When Myles Turner left the Indiana Pacers for the Milwaukee Bucks, he left as the team's longest-tenured player and last real hit in the first round of the draft. Over his decade representing Indiana he had been dangled in trade rumors constantly, always floated out as the final starter for teams that needed a center who could shoot.
However, ever since he joined the Bucks, Turner has been in trade rumors, not because there are teams breaking down Milwaukee's doors for the once-valued veteran, but because his contract – the one the Bucks cut Damian Lillard for, the one that cost them nearly 23 million dollars a year in dead cap – is so awful that the team that courted him just a year ago now wants nothing to do with him.
Lucky for the Pacers, they lost the bidding war for Turner and now have a far better player on a far better contract in Croatian star Ivica Zubac. The optics on both moves were pretty bad from the outset, but have pendulumed in favor of the Pacers as their foils faltered.
Now, the Bucks are saddled with over 40 million dollars per year committed to the Turner deal through his contract and the moves required to enable it. Myles is stuck on a bad team, instead of on a contender that was willing to pay him nearly the same number, the contender he had known for a decade.
Life sure comes at you fast.
The Turner tenure was confusing
There has never been a player more simultaneously valued and disrespected than Myles Turner. Every trade deadline or offseason, fans would line up jersey swaps of the lanky big man in their jerseys, claiming that his shooting would be the difference between lottery and playoffs.
In reality, the reason Turner was allowed to shoot as much as he was was that he wasn't good enough from distance to necessitate a defense worrying about his efficiency from the arc.
Watch how differently Turner is defended than, say, Karl-Anthony Towns, whose shooting is an actual difference-making talent. It is night and day. Teams hurry to rush KAT off the line, forcing him into drives or contested deep thress while leaving Turner daylight in the corner.
Additionally, the same was true for the center's defense. While his blocked shot totals were always high, they rarely carried the defensive impact one would expect. Turner has never made an all-defensive team despite his spot in statistical categories for one big reason:
Teams weren't scared of attacking him the way they were of someone like Rudy Gobert. Teams would abandon all cutting with Gobert at the rim, while they would freely attack Myles.
That left Turner in a strange spot. He wasn't a bad player, but his numbers always made it hard to find fair value for him on the open market.
Eventually, after years and years of theoretical trade talks, the Pacers got nothing in return for the player they developed out of Texas A&M. Despite returning zero value, they still won the exchange.
That is how bad Myles Turner has been for the Bucks.
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