The strongest killer? Why did the king give up Halliburton?

We put the time back to the eve of the 2022 trading deadline, and the King made a choice that shocked the outside world to trade Halliburton to the Pacers, the main core of this deal is star center Sabonis Jr.

At the time, the Kings were facing the embarrassing record of missing the playoffs in the NBA, and the team owner Ranadiff was always skeptical about the model surrounding Halliburton and Fox's double backcourt reconstruction.

The Kings were crowded with rotations in the backcourt, with several potential newcomers including Fox, Halliburton, David Mitchell, etc., and Holmes was basically the only one who could be the center in the team. At that time, Fox had just signed a five-year, 163 million contract extension, and Halliburton was in the second year of the rookie contract, which also made him the Kings the most valuable trading chip at the time.

From the short-term goal, this deal is successful for the king. When he won 48 wins in the season, he returned to the playoffs after 16 years, and set the highest offensive efficiency in NBA history. But for comparison, the Pacers broke this record the next year under Halliburton and eventually advanced all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. After the

trade, Sa Sa was selected as the All-Star and gradually became the core of the Kings offensive system. He created three-point opportunities through a large number of dribble players passing the ball, keeping the overall rhythm and offensive smooth. Then in the first round of the 2023 playoffs, the Kings lost to the Warriors in seven games, and then lost in the playoffs for two consecutive years and never returned to the playoffs.

As for Halliburton, who was traded to the Pacers, he successfully released his potential after obtaining unlimited space, becoming the most outstanding defender offensive engine in the NBA at the moment. The Kings will send Fox to the Spurs before the 2025 trade deadline. In addition, David Mitchell, who was abandoned early, was originally holding many young backcourts, but now it continues to strengthen the back line position, which is inevitable that it will be ironic.

At the same time, the Pacers were only two games away from their first finals journey in 25 years. Halliburton scored 31 points and 11 assists in the first game against the Knicks, leading the team to complete a dramatic reversal 138-135 in overtime; and scored 14 points and 11 assists in the second game, helping the team suppress the Knicks and win two consecutive victories.

For the two teams with deep connections, they are now facing completely different situations. It makes people think back to whether Halliburton and Fox could coexist at that time? In a way, this is completely possible. Below, let’s look back and forth at the reasons why the Kings split this backcourt core and the subsequent development of the situation.

On the 2020 NBA Draft night, Halliburton accidentally dropped to the 12th pick and was selected by the Kings. And in the weeks leading up to the draft, most mock drafts predicted that he would be selected in the top 10 picks. Although the Kings had already had the main controller Fox in the Kings at that time, and the team had obvious demand for reinforcement in the forward and center positions, they still chose players in the backcourt position.

In the first month of the rookie season, Halliburton quickly showed his potential as the best player in the draft. In the sixth game of his career, Halliburton played 35 minutes from the bench and scored 15 of 17 points in the fourth quarter, helping the team defeat the Bulls 128-124.

Although it was just a regular season game, that game was the first time that the outside world saw Halliburton's dominant potential in the game. The key reason why he got more playing time on the spot was that Fox was injured and left the game in the first quarter. Halliburton only started 20 games for the Kings in the rookie season. When he comes on as a substitute, the Kings will choose to arrange for him and Fox to play in rotation, and the two rarely appear at the same time. In the second year, the Kings put Halliburton into the starting lineup and partnered with Fox to play at the same time, but after 51 games, the team chose to trade him out.

In the Kings' final game, Halliburton sent 17 assists to lead the team to defeat the Thunder. In the fourth game before that, he scored a career-high 38 points when Fox was out of the game due to injury. Later, according to media reports, a few weeks before the transaction deadline, the Kings originally planned to build a team around Fox and Halliburton, but in the end this blueprint plan was not fully realized.

As for why the double backcourt combination of Fox and Halliburton failed to succeed?

In the 2020-21 season, Halliburton and Fox played in the same game for a total of 960 minutes, which was the ninth-ranked duo in the Kings' playing time that season. However, the net score of the backcourt partners was only -4.7, ranking second to last among all duoes that had been paired for at least 500 minutes. The situation is even worse next season, with a net win of -5.3 in 853 minutes of joint playing time. The key reason for this group of partners is that the two play styles are too overlapping, and they both need to hold the ball to launch an offense when they are on the court. Fox is a very high-usage guard, good at mid-range shooting and breakthroughs; Halliburton is an offensive engine that can stand on his own.

Compared with Halliburton, Fox has stronger scoring firepower and more comprehensive offensive methods. He averaged more than 20 points in 6 seasons in his eight career seasons; Halliburton is a floor-type point guard who mainly focuses on transmission, and won the assists champion in the season with 10.9 assists in the 2023-24 season.

The King finally chose to trade Halliburton for Sabonis Jr., and rebuild it all around the combination of Fox and Sabonis. At that time, the Kings were eager to end the playoff drought in team history, and they firmly believed that Sa was the key puzzle player missing in the team..

As for the Pacers, they hope to use the introduction of a young talent to restart the reconstruction process. The deal also attracted a lot of criticism at the time. Many fans believed that using the All-Star main force to trade young defenders who had not yet proved theirs. This choice was quite risky, but fortunately, the Pacers not only stopped there, but later adopted a series of operational reinforcements, gradually transforming from a lottery team into a division powerhouse.

Whether for the Pacers or the Kings, Halliburton's ability to grow to this level is completely beyond the level of expectations for the draft. After coming to the Pacers, his atypical projection shortcomings gradually began to increase the number of shots, and at the same time maintained a qualified hit rate of 38.6%. At the same time, more offensive means have been developed to increase his influence in the game, and these are the only ways for superstars to transform their talents.