Entering the 2025 NBA offseason, the Indiana Pacers were not expected to do anything shocking. Even with Tyrese Haliburton tearing his Achilles, a lineup of Andrew Nembhard, Bennedict Mathurin, Aaron Nesmith, Pascal Siakam, and Myles Turner could compete in the weaker Eastern Conference.
And then the Milwaukee Bucks, in a shocking move, bought out Damian Lillard and inked Turner to a four-year $107 million deal, pairing the floor-spacing big with Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Initially, it was revealed (assumed?) that the Pacers were hesitant to offer Turner anything more than $23 million per season, although it was later revealed that they were eager to spend to keep him.
"I know this, that Herb Simon and Steven Rales and the Simon family were fully prepared to go deep into the tax to keep him, and we really wanted to do that," said Kevin Pritchard. "And we were negotiating in good faith, but what happens in this league is sometimes you're negotiating, but because a guy is unrestricted, he has the right to say, that's the offer I want. I'm going to take it."
Turner absolutely had the right to take more money to compete for a title with the Pacers' bitter rival, and there is a chance that Pritchard's definition of "negotiating in good faith" is different than Turner's, but he dropped a major bombshell.
Apparently, Turner didn't communicate that he was going to sign with the Bucks, and the Pacers found out the same way everyone else did: from ESPN's Shams Charania.
"We were deep in conversations with Myles, and then we saw that he had accepted an offer with Milwaukee," added Pritchard.
After ten years, one might have expected Turner to tell his old team that he was going elsewhere, but that's the business side of the NBA.
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