INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) \u2014 Westfield grad and former Purdue basketball superstar Braden Smith made a special appearance Saturday at Tyrese Haliburton\u2019s annual kids basketball camp. <\/p>\n
Hundreds of young kids in grades 1 through 8 filled the gym. They rotated through stations designed to teach the fundamentals of the game, and Smith was right there alongside them, helping out throughout the afternoon.<\/p>\n
The newly drafted Pacer is fresh off a four-year career at Purdue, where he cemented his legacy as the NCAA\u2019s all-time assists leader. Now, as Smith prepares to suit up for his hometown team, Haliburton spoke about just how surreal this moment must feel for him. <\/p>\n
\u201cI keep telling him like bro, that\u2019s got to be a dream come true,\u201d Haliburton said. \u201cTo be an in-state kid, go to a state school, and then end up on the NBA team, that\u2019s so, so fire to me. That\u2019s what dreams are made of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith was sent to the Pacers from the Chicago Bulls as part of a draft-day trade. Indiana traded away Kam Jones, two future second-round pick swaps, and cash considerations in order to select Smith at No. 38 overall.<\/p>\n
Haliburton described how much he\u2019s looking forward to helping Smith get acclimated to the NBA level. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really cool, obviously, we play the same position, so we\u2019ll be spending a lot of time together with position groups and stuff like that,\u201d Haliburton said. \u201d I look forward to just helping him out as much as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haliburton also detailed what impresses him the most about Smith\u2019s game. <\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time I was a sophomore, I felt like I had perfected the pick and roll at the collegiate level,\u201d Haliburton said. \u201cIt didn\u2019t matter who was guarding me, going right, going left, whatever pass I needed to make, I could make. I felt that same way when I watched him [Smith] play. He can really make any read offensively. He\u2019s very talented in that regard, being a point guard and knowing how to play the right way. I think that will not be a problem for him in his NBA career. Looking forward to helping him as much as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith will compete for the first time in a Pacers uniform at the start of the NBA Summer League games, beginning on July 5th. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) \u2014 Westfield grad and former Purdue basketball superstar Braden Smith made a special appearance Saturday at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-732258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}