INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Social media was how Kevin Pritchard found out.<\/p>\n
The Indiana Pacers\u2019 president of basketball operations had been in contract negotiations with Myles Turner, the team\u2019s longest-tenured player, but those negotiations abruptly ended July 1 at 11:07 a.m. ET. That\u2019s when ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania shared via X that Turner agreed to a four-year, $107 million contract with the Milwaukee Bucks, thus ending his 10-year run with the Pacers. Turner officially signed his contract Monday, shortly before Pritchard met with the media to recap the Pacers\u2019 run to the NBA Finals and the dominoes that have already started to fall in the aftermath.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would have been open on a sign-and-trade because it\u2019s sort of mutually beneficial, but we didn\u2019t get to that point, unfortunately,\u201d Pritchard said. \u201cI saw Shams tweet it, and that\u2019s how I knew that Myles was taking (the Bucks\u2019 offer). \u2026 I think that there was a number he was trying to hit, and I think we were in the ballpark, but that\u2019s my opinion. It must not have been for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aside from Tyrese Haliburton\u2019s rupturing his right Achilles in Game 7, an injury Pritchard confirmed will sideline the star guard for all of the 2025-26 season, the Pacers\u2019 biggest personnel shift was the departure of Turner. Pritchard\u00a0intended for Turner, who was often the subject of trade rumors during his tenure in Indiana, to return on a new deal. Asked if Haliburton\u2019s Achilles injury affected the Pacers\u2019 willingness to spend big and therefore impacted Turner\u2019s contract negotiations, Pritchard said, \u201cI don\u2019t think so.\u201d He added that his talks with Turner, through Turner\u2019s representation, never became acrimonious.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Team owners) 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,\u201d Pritchard said. \u201cWe were negotiating in good faith, but what happens in this league is sometimes you\u2019re negotiating, but because a guy is (an) unrestricted (free agent), he has the right to say, \u2018That\u2019s the offer I want. I\u2019m gonna take it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether the Pacers had the chance to match Milwaukee\u2019s offer, which would\u2019ve put the Pacers in the luxury tax for the first time in 20 years, Pritchard sidestepped the question and said he thought he and Turner\u2019s agent, Austin Brown of CAA, were working toward a deal. Pritchard noted the Pacers had kept tabs on other franchises that might have had the cap space to sign Turner, but acknowledged Milwaukee\u2019s ingenuity \u2014 or desperation, depending on your perspective \u2014 caught them off guard.<\/p>\n
The Bucks used the waive and stretch provision to waive likely Hall of Fame guard Damian Lillard,\u00a0who tore his left Achilles in April, and stretch the remaining $112.6 million of his fully guaranteed salary over the next five years. Milwaukee will incur a dead cap hit of $22.6 million every season through 2029-30, which helped open up enough financial room to take on Turner\u2019s hefty contract. The Bucks\u2019 dismissal of Lillard marks the largest waive and stretch provision in NBA history.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was shocked,\u201d Pritchard said of Turner\u2019s departure. \u201cIf I\u2019m being perfectly honest, again, I thought we were kind of going back and forth in an open way. We\u2019ve done big deals with that agency, and they\u2019re great guys, and we\u2019ll be doing more business with them. But Myles must\u2019ve heard something in that (Bucks offer) that said, \u2018I\u2019m gonna take it right now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Turner was the Pacers\u2019 No. 11 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. The 29-year-old ranks No. 1 in franchise history in blocks (1,412), No. 6 in games played (642) and No. 7 in points (9,031).<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s one of the best players that\u2019s ever played here. I\u2019d put him right up there,\u201d Pritchard said. \u201cAgain, change is inevitable in this sport. Unfortunately, you\u2019re not seeing these teams that are together for four and five and six years because of the way the cap is structured. I like some of that and some of it is very challenging for a team like us. But again, I can\u2019t reiterate this enough: We were fully prepared to go deep into the tax (to re-sign Turner).\u201d<\/p>\n
Turner averaged 15.6 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game during the 2024-25 regular season. He shot 48.1 percent from the field and a career-high 39.6 percent on 3-pointers. However, Turner struggled mightily against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals, averaging 10.6 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.4 blocks across seven games. He shot just 37.7 percent from the field and 21.4 percent from behind the arc.<\/p>\n
Despite being held to just 6 points in Indiana\u2019s Game 7 loss, Turner was still a vital part of the most successful NBA season in franchise history. Pritchard joked the Pacers couldn\u2019t replace Turner \u201cunless he\u2019s got a clone\u201d and they\u2019d have to fill his void by committee. Indiana\u2019s roster retooling has already begun.<\/p>\n
The Pacers picked up Tony Bradley\u2019s team option for the 2025-26 season and recently acquired reserve center Jay Huff in a trade with the Memphis Grizzlies.<\/p>\n
Pritchard also announced Monday that the Pacers re-signed James Wiseman, who ruptured his left Achilles in October and has been rehabbing with the team. Wiseman, the 2020 No. 2 pick, inked a two-year minimum deal that\u2019s partially guaranteed, a team source told The Athletic. The second season is a team option.<\/p>\n
Pritchard hinted that the team would also like to re-sign Isaiah Jackson, the Pacers\u2019 No. 22 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, who tore his right Achilles in November and has been rehabbing with the team as well. Indiana extended a qualifying offer to Jackson worth $6.4 million for the 2025-26 season, a team source told The Athletic, making him a restricted free agent. The Pacers also have the right to match any offer Jackson receives from another team, but unless a franchise forks over more money for a largely unproven player coming off a major injury, Jackson will likely remain in Indiana.<\/p>\n
In addition to discussing Turner\u2019s departure Monday, Pritchard also spoke at length about Haliburton. Pritchard declined to share how his franchise player took the news of Turner joining the Bucks, but Pritchard praised Haliburton for his toughness and selflessness. After Haliburton suffered a right calf strain in Game 5 of the finals, Pritchard said the team and Haliburton went through \u201c20 hours of calls and discussions\u201d with doctors and were told there was \u201ca low probability\u201d of Haliburton\u2019s rupturing his Achilles if he kept playing.<\/p>\n
Haliburton totaled 14 points and five assists in 23 minutes to help Indiana roll to a Game 6 victory. He followed that up by scoring 9 points in the first seven minutes of Game 7 before rupturing his right Achilles.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you tell a kid you can\u2019t play in Game 7 after you played in Game 6 and didn\u2019t (get injured)?\u201d Pritchard asked rhetorically. \u201cHe\u2019s told me many times, and this just shows you what kind of kid he is, \u2018I would do it over and over.\u2019 And if you\u2019re asking me if I would have him do it over and over? I would not. If I knew he was gonna get hurt, I would sacrifice that game because I care for the kid so much and I want him to have an incredible career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat being said, I have no doubt that he will be back better than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Photo: Trevor Ruszkowski \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Social media was how Kevin Pritchard found out. The Indiana Pacers\u2019 president of basketball operations had…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":49521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1267,1260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-49520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-indiana-pacers","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114819359392196083","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}