Tyrese Haliburton says he wishes things were different with Damian Lillard, and that the door is still open to fix it.

That is the headline out of Indiana today, and it is a small one on the surface. A star point guard saying he regrets a celebration from three years ago doesn't move anything on the floor. But it is worth sitting with, because of what it says about Haliburton as he heads into a new season trying to prove his body and his game are both all the way back.

what actually happened between haliburton and lillard

The root of this goes back to November 2023, during the group stage of the league's first in-season tournament. Haliburton hit a big shot against the Bucks and, in the moment, pulled out Lillard's own signature celebration, the finger-to-the-wrist Dame Time pose, right in front of Lillard's bench. Lillard, by then a Buck himself after the offseason trade from Portland, did not take it well. The two had words. The clip went everywhere. And the relationship between a respected veteran and a rising star never really recovered.

That is the context for Haliburton's comments now. He is not pretending it didn't happen, and he is not spinning it as no big deal. He is saying, plainly, that he wishes it could be repaired. That is a different tone than athletes usually take with beef that gets this much oxygen. Most guys let it die quietly or lean into it for content. Haliburton is doing neither. He is naming it and asking for it back.

why this matters for the pacers right now

Haliburton spent a chunk of last season out of the lineup, working his way back from the injury that cost him real time, and this is a guy trying to re-establish himself as a leader and a face of a franchise that made a deep run not long ago. How he carries himself off the floor, including old beefs, is part of that rebuild in a way it might not be for a guy with nothing to prove.

For Lillard, now well into his time with Milwaukee, there is no real incentive to chase a public reconciliation. He has said his piece before. Whether he responds to Haliburton's comments at all will say something about where he actually stands on it.

Indiana opens its next game Saturday at home against Atlanta, and nothing about this storyline changes preparation for that one. This is a human story riding alongside the basketball one, not a locker room distraction. But it is a reminder that these guys remember everything, and sometimes the ones with the most to gain are the ones willing to say sorry first.

what comes next

The real test is whether Lillard says anything back, publicly or through the people around him. Until then, this stays a one-sided olive branch, which is its own kind of interesting in a league that rarely sees stars admit regret out loud.