There were no end of the season press conferences or exit interviews in the days after the Indiana Pacers lost Game 7 in the NBA Finals. There was no post-draft media availability for the franchise after they made a pair of second-round picks. So yesterday, when Pacers President of Basketball Operations Kevin Pritchard spoke with media, there was a lot to talk about. The major topic was the exit of Myles Turner to the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Pacers point of view on the Myles Turner negotiations
The Bucks announced the signing of Myles Turner just moments before Pritchard spoke with media but Turner himself has not yet spoken with the media in Milwaukee yet. The Pacers had the first opportunity to speak directly with the press and give their version of events regarding the failed negotiations between the team and the center that had been here for a full decade. It’s important to remember that this is just one side to the story.
Kevin Pritchard said that they found out Turner was leaving the franchise and going to the Milwaukee Bucks when everyone else did via a tweet from Shams Charania.
“Herb Simon and Steven Rales and the Simon family were fully prepared to go deep into the tax, and we really wanted to do that,” Pritchard said. “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 gonna take it.’”
The Pacers didn’t have to let it get to the point of Turner being an unrestricted free agent where he was able to find deals from other organizations. From soon as the NBA Finals ended through June 30th at 6 p.m., Indiana was the only team allowed to negotiate terms of a new contract for Myles Turner. Pritchard says the talks were never acrimonious and were always a pleasant back and forth but if the Pacers truly wanted Turner back in the fold it would have been prudent to move these negotiations along much faster. They didn’t see an offer like the one Milwaukee was able to muster together coming and it cost them.
“I was shocked,” Pritchard said of his initial reaction when he got the news. “If I’m being perfectly honest, again, I thought we were kind of going back and forth in an open way. We’ve done big deals with that agency, and they’re great guys, and we’ll be doing more business with them. But Myles must’ve heard something in that (Bucks offer) that said, ‘I’m gonna take it right now.’”
Pritchard admitted that the Bucks maneuvering the way they did to make their offer was surprising. If the Pacers were blindsided by Turner’s departure, I think it was primarily by the Bucks managing to create the space and causing them to lose Turner for nothing rather than just Turner exiting. Pritchard didn’t want to get into the specifics of the contract details they had offered Turner so we’ll likely never know for certain how far apart the Pacers and Bucks offers were but this my guess for how the entire situation played out before hearing anything from Myles Turner:
The initial offer I think came in much lower than expected on Turner’s side of things. Based on the initial reporting after the signing that Pacers offer was only around 3/60, I don’t think that sat well with Myles. It certainly didn’t help once Naz Reid’s deal with Minnesota came through at 5 years, $125 million for a big coming off the bench for them.
Negotiations were slow moving from there but were progressing in Turner’s favor but the Pacers may have grown more and more okay with the idea of a sign and trade after Turner’s rough endings to both of the last two postseason. So they may have felt no rush to meet his demands without seeing a path from another team to steal him and leave the Pacers with nothing. Based on the final reporting, just about every reporter was in the same ballpark on AAV for the deal. Graphic below from Kyle Taylor. Only Doyel from IndyStar had the Pacers offering a fourth year and he doesn’t mention anything like a player option or a trade kicker like the Bucks offer included.
The Pacers probably thought they were safe to play a little hardball with Turner with so little cap space out there in the market and figured they could at least do a sign and trade if he ended up finding a better deal elsewhere. They did not see this Bucks move coming by Pritchard’s own admission.
When the Bucks offer came in, I’m not sure they were giving Turner much time to think it over. They likely didn’t want any word of them possibly waiving and stretching Damian Lillard leaking if they weren’t going to end up doing it.
With how slowly the negotiations were moving with Indiana, Turner probably lost faith that the Pacers would come close enough to matching what ended up being 4 years, $108.9 million with a player option and a trade kicker anyway.
Once again, the bullet points are speculation. All we have are reports and one side of the story from Kevin Pritchard right now. Even after Turner speaks, we’ll never know for certain exactly what was going through the head of each party. I believe the Pacers were willing to go into the luxury tax as Pritchard said but it’s also easy to say after a failed negotiation that obviously weren’t going as well as the Pacers front office thought and we haven’t actually seen the Pacers cross that tax threshold in 20 years.
One thing that I am fascinated by is that the only time Pritchard really gave a no comment was when asked what Tyrese Haliburton’s reaction was to Turner’s departure. Him leaving for a team that the Pacers openly hate in the Bucks surely made Tyrese feel some type of way. Those matchups will be fascinating this season and especially in 2026-27 once Haliburton is back on the floor.
But now, it’s time to move on. The Pacers are going center by committee with Jay Huff, James Wiseman, and likely Isaiah Jackson for at least this season without Tyrese Haliburton. They’ll be able to see if one of them can rise to the occasion with so many minutes up for grabs and perhaps they can end up saving money at the center position and using their resources at other spots.
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