You’re reading The Sporting Scene , Louisa Thomas’s weekly look at the world of sports.

The 2025-26 season began, more or less, a few minutes into the last game of the 2024-25 season, during Game Seven of the N.B.A. Finals, when Tyrese Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers star, stood above the arc with the ball, planted his right foot as he began to drive, and then sprawled to the ground. As the Oklahoma City Thunder scooped up the ball and raced past Haliburton, who lay face down, he pounded the ground. Haliburton, already dealing with a calf strain, had torn his Achilles tendon. Without him, the Pacers didn’t stand a chance. The game—and the season—was effectively over.

At the time he was injured, in June, Haliburton was playing in his ninety-sixth game since the season began. After the in

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