– Each additional injury costs him $40 million
Basketball player Tyrese Haliburton has been playing injured for months. Because for him it’s about a fortune. The reason for this is a new rule that is causing trouble among the stars.
Published today at 4:30 p.m
Every foul and every injury can deprive Tyrese Haliburton of the million-dollar bonus he is aiming for.
Foto: Justin Casterline (Getty Images)
Here you will find additional external content. If you agree that cookies are set by external providers and personal data is thereby transmitted to external providers, you can allow all cookies and display external content directly.
Allow cookiesMore information
Imagine they are entitled to $40 million. But only if you complete a certain number of games by the end of the season.
How would you behave on the field? Would you be inhibited in fear of seriously injuring yourself? You would definitely ignore one or two aches and pains. Because: What are a few pains compared to a fortune?
Basketball player Tyrese Haliburton is experiencing exactly the same thing these days. The 24-year-old from the Indiana Pacers is an outstanding playmaker. For a long time it seemed like a formality that at the end of the season he would be chosen among the fifteen best NBA professionals, who would be divided into three All-NBA teams. And because he has never succeeded in doing this before, the choice would be particularly financially lucrative for him.
Last year, Haliburton agreed to a contract extension with the Pacers. This guarantees him 205 million for the next five years starting next summer. So far so good. There is also a clause in this contract that ensures that Haliburton is now under pressure: If he makes it into one of the three selection teams by the time the contract comes into force, his employer would have to pay him a further 40 million.
A bonus that most bankers can only dream of.
Only: Only players who have played at least 65 of the 82 games in the regular season and have always played at least 20 minutes are eligible for this election. Haliburton is at 60 games with 9 games to go, and after long months of worrying about his millions, he is almost there. But: stretching the ankle, twisting the knee – that happens quickly in this athletic sport that is played on parquet.
Dispute between the NBA and its stars
The rule that came into focus as a result of Haliburton’s case has been in the collective bargaining agreement between the league and the professionals since 2023. The NBA thought of them to prevent the stars from being given too much rest during the long season. This is called “load management”.
What makes sense from the teams’ perspective, because it’s supposed to ensure that the best players are fairly fresh when the playoffs start, is a real problem for the league. Because it upsets fans who sometimes pay hundreds of dollars to see their favorites – and then sit them out. Or when a game is on national TV in prime time, but some of the figureheads are missing. This is not good for the attractiveness of the product.
The rule has ensured that a number of stars are no longer eligible for end-of-season honors. Bird of paradise Jimmy Butler, for example, or Kyrie Irving, who after years in which he was particularly noticed for spreading conspiracy theories, has managed to focus on sport again. Serbian Nikola Jokic, once an overweight teenager who is now the best basketball player on the planet, recently said of the regulation: “I just don’t like how players are forced to play even when they’re injured.”
Tyrese Haliburton is playing poorly – and therefore doesn’t come close to the form of the first half of the season.
Foto: Sean Gardner (Getty Images)
Haliburton himself calls the rule “stupid.” In January he missed 10 games with a thigh injury, and since then he has had to worry about reaching the minimum requirement. He makes no secret of the fact that he has been playing under a lot of injuries lately. The statistics prove this: Before the injury, he averaged almost 27 points per game. Since then there have been almost 10 fewer.
Only thanks to the outstanding first half of the season does he still have a good chance of making the selection. But the end of the regular season can’t come too soon for Tyrese Haliburton.
Extraordinary things from basketballDominic Wuillemin works as a sports editor at Tamedia and has been writing about sports topics since 2010 – with a focus on football.More information
Found an error? Report now.
7 comments
2024-03-26 16:07:50
#NBA #basketball #star #plays #million
