conversation.
His return changes the Eastern Conference picture in ways that will become clearer once the season begins. How quickly he returns to All-Star form after 16 months away from competitive play is the central basketball question attached to the Pacers’ season, regardless of which game is or is not on national television.
