Haliburton's return puts his $48.9M salary back on the floor, one game in
Tyrese Haliburton played 34 minutes in New Orleans on Wednesday night, and the Indiana Pacers left with a 123-120 win over the Pelicans in their season opener. It was his first regular-season game since he tore his right Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals on June 22, 2025, a gap the AP put at 16 months.
He finished with 23 points, 12 assists and two rebounds, USA Today reported. Asked in the postgame interview at the Smoothie King Center how much fun he was having, he could not hold back tears: "I'm just really thankful to be back out here."
The win was not his alone. Indiana trailed 92-86 entering the fourth quarter, according to the AP, and Pascal Siakam scored 12 of his 30 points in that quarter. The Athletic described Haliburton as looking like his old self, adding some flair in the fourth.
His own read was measured. "We have a lot to improve on and Pacers basketball is coming along," he said, per USA Today. "I'm really proud of this group."
The money side starts with the salary: Haliburton is paid $48.9M this season, 20th of the 304 rated players by salary, a place he shares with two others. Nothing in the reporting covers his contract beyond this season's figure, so what follows reads only what that one salary bought on one night.
What it bought ranked 7th in production among those players, and his production was 40% of the Pacers' total, per WAGE. That share stands out on a night when Siakam led the scoring. His 12 assists suggest an offense that ran heavily through him, though one game is a thin base for reading a role.
His WAGE Score after one game is 60, which puts him in the Going Rate tier: slightly better value than a salary like his has usually bought. This early the scores cluster near the middle and move quickly, so the number describes Wednesday and little else.
The cost line is where the size of the salary shows: per unit of production, Haliburton ranked 111th cheapest of the 128 rated players whose production was above zero. Near-top output still reads as expensive when the bill is this large.
A salary this size pays off through volume, and volume means games and minutes. The reporting does not say whether Haliburton played under a minutes limit or any other return-to-play plan; what it shows is 34 minutes in his first game back, and that input sits underneath every other number here.
His history gives context, not a forecast. His career WAGE Score is 84 since 2020-21: earlier salaries returned well above the going rate. Those figures were earned on those seasons' pay and describe what past money bought, not a target for this one.
I'd argue the opener's money story is availability, not form. The box score and The Athletic's description point to a familiar player; how this salary reads by the end of 2026-27 depends on how many nights look like Wednesday, and one game cannot answer that.