John Haliburton does not talk about raising an NBA star as if it were a development plan. In his telling, it was a daily commitment built on presence, belief and a refusal to let his son treat a dream as temporary. That foundation, he said in a recent conversation with Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson, started long before Tyrese Haliburton became an All-Star and one of the league’s most productive point guards.
John traced his own competitive beginnings to the neighborhood, where basketball was only one part of a multi-sport upbringing. He said he was more of a track and football athlete early on, and that his comfort with hoops came later, after learning to handle the ball and trusting the skills that always translated: scoring, rebounding and effort. Just as important, he said, was growing up without his father fully present. That absence, he said, made his own parenting mission clear: he would be there “110%” for his children.
That philosophy carried into Tyrese’s childhood. John recalled giving his son a regulation girls’ basketball when he was coaching a middle school team and encouraging him to play anything that interested him, from football to track to basketball. He never pushed a backup plan. Instead, he focused on validation. When Tyrese said he wanted to be an NBA player, John bought him a shirt that read “NBA Player” and treated the goal like a real destination, not a fantasy. “If you have a dream and you put the work in,” he said, the only thing that can stop it is the player himself.
John also framed Tyrese’s personality as a reflection of home. The smile fans see during games, he said, was not something he coached into his son so much as something Tyrese absorbed from his environment. John described himself as someone who played with joy, and he said he warned Tyrese that the day the smile disappeared would be the day the game stopped being love and started becoming work. That approach, paired with constant emphasis on faith, helped shape a guard whose game has steadily climbed from a 13.0-point rookie season to a 20.1-point, 10.9-assist campaign in 2023-24, followed by 18.6 points and 9.2 assists in 2024-25.
The interview also showed how fatherhood has expanded beyond the family circle. John spoke about a broader “fatherhood circle” of NBA dads, including relationships with the families around the Pacers, and said those connections matter because they understand the pressure that comes with watching a son perform on the sport’s biggest stages. He described his role as protector first, adviser second, and son’s father forever.
That held true through the emotional swings of the past year, from intense playoff scrutiny to the pain of watching Tyrese suffer a major injury on the game’s biggest stage. John said the basketball part ended the moment his son went down. What mattered then was family, healing and faith. Through every high and low, his answer has stayed the same: the Haliburton legacy is not just about basketball. It is about care, community and a father who believed in his son before the league did.
