Inside Tyrese Haliburton's incredible superstar ascension with Indiana Pacers - ESPN

TO MOST NBA fans, casual or avid, Tyrese Haliburton's superstar leap has taken place over the past few weeks.

There was the homage to Reggie Miller at Madison Square Garden in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. The almost statistically perfect 32-point, 15-assist, 12-rebound, five-steal, zero-turnover game in Game 4 against the Knicks. And then, of course, the shot he hit with 0.3 seconds remaining in Game 1 of the NBA Finals to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 111-110, which silenced the loudest fan base in the league Thursday night at the Paycom Center.

Afterward, Haliburton charmed in his postgame interviews, as only a certain caliber of superstars can, joking with ESPN's Scott Van Pelt that «we were late to the party, too» when the host admitted he didn't see the potential of this Indiana Pacers team early in the season at Christmas when they were under .500.

He even brought his first signature Puma shoe — released earlier in the day — to the podium with him and joked about how the kicks were the «secret sauce» to his penchant for hitting big shots at such a high rate.

This season he has hit an astounding 13-for-15 game-tying or game-winning shots in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime — the best field goal percentage in a single season since play-by-play was first tracked in 1996-97, per ESPN Research.

But to those who know Haliburton best, this superstar leap has been years in the making. And it started inauspiciously, on a random Saturday in late January in Philadelphia.

HALIBURTON DIDN'T KNOW it at the time, but he was in his final weeks with the Sacramento Kings.

What he did know was that there was something missing from his game. Or maybe a lot of things. Because he was averaging only