There: NBA free agency

Myles Turner left Indiana to go to the Milwaukee Bucks, Indiana's fiercest rival. The Bucks are the only team the Pacers fight, the Pacers are the only team the Bucks fight, but Myles Turner left one to join the other.

Why? Tax. The Pacers did not compete with Milwaukee's modest, relative to the $30 million ideal considered, four-year and $104 million contract offer.

The impetus behind such a swift abandonment of civic duty, we'll discuss later this week. What mattered most were those seconds between when the Bucks announced their new hire, and before they announced what they'd set afire.

Cash, it turns out.

The Bucks waived Damian Lillard's guaranteed contract, all $113 million owed through 2027. Now they'll owe just as much, but over five NBA seasons instead of two. Every penny counts against the cap, even if they stop minting them before the summer of 2030, when Lillard's $22.5 million comes off Milwaukee's books.

For this commitment, the Bucks earn Myles Turner. Everyone's favorite guy. His acquisition decimates a rival twice over (center is 20 percent of the floor, Myles covers 100 percent of it), while bolstering Buck chances in a beleaguered Eastern Conference.

The boost is for summer to discuss and time for determine. I heard someone on ESPN call it "magical" and, no, signing Myles Turner was not magical. The surprise was magic. The shock of the initial startle followed by an astonishing second move, feelings hurt, starters and stars and superstars.

But this is not a kind of magic but a bloody basketball move, not a bad one for 2025-26. But basketball moves will become tougher because of this burden.

Milwaukee could eat the $54.12 million owed to Dame in 2025-26 as Lillard recovered wherever the heck Dame wanted to, surviving (as expected) in the dilapidated East. Then overpay Lillard over $58.5 million in 2026-27 for a no-defense, yes-offense, 36-year old point guard. Then, in 24 months, zero ongoing commitment.

Instead, 34-year old Damian Lillard will make over $22 million per year through 2030, not simply for 2025-26, to not play for the Milwaukee Bucks. Ten percent of the salary cap for nothing.

The Bulls use only nine percent for Patrick Williams, and he gets to stay on the Bulls. Patrick Williams can go visit Boy Scout troupes and talk to season ticket holders, perform charitable duties.

(Troops.)

What?

(Boy scout troops.)

Doesn't "troupe" make more sense?

(Possibly, but that's not the point and you were a Webelo and you should know.)

A baseline commitment to a long-gone player can be worked around, but the Bucks are not a normal team, the Bucks employ Giannis Antetokounmpo, sure to rise in maximum compensation due. The Bucks owe nearly $90 million combined in 2027-28 to Giannis (in the last year of his contract) and Lillard's Ghost.

If Antetokounmpo signs an extension the figure will rise severely, approaching half the cap in 2029 and 2030 for the Antetokounmpo/Lillard combo, one which never worked, one that doesn't play.

Milwaukee knows it can make up the money by showing up in three or four rounds of playoffs every year. Like Doc's Clippers, but with a chance at the Finals.

The real cash. The basketball cash, what's available under tax and title? Competing with no draft picks? That's for the Bucks to keep explaining to us. I like they way they're talking, at the moment.

GIANNIS & DAME

Immediately after it was revealed the Bucks required cutting Damian Lillard to acquire Myles Turner, Chris Haynes told us Antetokounmpo was not entirely pleased with the hit to the Buck roster:

Didn't like the way it was handled?

Or, didn't like that it had to happen this way?

If NBA players had their way, there would be three or four MVPs per year, six Sixth Men, half the league would make First Team All-NBA Defense. Every NBA player has five favorite players of all time and the list always includes eight players.

I doubt this was normal person unease. As if Antetokounmpo is like the rest of us, worrying if Myles Turner does much or anything to separate Milwaukee from the rest of the pack, even the Haliburton-less Pacers. Wouldn't he use an emoji to express this anxiety?

No, this is just something you say, something famous people say, something Giannis is supposed to say. Cake and eat it too and presume everyone forgets, because we will, because basketball. I will, at least.

Myles is beat up, what he went through from October through late June will take until late October to recover. But the Bucks waived Damian Lillard, so they had the money to retain Jericho Sims and Taurean Prince. The Bucks also picked Gary Harris to replace that roster spot Damian Lillard doesn't occupy.

Sims and Prince and Harris will combine to make, what, less than half of what Lillard earns? Not to play?

Whatchu gotta do for a championship. Let's see how it rolls, the East will not be normal for a few years, in spite of what the Cavs (and Knicks, I guess) want us to know. A lot of people will find out that Myles Turner doesn't move the needle, but skips it.

PACERS

I was waiting until Turner's deal was revealed and it was revealed in an unexpected way, so, stay tuned.

KINGS

I used the Dennis Schröder signing as boilerplate in the previous email, and cut out a joke about Dennis being on his 11th and 12th NBA team by the first week of March.

This was before we knew the Kings were giving Dennis Schröder, the one from 2025 and not the one from 2018, a three-year, $45 million deal.

Now, longtime readers understand how particularly loathe I am to go blue, we have Redd Foxx albums if you're into that sort of smut, not basketball blogs.

But I can't quite shake the comparison. This contract is like paying for pornography. Dennis Schröder might be something required every so often, but not so much that you should drive out to a store for it.

Double-figure terms for Schröder, and for more than one year. Three! At least one.

Great news for Dennis, sick of this shit for a while now.

Remember the trade deadline?

"It’s like modern slavery," Schröder said. "It’s modern slavery at the end of the day. Everybody can decide where you’re going, even if you have a contract. Yeah, of course, we make a lot of money and we can feed our families, but at the end of the day if they say, ‘You’re not coming to work tomorrow, you’re going over there,’ they can decide that."

I hated when I was on the train to work and didn't know which of our five or six bars I'd be stationed at. I never had to worry about getting off the train and walking into work and being told "you're at Main Bar but also it is in Orlando."

Great news for Dennis, making it tougher for Sacramento to trade him. I am sorry I compared his work to that of a dirty magazine (with receipt).

What should be banned is the deal Sacramento made to clear room for Schröder.

The Kings traded Jonas Valančiūnas for Dario Šarić, so it isn't like they were afraid of having too many diacritics with Schröder around.

Šarić can't play any more and Jonas surely can. What's worse, for the West, is where Sacto sent Valančiūnas. Denver!

Go ahead and give the man who needs a burly backup the most his burliest backup yet. This trade will add years to Nikola Jokic's ability to walk painlessly through his many pristine stables.

Do this deal for Chris Paul? Yes, even at that Paul's age. For Dennis Schröder? I'd sooner be caught on security camera walking into an Adult Superstore, asking if any of these things actually work for sore backs.

NUGGETS

All Denver had to do was wait until Michael Porter Jr.'s contract became tradeable again – call me with two years left and whenever you get a pick – and for Sacramento to do something utterly Sacramento.

Sacramento? Aren't these Nuggets the sort of team you'd like to defeat in a playoff series? Then why did you enliven a rival?

Sorry, using the Nuggets bit to yell at Sacramento.

Wonderful work from the Nuggets front office. Everyone acquired – the lengthy two-way shooter, the no-bullshit 7-footer, the big smile for the bench – is exactly what Denver needed. I wrote all this and then found out they got the swingman with size to cover for the big smile on the bench, Tim Hardaway Jr. on a one-year deal, another banger.

Letting one unqualified (which jobs did Josh Kroenke have in his twenties and thirties?) doof run the entire operation is bad news, but here is the good news about the NBA: Sacramento on Line 1, their operation is worse.

The Kings think they've muted their phone but you can hear them making jokes about the word "nugget."

Denver? David Adelman is technically a "new" head coach. They could try to pace themselves in 2025-26 and still lead the West in wins.

What? Jalen Williams is out until at least the beginning of October? Maybe longer?

Never mind, Nuggets, Thunder winning 70. All Alex Caruso and Hartenstein and healthy Chet to start the season and MVP'ish J-Dub to finish.

CHARLOTTE

Traded for Pat Connaughton and alright guys seriously what the hell.

The Hornets will lead the league in Players Stopped By Security While Entering Arena.

LaMelo Ball will also be stopped but because he's being asked to move his car from where LaMelo left it (running, still in Drive but with the wheel turned all the way to the left, astride two spots clearly marked with blue paint, driver's side door open, all the way open).

TORONTO

Signed Jakob Poeltl to a four-year, $104 million contract.

How's that GM search goin', guys?

KNICKS

Guerschon Yabusele for two years and $12 million with a player option and yeah I'm reading the Post I've been reading it since the 1997 offseason and I'm not going to stop.

Why do you think I'm the way I am? From hunkering down to read the Post and deciding, "nope, not that."

POWER CURVES

Sorry but this is the music in my head at the moment.

Lillard's Ghost was that collection of Uncle Tupelo rarities they put out in the late 1990s to capitalize on the No Depression website but I never ended up buying it (even though I think it was a double-disc but priced like one CD).

Thanks for reading!