Tyrese Haliburton receives one first-place vote for NBA All-Defensive team

Haliburton averaged 1.6 steals per game

The NBA announced its All-Defensive teams on Tuesday, and unsurprisingly, no Indiana Pacers players were on either team.

The Pacers finished 26th in defensive rating this season, and the entire franchise knows that defensive improvement is vital this summer. They won't reach their goals in 2023-24 if they can't get stops.

Despite the Pacers not defending well this season or having a player on an All-Defensive team, they were still represented on the All-Defensive team voting. And it wasn't by their best defensive player, Myles Turner, who has gotten Defensive Player of the Year votes in the past.

Instead, it was All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton who was praised. One voter gave Haliburton a vote for first-team All-Defense as a guard, and it was Haliburton's only vote. No other Pacer received any recognition.

Haliburton does have good pattern recognition, and his team defense is solid. He finished 14th in the NBA in steal rate, and his 1.6 steals per game number would have been in the top-10 if he qualified for the league leaderboards. There are some things Haliburton does well on the less glamorous end of the floor.

But his on ball defense needs work, and he needs to get stronger. If all goes well, Haliburton could be one of the premier defensive guards in the league, but he isn't quite at that level yet. The Pacers had a 119.8 defensive rating with Haliburton on the court this season, per pbpstats, and that is an atrocious number.

While the 23-year old finished 15th among guards in All-Defense voting, one voter believes that Haliburton should have made the first team.

Haliburton responded to the vote on Twitter earlier today.

https://t.co/SnBSOEhx53 pic.twitter.com/3KnaYH7wph

— Tyrese Haliburton (@TyHaliburton22) May 9, 2023

This vote may age well, and the voter will soon be made public by the league. For now, though, it is a bit surprising given where Indiana and Haliburton graded out defensively this past season.

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