How video games have helped the Pacers Tyrese Haliburton become an NBA All-Star. (Really.)

INDIANAPOLIS -- When Iowa State was recruiting Tyrese Haliburton, one of the ways they got a sense for the point's basketball IQ was by watching him play basketball video games.

That was one of then-assistant Neill Berry's lasting impressions from Haliburton's in-home visit in the fall of 2017. Berry realized as Haliburton was talking about moves, plays and reads while playing an NBA 2K game that video games weren't just a means of entertainment or escape. Haliburton was taking concepts and ideas from the game to the floor and vice versa.

"We’d go over his house and play video games and we’d watch him play video games and just the way he’d talk about all of it, you could tell he has an understanding of a lot of different things," Berry said. "He was very engaged in stuff with a video game not just playing the game. He was in tune with different things. He just has a deeper level of understanding that 16- and 17-year-old kids normally don’t have."

Bryan Johnikin, Haliburton's trainer throughout high school and grassroots coach with Wisconsin United, noticed the same thing. Haliburton could play a video game and pick up on players' and teams' tendencies with a way to visualize how a play should work.

Even now, Johnikin said, he can learn about players and teams based on how they operate on NBA 2K.

More: How Tyrese Haliburton went from an overlooked recruit to the Pacers' great connector

"That’s how he learned how they play," Johnikin said. "He’ll tell you he learns everything by those video games, all their tendencies, because the video games are so real. I don’t play video games, but I sit and watch them play and I’m like, 'Damn they do the same (stuff).' They set it like they set it to play the exact way they play. He pays attention to a lot of little detail stuff that I know makes you become great."

Haliburton has been a gamer for most of his life and he admittedly used to take it way too seriously and not take it well when he lost games. His dad had to convince him that the re-set button was his friend.

"I walked up to him and I said, 'Now listen,'" John Haliburton said, "'Dad's gonna teach you something you'll never forget as long as you live. It's a very simple solution, how you become great on this video game.' I said, 'Watch this. When you're losing, click, you cut it off. You start over again, son.'"

Soon after, though, John noticed that Tyrese was getting less upset and was finding a more practical use for the game. He could create players and do skill work with them, and then he could go out to the basketball courts nearby and match what they were doing.

"You didn't have to take him in the gym and say, 'OK, I'll teach you how to do it like this.'" John said. "Uh-uh. That kid got in those video games. He made his man. He got his man to do that. Then he went outside and then he did that. Then he came back in and he made his man do it and he went outside. There was nothing that kid could not put together."

The video games opened up a world for Haliburton that helped him study the game in its entirety from X's and O's to its history as it would allow him to use great players and teams from years gone by.

"Video games have helped teach me the history of the game," Haliburton said. "I like to think that I'm a basketball historian in a lot of things. I learn a lot of facts about basketball through the game, through stats being in the game, knowing who won the championship. I can probably name you every champion for the last 30 or 40 years. I think the video games have taught me a ton."

And even now that he's in the NBA himself, an All-Star with a max contract set to kick in next season and the weight of the Pacers' franchise on his shoulder, he can still find things he can use and experiment with through video games. He directly credits video games for helping him read other team's plays, which explains why he finished among the league leaders in steals last season.

"There's things you can implement, especially nowadays," Haliburton said. "They got full plays in there and stuff like that. You can just see how other people play the game. There're certain principles; I really think defensive anticipation, I think I'm really good in the passing lanes. That's something I take from the video game. I feel like I'm a good off-ball defender in the video games and I can put that in the real world."

Of course, now that he's an All-Star he also has All-Star friends who also happen to be gamers. He can play online against other real-life star players who bring their real-life knowledge into games and Haliburton can pick things up that way.

"You can play online with five people," Haliburton said. "Sometimes I'll play with PG (Paul George). When I was at Sacramento, I used to play with (De'Aaron) Fox all the time. When you're playing with real basketball heads, sometimes you can implement that in the game and it works. It's like real hoop sometimes."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers Tyrese Haliburton uses video games to improve his on-court skills