Tyrese Haliburton has already spent this season away from the floor while recovering from the torn right Achilles he suffered in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals.
Now, the Indiana Pacers star has revealed just how miserable his separate battle with shingles has been, describing it as another painful chapter in an already difficult year. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said in February that Haliburton would be away from the team for two to three weeks because of the condition, calling it “a very painful thing.”
Speaking recently about the recovery, Haliburton said:
“It has been so awful. And you can see I’m kind of missing, like, part of my eyebrow now. So, it’s, it has been, it’s been no fun. I thought that was a style choice,” said Haliburton.
“It has been so awful.”
Tyrese Haliburton recounts how tough it was to recover from shingles. pic.twitter.com/BZa1hEaUXS
— NBA on Prime (@NBAonPrime) March 28, 2026
The timing only adds to the sense of misfortune surrounding Haliburton’s season. He had already been ruled out as he rehabbed the Achilles injury suffered in the Finals, and the shingles diagnosis became an unexpected complication on top of that.
Athletes often discuss recovery in broad, polished terms. Haliburton instead described the small but vivid details of what this has actually felt like, right down to losing part of an eyebrow. For the Pacers, the larger concern remains Haliburton’s long-term return to full strength after a season derailed first by the Achilles tear and then interrupted again by shingles. For Haliburton, though, the immediate message was simpler: this part of the road has been miserable. And in a season already defined by rehab, that honesty may have said more than any timetable could.
