Tyrese Haliburton’s addition to the Team USA roster was for one very specific reason. I’ll give you a hint, it’s not because he enjoys standing around. Haliburton holds the honor of being the NBA’s best passer and perhaps the best playmaker as well.
This was shown in Team USA’s first Showcase game against Canada when Haliburton only scored two points but dished out six assists and had the ball on a string the entire time, doing what he does best and making everyone around him better.
This is why it infuriated Pacers fans and basketball fans in general to watch Haliburton do nothing but stand around and watch another player set up the offense against Australia. Haliburton played a decent amount of minutes in his second game, getting 18 and even playing in crunch time, hitting two big three-pointers to keep the momentum with Team USA, essentially saving the game and making sure his performance was remembered afterward.
Haliburton hitting these shots was an absolute relief, because prior to this, he was basically nowhere to be found in Steve Kerr’s offense.
Steve Kerr is not letting Tyrese Haliburton set up the offense
After spending the entire first quarter of the Canada game letting Anthony Edwards initiate the offense and bring the ball up the court, Steve Kerr had not only learned nothing from his past mistake but made it worse by letting Jrue Holiday and Edwards bring up the ball and set the offense instead of Haliburton.
Yes, a primary defender and isolation scorer were allowed to call the shots for Team USA’s offense over the best playmaker in the league. Keep in mind that Team USA had 18 turnovers in this game and struggled with keeping the ball in their hands a lot of the time. For some reason, Steve Kerr decided against letting the offense be run by the man with the sixth-highest assist/turnover ratio in the league.
Sure, this style of iso-ball got Team USA past Australia and Canada, but these are just the Showcase games. Steve Kerr needs to change up the offense and let Haliburton take control whenever he is on the court, or better defenses will sniff out his game plan as Australia almost did.
Other, better defenses will not be as kind to Kerr’s offense and he will need to get more creative, even with his starters. Tyrese Haliburton and Devin Booker actually outplayed the starting backcourt of Stephen Curry and Edwards, which makes it the second game in a row where the bench backcourt outplayed the starters.
What makes this even more peculiar is that Kerr knows what Haliburton is capable of. It was only last year when Haliburton was saving Team USA in plenty of games in the 2023 FIBA World Cup after the Jalen Brunson-led starting offense stagnated and there was no playmaking to be found.
For this to be fresh in Kerr’s mind and for him to still use Haliburton as a spot-up shooter is very peculiar. Perhaps he should let assistant coach Erik Spolestra take over the offense, because he is not using the players to their full potential.
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