Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton will miss time with a strained left hamstring, just four games into his return from a major injury that wiped out all of last season.
Sources told ESPN on Wednesday that the 26-year-old guard sustained the strain and that team doctors and Haliburton himself are still working to establish a clear recovery timeline. No firm return date has been set.
Coach Rick Carlisle said on 107.5 The Fan in Indianapolis that Haliburton was scheduled to meet at 4:15 p.m. with a hamstring expert, Pacers doctors and team executives.
“We’ll hope this hamstring thing is not a big deal or not any kind of a long-term thing. But as I said, we’ll know more about that later this evening,” Carlisle said.
Haliburton had been productive in his early-season comeback. Through four games he averaged 21.8 points, 9.5 assists and 4.5 rebounds while shooting 51.6 percent from the field in 33 minutes per game.
He played both ends of a back-to-back Sunday and Monday before the injury surfaced. After the Monday loss in Milwaukee he said he felt “a little beat up.”
The setback comes after Haliburton missed the entire 2025-26 season recovering from a torn right Achilles tendon suffered in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals. That absence stretched roughly 16 months.
Without him last season the Pacers finished 19-63, the worst record in franchise history.
Indiana opened 2026-27 at 2-2 and faces a home game Wednesday night against the Philadelphia 76ers. Haliburton will not play.
Other Pacers are already sidelined. Center Ivica Zubac is out with a left ankle sprain, and guard T.J. McConnell has yet to appear this season because of a right hamstring strain. Guard Andrew Nembhard has been dealing with neck soreness.
The team’s upcoming schedule includes road games against the Miami Heat and home dates with the Brooklyn Nets and Atlanta Hawks in the next week.
Hamstring strains in the NBA have typically cost players about 12 days, or roughly five games, according to longtime injury tracker Jeff Stotts. Grade 1 strains average about 12.4 days. Recent seasons have seen some nondescript strains keep players out closer to 22 days.
A multi-year study of NBA hamstring injuries found players missed an average of 5.5 games, with higher reinjury risk in the months after return.
Guards have historically accounted for the largest share of these injuries. Most occur without contact during plant or jump movements.
Haliburton’s early numbers this season showed no obvious drop-off from his All-Star form, but the combination of the Achilles recovery and a new soft-tissue issue on the opposite leg raises questions about workload management.
The Pacers entered the season expecting Haliburton to help them push back toward contention after the franchise-low finish. That plan now depends on how quickly the current strain resolves.
Further evaluation after Wednesday’s meeting should clarify whether the absence is measured in days or weeks.
