INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — While Pacers star guard Tyrese Haliburton was out for the entire season, he was still present, sitting on the bench at games, as well as attending practices and team meetings. “I try to be around as much as possible,” Haliburton said. “I just love being around th e game as much as I can, whether it’s practice, or the game, or team meetings, or whatever.” But it wasn’t always something that Haliburton wanted to do. Head coach Rick Carlisle encouraged him to. “I’m going to be honest here, a lot of it had to do with Rick (Carlisle),” Haliburton said. “I was like, ‘Man, these team meetings, do I have to be around? Can I just wait until you guys are in the gym for practice?’ And Rick was honestly on me a lot about being in meetings as much as I can, just my voice, being able to talk through things, so honestly having a veteran coach helped a lot, him saying that. And I didn’t really understand early in the year, honestly. I’m like, ‘I’m out for the year, why do I have to sit in a team meeting on certain things? We have film on a team we play in game two and game 80. Why do I have to sit in this?’ But I think Rick made a great point to me, ‘There’s always something you can learn.’ And using my voice the right way. There’s something I can say in film that a young guy might not know, so honestly it’s a big shoutout to Rick, and Jenny (Boucek), and LP (Lloyd Pierce), and all the coaching staff, Jim (Boylen), for being on me about it and then it just became second nature to be around for everything. I tried to be at as many games as I could and as many practices as I could, and honestly I think that helped me in a lot of different ways. I hope even if I said one thing that helped a young guy, I’m grateful for that as well.” The Pacers saw many younger players take on larger roles, such as Jarace Walker and Johnny Furphy, before Furphy suffered a season-ending injury. Walker nearly doubled his points per game, and started 36 more games than he did last season. Furphy started 21 games this season after not starting any in his rookie year, and he scored three more points per game in his sophomore season. The Pacers finished the year 19-63 and are tied for the best lottery odds for the NBA Draft. ...read more read less