Puma Hali 1 Pace Brings Pacers Yellow and Blue October 23

The Puma Hali 1 Pace goes on sale October 23, 2026, the same night the Indiana Pacers open their home schedule against the Dallas Mavericks at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Tyrese Haliburton has not played an NBA game since tearing his right Achilles in Game 7 of the 2025 Finals, and the home opener will be his first game in Indiana in 16 months. Puma spent that gap selling his name without a box score, the Hali hats that reached retail in July while he rehabbed among the products, and Pace is the first Hali 1 release dated to a night he is scheduled to play.

Sport Yellow covers nearly the whole upper. Elektro Blue sits on the tongue tab, heel patch and insole, where his Hali mark goes, and the Puma Big Cat on the lateral ankle is muted in the same yellow. Salehe Bembury's fingerprint texture runs the midsole edge to edge, under style 314239 01.

Puma Pinned the Drop to a Home Opener the NBA Left Off National TV

Indiana opens the season on October 21 at New Orleans, then hosts Dallas on October 23, and neither game was picked up by national television. Haliburton said on the Numbers on the Board podcast, as reported by ESPN in August 2026, "Name any other person that you compare to my level of a basketball player, wherever you have me ranked, if they tore their Achilles and missed 16 months, do you think that [first game back] would be on national TV?"

Puma answered the schedule with a product date. Its release copy, quoted by Bleacher Report on September 22, 2026, says the Hali 1 Pace "marks Tyrese Haliburton's return to the game with 0 DOUBT." The shoe sells through PUMA.com, the PUMA app, Puma stores, Champs Sports and Foot Locker in unisex sizing at $130.

His own health read came on August 12, 2026, to WRTV: "If the season was today, I'd be ready." He said game shape would come with the preseason.

Opal, Smoke, Halucinating, Then Pace, All at One Price

Opal arrived September 26, 2025 at $130 for adults and $110 for big kids, after a one day Hali Mart pop up in Indianapolis on September 25 moved the first 317 pairs, a nod to the city's area code. Smoke followed on January 30, 2026 in a gray finish, and Halucinating, style 313454 01, released March 20, 2026 in orange, green and teal. All three carried the $130 list price Pace carries, and all three shipped while Haliburton was out.

The pink Hibiscus never fit that pattern. Puma unveiled it on the morning of Game 1 of the 2025 Finals, Haliburton wore it that night and hit the game winner in Oklahoma City, then brought the pair to the podium. He told The Athletic the color came from fourth grade, when "my first pair of real basketball shoes, my first organized pair, was a pair of pink basketball shoes."

Puma is not alone in pricing a guard's signature at that number this fall. The New Balance Maxey V1, the other Tyrese's first signature shoe, went on sale October 2, 2026 at $130, and LaMelo Ball's MB.06 Shooting Star landed September 25 at the same price. Three guard signatures, one price, four weeks.

Salehe Bembury Wanted Intentional Color, Not a Rainbow

Bembury joined Puma in July 2024 as its lead basketball designer, and the Hali 1 is his first signature shoe for an NBA player. He told Sports Illustrated's Pat Benson in September 2025, "there's nothing wrong with being polarizing, but we have to be intentional with our color usage."

Pace is the intentional version. Bembury said the NBA's loosened rule on matching shoes to uniforms made loud colorways common, and his answer here is a near monochrome yellow with blue held to three touch points.

The build underneath did not change. Bleacher Report lists nitrogen infused cushioning, a non slip rubber compound and a midfoot shank, and the upper is an oval mesh base with layered panels for lateral support. Bembury "gave it just a full herringbone traction pattern," he told SI, and called the shape "the most important aspect of a shoe."

He picked the player as fast as he designed the shoe. "I selected Tyrese after maybe an hour of conversation," he said in the same interview. "I saw what he did to the Knicks in the playoffs earlier." Haliburton had left Nike for Puma on October 8, 2024, and the Hali 1 was unveiled less than eight months later, inside a year of work against the industry norm of 18 to 24 months for a signature model. He is the seventh player to receive a Puma signature shoe.

The Hali 2 Is Already on His Feet

Haliburton debuted the Hali 2 at Pacers media day in a Thermal Vision colorway, and Puma has it expected for Holiday 2026 with no date announced. Pace is a Hali 1 selling into the window where its successor already exists in public.

A second Pacers Hali 1 exists too. He wore a mismatched pair on the cover of SLAM 264 alongside WWE NXT wrestler Trick Williams, right shoe yellow sole and blue upper, left shoe reversed, with no release date or price attached. Haliburton posted, "I guess this the SLAM colorway now?"

So Puma's Indiana story runs three products deep: the Pace at retail on October 23, the mismatch on a magazine cover, the Hali 2 on his feet at media day. Max Staiger, Puma's Global Head of Basketball, said at the October 2024 signing that "Tyrese is not only defining his own generation, but also is shaping the future of the game for many more to come." Two years later Puma has one date, October 23, and a yellow shoe going on sale the night Gainbridge Fieldhouse gets Haliburton back for the first time in 16 months.