Cooper Flagg And Walter Clayton Jr. Think Tyrese Haliburton Is The Most Underrated Player In The NBA

Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 pick favorite, and Walter Clayton Jr, the national champion, have the same opinion about Tyrese Haliburton.

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Tyrese Haliburton has led the Indiana Pacers to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second year in a row. At the beginning of the Playoffs, an anonymous NBA player survey by The Athletic showed that Tyrese Haliburton got the highest votes for being the most overrated player in the NBA

Now, weeks after this media narrative, the No. 1 pick frontrunner Cooper Flagg and NCAA champion Walter Clayton Jr. both seem to disagree with those NBA players. And rather, they believe the polar opposite of that, Haliburton, is the most underrated player in the NBA.

When asked who he feels is the most underrated player in the NBA, Flagg said, “I would say Tyrese Haliburton, because people hate him and call him overrated all the time and say he’s not that good. But he’s such a good basketball player.”

“Everybody call him overrated, I say Hali(burton)”, said Clayton Jr. when he was asked the same question. The new generation seems to believe Haliburton does not get his flowers.


Is Tyrese Haliburton Underrated?

While Tyrese Haliburton gets the individual recognition, his impact on the league is downplayed simply because he does not play for a big-market team. Rather, he plays for a team that has never won an NBA championship since the 1976 merger, the Pacers. Therefore, it may seem that he is not as popular as he deserves to be.

When the Pacers traded Domantas Sabonis for Haliburton, NBA fans did not realize that the franchise had found a new face. Moreover, that trade likely helped him build a chip on his shoulder and use it to fuel his leap to an All-Star caliber player. In my opinion, Tyrese Haliburton is still one of the most underrated players in the league right now.


Cooper Flagg And Walter Clayton Jr.’s Future In The NBA Draft

Cooper Flagg was all over the news after the Dallas Mavericks secured the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft Lottery yesterday with a 1.8% chance to do so. He is likely the lock pick for the No. 1 position in the Draft unless Nico Harrison and the Mavericks decide to invest in Dylan Harper or Ace Bailey instead (unlikely but the only other possibility beyond drafting Flagg). Flagg is head and shoulders above all the other prospects in this draft class.

Walter Clayton Jr, coming off a national championship run with the Gators, also declared for the draft this season. He was arguably the best player on the Gators’ roster and led them to the March Madness Final. While he struggled in most of the Final, he showed up in the clutch moment to help Florida steal the game from Houston in the final moments of the game. 

While most sources project he would be a first-round pick in the draft, some even go as far as to say he will be a lottery pick. In my opinion, he is a first-round pick for sure, but there are several better players in the draft class. Therefore, it seems a bit too far-fetched to conclude that he is a definite lottery pick.

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Chaitanya Dadhwal is an NBA Analyst and Columnist at Fadeaway World from New Delhi, India. He fell in love with basketball in 2018 after seeing James Harden in his prime. He joined the sports journalism world in 2021, one year before finishing his law school in 2022. He attended Jindal Global Law School in Sonipat, India, where his favorite subject was also Sports Law.He transitioned from law to journalism after realizing his true passion for sports and basketball in particular. Even though his journalism is driven by his desire to understand both sides of an argument and give a neutral perspective, he openly admits he is biased towards the Houston Rockets and Arsenal. But that intersection of in-depth analysis and passion helps him simplify the fine print and complex language for his readers.His goal in life is to open his own sports management agency one day and represent athletes. He wants to ensure he can help bridge the gap in equal opportunity for athletes across various sports and different genders playing the same sport.
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