Is the NBA still looking for the next league appearance? But they already have the perfect villain - Halliburton

Translator's note: This article was originally published from CBS, and the author is Sam Quinn. The data in the article are as of the original article as of May 22 local time (local time). The views in the article have nothing to do with the translator and the platform.

One of the mainstream stories of the NBA in the 2024-25 season is that the league is looking for a new league appearance in open and secretly. As LeBron James and Stephen Curry's careers enter dusk, from Jordan to Magic and Bird, to James, the NBA's "league protagonist" tradition continues is facing a crisis of interruption. The NBA is always accustomed to building a narrative framework through a default protagonist. The high standards set by these predecessors are almost unattainable for any active player. This invisible throne carries too many unattainable standards.

Each candidate has its own shortcomings. Is Jason Tatum's style of play gorgeous enough? Will Minnesota's cold freeze Anthony Edwards' starlight? Victor Vinban Yama has not yet experienced the tempering of the playoff furnace. All potential successors are trapped in their respective Achilles heels. So James, who is over 40 years old, is still forced to wear the crown of thorns, while the NBA is still waiting for its new king.

But here I want to say something that is not a derogatory statement: the league has found a perfect villain - Pacers star Halliburton. On the surface, he has nothing to be offensive: there are no controversial events off the court, and the style of the game is not dirty. However, when the spotlight lit up, the magician with a retro beard instantly transformed into Loki on the basketball court, tearing the opponent's dignity in a unique way that combines wisdom and desire to perform. He is a perfect fusion of basketball IQ and performance talent. He can not only use a scalpel to break down the defense system, but also use a three-pointer to retreat from 30 feet (about 9.14 meters) away to give his opponent a fatal blow. When the outcome is set, this young man, who always has a sly smile, will never be stingy with his celebratory dance steps.

Even if he hasn't played a playoff game, he dared to make the iconic "Lillard Moment" gesture in front of future Hall of Famer Damian Lillard. So when he replicated Reggie Miller's throat lock gesture in Madison Square Garden in advance last Wednesday, we should have been accustomed to it - this is the epitome of the Halliburton-style experience: he couldn't wait to continue stabbing the wound. After the first game, he expressed a little regret for his actions, but not because he was disrespectful to the Knicks, but because he was worried that he "may have used this gesture to a goal that tied the score, not a winning goal." We may be in the most harmonious era in NBA history: today's players grow together on the AAU (American Amateur Sports Federation) tour, often gathering in a few colleges when recruited by colleges, and these close ties continue to their NBA careers. This makes the NBA's hostile confrontation increasingly rare, and also makes the sport lose a lot of human drama tension.

Perhaps this is why Halliburton has become such an interesting opposition. Great villains are often accompanied by misunderstandings – think of Draymond Green, the second-round pick who built a Hall of Fame-level career with single-digit average scores while constantly mocking his opponents on the court. When a player acts in an unusual way and develops a dramatic style even though he is an ordinary person, he always creates a special attraction.

Halliburton was a neglected three-star rookie who was traded after his old club chose to leave another point guard, Fox. Even after being selected for Team America last summer—one of the highest honors in basketball—he was ridiculed for having very little playing time. If he was unwilling to accept it, it would be completely understood: since no one put him in the spotlight, he broke in by himself. It may be unfair to consider The Athletic's Player of the Year vote entirely as a "villain origin story" because Halliburton's career has been on this path, but this vote just confirms everything we are discussing. In April this year, he was selected as the league's "most overrated player" in a sample survey involving 90 NBA players. This seemed ridiculous at the time - he played almost with an injury (hamstring injury) for a whole season, had led the team to the division finals (active MVP winner Joel Embiid never did it) and was about to be selected for the All-Squad for the second time.

But Halliburton's value is presented in a completely unconventional way - he is not a traditional "scoring machine", not the standard star point guard who dribbles over the defender every night and hits a high-difficulty mid-range jumper to score 25 to 30 points. This is very different from our perception of the protagonists in NBA history. Being able to remain the best player on the court with just five points is a trait that is closer to Draymond than LeBron - perhaps that's why many players dismiss him and also makes his presence so interesting.

Anyone can score a difficult goal, but Halliburton's performance at the end of the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals on Wednesday was more impressive and obviously more unique because of the thinking process behind it.

When there are 3 seconds left in the game, the team is 2 points behind, and the players hold the ball in the penalty area, almost all other superstars will try to make a forced layup. In fact, they are blindly rushing to the basket for fouls - this is a chaotic situation that often occurs in the last moments of the game. These moments are full of embarrassment and despair, and players often cannot think rationally.

And Halliburton's special feature is that he always keeps a clear mind: never panic, always full of confidence in himself, never make wrong decisions. How many players can realize that Mitchell Robinson is guarding the penalty area in less than 3 seconds, understand that a clean end cannot be completed under the basket, and then choose to retreat to the outside to try a possible winning goal instead of a seemingly "more secure" tie-up shot? Halliburton did it, and that was exactly what was special about this offense—when everyone else was panicking, he was calm, calm, calm, ready to score the most important goal of the game, and later reminded you: it was because you needed a "suffocating" defensive mistake that gave him such an opportunity.

When these players don't play for the team you support, they will drive you crazy-they can do what your beloved players can't do and never forget to remind you of this. And in the end, it was these players who made #thisleague (note: the official hashtag of the NBA) such a fascinating world.

NBA is like a TV series—and whenever we admit that the league is looking for a new protagonist, it has already defaulted on this. But a TV series has much more than just the protagonist, it needs a full ecosystem full of engaging characters. Halliburton became such a role: an eternal "counterattacker", crushing his victory again and again on the faces of those more popular peers. Antetokounmpo is a candidate for the league's storefront, Donovan Mitchell plays like a traditional superstar, and Madison Square Garden is the stage where these stars are often crowned - but Halliburton tore their hearts one after another and stomped them under his feet.

Perhaps this is exactly what the league really needs in the future: we can't expect another player like James or Jordan to appear, and whenever we think we might find a player like this, we always find new reasons to deny them. The myth of fan culture requires perfect heroes, which instead makes flawed villains more attractive. Halliburton’s style of play is different from his competitors and his style of acting is unique, but he can still beat them and laugh out loud when he wins – in the process he is constantly becoming an increasingly memorable character in the soap opera called “Professional Basketball.”