Welcome to Milwaukee, Myles!
It’s officially official: Myles Turner is on the Milwaukee Bucks. It’s crazy even to think that it was a possibility heading into free agency, but here we are. Four days after the Bucks announced the signing of Turner, they held a press conference yesterday in Las Vegas during Summer League to formally introduce Turner as a Buck. General Manager Jon Horst and head coach Doc Rivers were part of what was almost a 20-minute presser. The three of them spoke on a range of topics about how this signing became possible, the vision they have for Turner, and how he became comfortable with the idea of leaving the only team he’s known in the NBA. Here are my biggest takeaways from yesterday’s press conference:
How did this deal come together?
Coming into the offseason, it seemed all but a sure thing that Turner would sign back with the Indiana Pacers, a team he had spent all of his 10 seasons in the NBA playing for. It was the first time that the NBA vet had ever hit the open market, and when asked by Eric Nehm of The Athletic, Turner talked about what the process was and why he chose Milwaukee:
“Setting was important… I was in Hawaii, so not a bad place to do some free agnecy work. Ultimaley, it was about staying competiive, two years ago got to the Eastern Conference Finals, obviosuly last year we got to the Finals, being there, being part of it, winning basketball just changed my entire perspective on this league. I saw a chance to remain competitive here, Jon and even Doc has assaured me that winning is a top priority here and we just aligned with our visions.?
It’s all I’ve ever known, I never switched high schools, went to the University of Texas, I’ve only been on one team in the league and I was open to it [changing teams], I very much was. Becoming a man is part of change, change is envitable and when I saw an oppurtunity for myself I thought [would] be successful, had to take it. Once the oppurtunity presented itself, I just wanted to take full advantage of it.”
While it’s great that their visions aligned (along with the money), the Bucks still had to find a way to make it work financially to bring Turner in. As we now know, the Bucks opted to waive and stretch Damian Lillard to create the cap space that was needed to pull this off (along with trading Pat Connaughton for Vasilije Micic and then buying him out). Horst gave some insight into how the Bucks reached that point to be comfortable with cutting a guy who was on the NBA Top-75 list:
“First of all, huge credit to our staff, our cap and strategy group headed with Milt Newton, Dave Dean, Ryan Hoover, Pat Haneman. The group thinks creatively and our ownership group really forces us to think outside of the box, look at problems in a different way, look for solutions in a different way. We had multiple paths in the course of the offseason, in all of our offseason planning prior to, thinking about how can we take this team to the next level, how can we improve, and Myles is sitting there as the best free agent in all of the market and you looked at ways in which we could potentially get to that, and truly take our team and retool it, rethink it, modernize our style of play… those are big decisions with big financial ramifications, big roster ramifications, but you get comfortable with it because you get a chance to sit with [Turner] and put him on your team and watch [Turner and Giannis] play together.”
What is the vision for Turner next to Giannis?
Turner has built a reputation as one of the best defensive centers in the league over his 10 years in the association. He has a career average of 2.2 blocks per game, and he helped Indiana stay in the top half of the league in terms of defensive rating in seven of his 10 seasons, finishing in the top three twice (2015–16 and 2018–19). The only years they finished in the bottom third of the league were when he played 42 games in the 2021–22 season, 62 games in 2022–23, and 2023–24. Yet despite finishing 24th in defensive rating in 2023–24, they still made it to the Eastern Conference Finals. I doubt that with a healthy Giannis and Turner, the Bucks will finish that low in defensive rating, considering they ended the year in 12th with an aging Brook Lopez and limited perimeter defenders.
But it’s not all about the defense, as Turner is also a strong stretch five on offense, as a career 36.2% shooter from beyond the arc on 3.3 attempts per game. He is also coming off a career season from distance, where he shot 39.6% from three on 5.5 attempts per game (if you want a deeper dive into the fit, read my friend Jack Trehearne’s article on what it could look like).
Doc raved about the fit and how seamlessly both in play and personality, Turner fits with the Bucks:
“Pretty quickly, it’s interesting, and I told Myles this, if you could sit down before free agency started and draw the perfect fit next to Giannis, it was a picture of [Turner]. Then last night, we started talking… I don’t think people [know] how hard it is to win, people don’t get it. Myles and I started talking about it, we were talking about my years, and I said winning is hard, man. Getting close and not getting, it drives you even more, it becomes a force multiplier. I’ve won one, but it’s the other one that makes you drive to want to win another one.”
“The fit is perfect and not only that, just our team we wanted to get younger. Myles just turned 29, so in one swoop, we’re a younger basketball team, we wanna play at a better pace which we started doing, it’s just all these things that came together. I’m thinking [about the fit] now and I’ll think about it all summer.”
Turner also commented on the fit and jokingly said that he was tired of all the elbows and shoulders he had to deal with from Giannis each time that matched up:
“I was tired of taking them damn shoulders and elbows to my chest every play, but nah man, it’s a rairty to play alongside a generational player, argubaly one of the greatest players to play this game. But not even that, I just look at this roster and how it’s tooled [together]. I competed agaisnt these guys over the past two seasons, there was a respect from afar about how they went about their business. You know, my former team, we were young and hungry, and I look at this team, it’s a vetrean group of guys, just a grungy, wanna win by any means necessary. Just battling in them series it woke up something in me, just kinda curuious what that would be like [to play with them].”
While he doesn’t solve the biggest issue the Bucks had on defense, he is certainly an upgrade over what they had. He also provides long-term stability at the position after it seemed like the Bucks didn’t have an answer for who would be the starting center after Lopez. The best compliment I can give Turner (and this still may be a disservice to him), in a lot of ways, he’s a supercharged Brook Lopez, who’s even more athletic than that.
How much have Giannis and the Bucks communicated this summer?
Outside of all the talk about how Turner became a Buck and he will fit next to Giannis, Horst and Rivers also talked about their communication with Giannis over the summer, and lightly touched on all the swirling rumors about Giannis that have taken place. Horst spoke first and talked about how he has gone about communicating with Giannis this offseason:
“We’re talking about an over 10 year relationship. We talk to Giannis all the time… I’ll go visit him after summer league. There’s a reason we don’t speculate or talk about any of this stuff ever. This is no different. We are entirely focused on our job. Our job is to build the best team that we can, present that to him and present the vision and the plan. Then go kick ass in the next season. That’s where we’re at today and [Turner] is a big part of it.”
Doc followed that up, talking about how the day after they were eliminated by the Pacers, he and Giannis were already talking about 2025:
“There’s far more talk outside of Milwaukee than there is inside of Milwaukee. Giannis loves Milwaukee, we love Giannis, and it’s been a great relationship. We’ve had some of our young guys in Greece already playing with him. We are communicating a lot, and it’s about next year and it’s about winning.”
What number will Turner wear?
Lastly, we finally learned what jersey number Turner will wear with the Bucks. If you looked closely at his water bottle, you would have seen a sticker that had him in a Bucks jersey as a Lego minifigure wearing the number 3.
Turner later held up his Bucks jersey for the first time:
What will this mean for Kevin Porter Jr., who wore 3 last year after coming over from the Clippers? Did Turner have to compensate him somehow for the switch? We’ll probably find out soon.