SAN FRANCISCO — As far as Buddy Hield was concerned, his departure from the Pacers last February after two years in Indiana was about business and only business.

The veteran sharpshooter had a figure in mind for a contract extension but the Pacers never quite agreed with him on that number. The Pacers traded him to a place where they thought he’d get the best chance to eventually get paid in Philadelphia. That’s not exactly how it worked out and he’s making less money — 4 years, $38 million — than he’d hoped, but he’s happy and playing with one of the few humans on Earth better at his chosen craft than he is.

So when the Pacers came to town to play his Golden State Warriors on Monday, he welcomed them to San Francisco as if nothing had changed since he was their teammate, because in his mind it hadn’t. When they arrived from Sacramento on Sunday night, Hield went out with All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton and others to the steakhouse STK and chopped it up like old times.

“We’re still like brothers,” Hield said. “Me, him, T.J. (McConnell), Ben Sheppard, (player development coach Isaac Yaacob) all those guys. They’re all my guys, all my brothers. We still talk at the end of the day, we still talk about basketball. We still laugh and joke around. Stuff didn’t work out contract wise, but you can’t let that affect you in relationships. All the coaching staff and the team, we’re all still cool. It’s just the business of basketball. It’s all love.”

But when they talked about basketball on Sunday night, they had to talk about being competitors and what it would be like to play against each other in a game that counted. For Hield and Haliburton, that had never happened before. Hield was with the Kings when Haliburton was drafted and they were traded together to the Pacers in February of 2022. Before Hield was dealt, Haliburton had never played an NBA game without Hield. The Pacers didn’t play the 76ers after Hield was traded to Philadelphia last season and Monday was the first time they met the Warriors.

So Haliburton informed Hield that he was going to go right at him.

“I told him yesterday, ‘You check in, I’m guarding you right away,'” Haliburton said.

And indeed at the 6:50 mark of the first quarter, as soon as Hield checked in, Haliburton was on him. He jumped a pass to Hield from Golden State’s Draymond Green.

“I knew if Buddy’s checking in, the ball is going to him right away,” Haliburton said.

Haliburton and Hield don’t use dunks as their primary method of scoring, but they had a contest for who would have the most when they were Pacers teammates, so Haliburton decided immediately he was taking it the distance. And when he dunked he of course let Hield know about it.

“He said, ‘Why didn’t you jump?'” Hield said. “I said, ‘What the (expletive) am I jumping for? If I jump I probably would’ve hurt you and then I look like the bad guy.’ I said I didn’t want to do that.”

Less than a minute later, Haliburton drilled a 3 by getting Hield to leave him on a switch. But then Hield hit a 3-pointer by faking a cut toward the rim, then cutting back out to the perimeter and losing Haliburton on a Kevon Looney screen. Hield ended up with 13 points on 5 of 11 shooting including 3 of 6 from 3-point range while Haliburton had 16 points and 12 assists. But of course Haliburton got the win — a 111-105 victory that serves as the Pacers’ fifth straight.

“He got a couple of buckets on me, I got a couple on him,” Haliburton said. “But I won, so I’m up on the bragging rights as of now. I’ll take that.”

Of course, Haliburton would have been perfectly happy to never need bragging rights on Hield, or at least to have all of their competitions to be internal. Hield would have been perfectly happy with that as well. However, he entered the 2023-24 season on an expiring contract that paid him $94 million over four years, an average of about $23.5 million per season and was presumably hoping for an extension at that level or more. In 2022-23, he had set the Pacers’ franchise record for 3-pointers in a season with 288. The only player who hit more 3s in the NBA that season was Klay Thompson. The only player who hit at least 200 3s at a better clip than Hield’s 42.5% was Stephen Curry, who made 42.7% of his attempts (273 of 639).

But when the 2023-24 season began, both sides acknowledged that talks were at a standstill. Hield said he kept trying to engage the Pacers in further talks and held out hope for an extension, but didn’t feel like he was getting anywhere. He played through the uncertainty and averaged 12.0 points per game in the Pacers’ high-powered offense, but he was in and out of the starting lineup all season and saw his role fluctuate among the Pacers’ collection of smallish wings. Especially when the Pacers traded for All-Star power forward Pascal Siakam in January, he knew it would be hard for them to fit him into their long-term plans.

“Not to say they were playing games, but they were always like, ‘Call back, call back, call back, I’ll check in,'” Hield said. “‘Oh, I’m playing golf, I’ll call you back.’ I never knew if I was wanted there. I feel like they were just trying to see how it was going to work out. They knew they had to make a move and when they made the Pascal move, they didn’t have the money to bring Buddy back. … It was just never a decisive move to say I was a core piece. I was fine with that, but I just wanted more clarity earlier than for me waiting all summer and into the season.”

Hield said he did appreciate that when the Pacers made the decision to move on from him, they made a trade with his best interests in mind. At the time, the 76ers were in desperate need of any form of scoring help as former MVP Joel Embiid was out with a knee injury. They were also set to have a lot of cap space open up in the offseason, so it was as good of a place as any for Hield to have an audition for a lucrative contract. If he had to be traded, that was a place he wanted to go.

Hield said he also had a meeting with Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan after the trade to clear the air. He said he had a good understanding of the position the Pacers were in but that gave them even more of a sense of where they were coming from.

“Me and Chad had a really good talk after the trade went down,” Hield said. “I got to talk to him and figure things out and squash things out as grown men. … I got to see his cards. He let me know, ‘Hey man, sorry to give you the run around.’ He was professional about it. And I get it. They had to play their cards and figure out what was best for their franchise and he’s a leader of that. It was a grown man conversation. I wish my card would’ve got dealt earlier so I had more room to figure things out for myself and have a chance to adjust and figure out a team that would be good. But I thought Philly would be a good spot and he tried to put me in a position that would be the best spot for me to get paid, too, because Philly had more money. It was all love and respect at the end of the day. They’re good dudes over there and I know there’s a business part of everything and you have to accept that.”

Even once he was dealt, Hield was helpful to the Pacers by continuing to be a friend to Haliburton and others. Hield’s departure led to Haliburton taking on more of a role as a movement shooter while also maintaining his point guard responsibilities, so Hield talked to Haliburton about the nuances of moving without the ball like how to blur and set ghost screens to get space. When Haliburton was struggling on a road trip in early March, Hield let him use the indoor court at his house in the Dallas area to get his shot right.

Hield went on to average 12.2 points per game in 32 regular season games with the 76ers, but he struggled in the playoffs with just 5.5 points per game in four appearances in their first round series against the Knicks. They also decided to move on because they too spent money on a bigger wing in Paul George and other pieces that didn’t leave room for Hield to come back.

So he found himself back on the open market and found that the money offers weren’t nearly what they hoped they would be. But the Warriors were the team he found most interesting from a basketball perspective. They’d built a dynasty on shooting with Thompson and Curry leading them to four NBA championships and six Western Conference titles in eight seasons and they were looking to move on from Thompson. Joining them would mean he’d get to play with Curry, one of just 16 players in NBA history and nine active players with more career 3s than Hield. He was only being offered $37.8 million over four years — not even half what he made in the previous four years with the Pacers and Kings — but the basketball fit was just what he needed.

“He makes the game easier for sure,” Hield said of playing with Curry. “He’s like playing with a Haliburton type. He just understands the game and he just attracts a bunch of people. The gravitation on him is so real. On the court with him, there’s more happening. He’s going to get a good shot or I’m going to get a shot or somebody else is going to get a good shot.”

Hield scored 20 points or more in five of his first six games with the Warriors. He’s cooled since but is still averaging 13.9 points per game on 45.3% shooting including 42.3% from 3-point range. His 88 total 3-pointers put him 12th in the NBA. His 67 3-pointers off the bench put him third behind Boston’s Payton Pritchard and Detroit’s Malik Beasley.

The Warriors have battled through some of their own issues in terms of defining roles and rotations and they’ve lost 10 of their last 13 since starting 12-3, but they’ve been thrilled with the way the acquisition of Hield has paid off.

“The Buddy Hield experience is amazing,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “He is full of joy every game, every day. He loves to play, loves his teammates, really good player. Great shooter, obviously one of the all-time great shooters in the league from the 3-point line. He’s been a great addition and it’s just a total joy to have Buddy on the team.”

In retrospect the Pacers still view Hield’s time in Indiana in the same way even though they ultimately didn’t decide to extend it. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle noted that Hield had a tradition of giving every one of his teammates a double fist pound right when they were lined up national anthem and as soon as he left, forward Obi Toppin picked it up because it was important to continue some of the things Hield brought to the game.

“He left an indelible impression on our franchise,” Carlisle said. “The joy that he plays with, how hard he works. … I’m happy for him. He’s got a great situation here. He’s playing for a great coach with great players and he’s having a hell of a year.”