.avif){kind=logo}
“Welcome to the Mecca!” Tyrese Haliburton says, as he walks into the Indiana Pacers facility for his SLAM cover shoot. His dog Ames and wife Jade follow him onto the court, as he wears the same self-assured smile that was the bane of any New Yorker’s existence before the summer of 2026. I do what most Knicks loyalists would do when sizing up Hali ahead of the 2026-27 season: the Achilles, which shifted the balance of the 2025 NBA Finals, looks healed. The nearly 30 pounds the Olympic Gold medalist put on due to recovery and a battle with shingles are gone. The ultra-confident swagger and charismatic grin are back. And he makes sure to let my New York ass know it.
There are few places on the planet where you’ll see Hali more aplomb than the confines of a basketball court, but the road back to the doorstep of basketball nirvana is anything but a sure thing. And speaking of sure things, on the other side of the court is a guy who is almost certainly not as smooth with the roundball as Haliburton but has enough confidence to light up a downtown skyline.
He was born Matrick Belton and cut his teeth on the gridiron as a South Carolina Gamecock, but the world has come to know him affectionately as Trick Williams. Fresh off a plane from taping an episode of SmackDown in Ottawa, Trick places his trademark white mink coat on a chair while he gets jumpshots up before the cameras turn on. Can’t be cold when the lights are on.
The last time I saw both Trick and Tyrese was in the real Mecca, Madison Square Garden. Trick made his MSG debut defending his WWE United States Championship against the Laredo Kid, while Tyrese made his return to a building where his name lives in infamy, right on time to troll newly-crowned NBA Finals MVP and archrival/homie Jalen Brunson and to let the NBA and the sports world know one thing: He’s back.
“Anytime I get to do anything on WWE TV, it’s fun, but it’s, like, weird. Me and [Lil] Yachty talk about this all the time when you’re, like, a ‘celebrity,’ right? Like, half the fans are excited and half the fans are pissed that you’re there,” Haliburton says. “So you just try to show, like, I’m one of y’all! I’m a fan of the product. I didn’t just get brought here for celebrity involvement. It’s because I actually just love it. So when I go, I just try to be as organic and authentic as I can. And
WWE has done a great job of allowing me to do that.”
“I mean, my boy’s a natural. You can tell that he studies the product,” adds Trick. “He’s been watching for a very, very long time. Because when the lights are on, he doesn’t choke. You know what I’m saying?”
Trick’s been instrumental in Tyrese’s indoctrination to WWE television. Taking part in Hali’s earlier WWE appearances when Trick was a member of the company’s developmental product, NXT, the two struck up a friendship that has stayed consistent ever since and found them at Fanatics Fest together giving the fans a show re-enacting Trick’s iconic ring entrance. With Saturday Night’s Main Event taking place a few blocks away at MSG, the bug was officially placed in Trick’s ear, and those fortunate events led to the rare but cool moment where the real world of the NBA and the unreal world of sports entertainment collided for a pretty real moment.
“I just said like, Yo, if JB’s cool with it, then I’ll do it. But don’t just insert me for no reason,” Haliburton says of his infamous run-in on Brunson. “Like, if that’s what he wants to do, cool. [And] he was cool with it. Roman [Reigns] and Seth [Rollins] were cool with it because it kind of just added to their story as well. There are interesting parallels between their relationship and me and [Jalen Brunson]’s relationship, so that made it fun.”
There have been countless stories throughout the history of these pages about star players making their returns to the NBA, and while the physical recovery of an Achilles tear is hellish enough, the mental hurdle of recovering from an injury that took place during a Game 7 heater in the NBA Finals could send anybody into a dark headspace. While his Pacers tallied the second-worst record in the conference last season, Haliburton kept busy doing almost whatever WWE asked of him. Pundit, on-site correspondent or John Cena’s weapon holder, it could be argued that Hali’s love for WWE kept him in a good place.
“I think one of the things that we sort of connected on and bonded over was when he got injured. I immediately reached out because, look, I know exactly what that feels like,” says WWE Chief Content Officer and Hall of Famer Paul “Triple H” Levesque. No stranger to injuries, Triple H famously tore his quad while tag-teaming with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. The injury set off a nine-month recovery odyssey which culminated in a return at, you guessed it, Madison Square Garden.
“When you’re in the middle of something at the peak, [it] couldn’t be going any better and then pow, you’re down and you’re out,” Triple H continues. “You feel like you’re the only person that’s ever had this happen to them, and it’s the most devastating thing in the world. [But] when somebody else calls you and goes, Hey man, it’s gonna be OK, [it means a lot]. I felt that, and I hit him, because I liked him so much as a human being. I thought maybe it’d be one of those things where it goes to a pile of text messages that he’s gotten from other people and nothing, but I clearly could see that, OK, he’s engaging with me on this. And I started checking on him regularly, he started to respond to me regularly, and I think that kind of started a bit more of a bigger relationship between him and I. It’s hard, man. That’s a hard road. And what’s harder is the mental battle of, Can I be what I was? Can I be as good as I was?”
Whether Tyrese can be as good as he was leading into Game 7 of the NBA Finals is a question that will be answered in the coming months. Trick Williams, on the other hand, finds himself in the rarest of air as a relatively new talent drawing comparisons to all-time greats like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. If confidence or self-doubt are things that he’s struggled with, he sure has a hard time showing it.
“Yeah, I mean, that’s just crazy to me because The Rock is the one person who, when I decided I’m going to pursue wrestling, I would watch his promos,” Trick says. “I would watch and I would study. I was like, Man, if he can do it, I want to do it, and I want it to feel something like this. It has to have a certain type of feel to it where it’s cool, where [the] mainstream, artists, everybody around the world wants to be with us. It’s cool that [wrestling] is getting that crossover because that’s what The Rock was able to do. By all means that’s a compliment. But I still wanted to feel different…It’s 2026 now. So what The Rock did in ’98 was beautiful. It was amazing. But how can I take it up a notch? How can we make it go crazier? That’s what I’m thinking about now.”
I personally knew WWE was getting mainstream again when I didn’t necessarily have to explain what a “face” or a “heel” was anymore. For those uninitiated, the “face” is the good guy and the “heel” is the bad guy. Much like Trick Williams and The Rock before him, Tyrese has embraced the role of a heel, but kind of a lovable one. Players have made entire careers out of being hated on 33rd and 7th in Midtown Manhattan, but the Knicks ending their 53-year NBA title drought did a very funny thing. Haliburton’s success against New York and the chip coming in his recovery year insured his status as top heel in the territory where the reigning champs reside.
“I think everybody’s always, like—you can tell I’m a wrestling fan by the way I talk shit, the way I go on social media after games,” Hali says. “And if somebody said something in the past, I’d pull it up and all those things. So I feel like I definitely have a wrestling mindset with a lot of things. And I love the idea of storylines. There’s nothing like it in wrestling, as well as the NBA. Like, how can we push those to grow our game even more? So that makes it fun for me. And yeah, I see that for myself a little bit. I would love it if I could be even a little bit more arrogant, but sometimes [I’m] like, Let me fall back.”
If happiness is key to the mental health of a rehabilitating athlete, who’s to say how much the WWE contributed to the star guard’s recovery since it brought so much happiness?
“[Tyrese] called and was like, Hey, if you guys want me to do some stuff, man, I’d love to be involved [in SummerSlam ’25]. And then when I heard all this stuff our people had him doing, I was like, Holy shit, guys, he doesn’t work here,” says Triple H. “He’s one of the biggest stars in the NBA. Like, what are you doing? And he has a torn Achilles. He’s wheeling around, crutches and stuff. But all our media people were like, Well, should we not have him do it? Like, No, he asked to do this. He asked if he could do the pre-show and he asked if he could do this. I’m like, Oh, if he has...Then I went to him and was like, Hey, man, I’m sorry we have you running around like it’s your job. And he’s like, God, I’m loving this. This is a blast. He’s the greatest dude.”
Aside from being members of each other’s admiration societies, Trick and Tyrese have several ties that may not be as apparent to the naked eye. Both needed to leave their original landing spots in order to truly blossom. For Trick, his initial notoriety came as a slick-talking hype man in NXT for highly decorated champion—with indie credibility to boot—Carmelo Hayes. For Tyrese, it was as a member of the Sacramento Kings, where he shared backcourt duties with De’Aaron Fox before being shipped to Indiana in a trade that featured Domantas Sabonis.
“I got to just focus on what I’m supposed to focus on and not worry about anybody else’s success or anything like that. Every dog has his day,” Trick says. “So I’m not intimidated by anybody else doing their thing. I’m trying to get a little bit better for myself every day, and then one day [it] was about me and shoot…we was gone! But when I was a support [role], I’m trying to make sure they look as good as possible because by making them look good, I was looking good.” Hali agrees.
.avif)
“I’m a big believer in ‘good things happen to good people’ and ‘everything happens for a reason.’ So for me, getting drafted and getting traded—in the moment you might feel like, Damn, why is this happening to me? But it’s crazy, now I look back, like, that’s one of the most important things that ever happened in my life,” the two-time NBA All-Star says. “I learned so much. I got to grow as a human being, as a player, all those things. So, just waiting for your moment, I think that’s the biggest thing. Keeping your head down, keeping the main thing the main thing. I never worried about what was going on outside, what people had to say.”
Another tie that binds the two is that they both took this past summer to jump the broom. In addition to Tyrese and Jade getting married, Trick tied the knot with fellow WWE superstar Lash Legend (her real name is Anriel Howard and she was a First-Team All-SEC selection at Mississippi State before being drafted by the Seattle Storm in 2019). The renewed level of focus that comes with a new union is apparent in both young stars, as they embark on critical stops in their professional journeys. The Haliburtons enjoyed a performance by 50 Cent at their wedding, while Trick’s on-screen manager Lil Yachty attended the Belton function. The two came to a stalemate when asked who had the more lit wedding, but there is one thing Trick one-ups Haliburton on.
With Quavo and Tyler, The Creator sitting front row, Trick recaptured his United States Championship at Sunday Night’s Main Event. Haliburton is hoping his return in 2026-27 will have a similar happy ending, especially if it means going through his team’s rival and the defending champion New York Knicks. “I think all great athletes take a little bit of something to add to [their] motivation. Going into the playoffs, I didn’t know who was going to come out of the East, but it didn’t surprise me that it was the Knicks,” Tyrese says.
“So, it’s a mix of emotions. Because, like, yes, the Knicks are our rivals. And the Knicks and the Pacers, there’s a lot of bad blood in the organizations. I want to beat them every time. And I know how Knicks fans feel about me. But it’s interesting because those guys are—and I know old NBA fans might hear this and be like, You’re soft—but those dudes are like friends at the same time. To see Jalen [Brunson] and Josh [Hart] celebrate with their families, that was cool to see. Everybody who I was with at the time was like, Should we turn it off? You want to see this shit? And I was like, Nah, let me watch it. It’s cool for them to enjoy that and celebrate that. I’m happy for them. I congratulated them when I saw them. But yeah, of course, I’ll be ready when the time’s here. Everything is motivation, because ultimately, I want to get to the mountaintop.”
SHOP COLLECTION