🚨Damian Lillard WAIVED🚨👋 + Bucks acquire Myles Turner 😱 Windy is ‘SPEECHLESS’ | First Take

🚨Damian Lillard WAIVED🚨👋 + Bucks acquire Myles Turner 😱 Windy is ‘SPEECHLESS’ | First Take

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Well, we have some breaking news from Sean Shirania that is very interesting, which is the Milwaukee Bucks have signed Miles Turner, which is a true stunner of a move on a variety of levels. One, because Miles Turner goes from the the defending Eastern Conference champion Indiana Pacers to the Milwaukee Bucks. Two, the Milwaukee Bucks did not seem like they had the ability financially to make this kind of a move in the situation they are in. So, I’m not at the moment because we’re on TV cur I’m very curious to see what the ripple effects are in terms of how the Bucks are creating the space to make this deal work. However, for the Milwaukee Bucks, a team that, as we just talked about, came into this summer needing to try to show Giannis Koopo that they have the ability to compete in the Eastern Conference. Miles Turner is a younger, better version of Brook Lopez, who they have just locked up for the next several years. That is a fascinating development. Something that comes completely out of left field. It is a huge hit to the Indiana Pacers who obviously are just coming off this finals run. They are certainly going to take a step back this season between this and the Tyrese Hallebertton injury. And this really does pretty dramatically shake up the Eastern Conference standings in a way that frankly I did not see coming at all. And we also in the last few minutes had Sean’s report that Gershan Yabaselli, who had a very nice year with the Philadelphia 76ers last year, signed with the New York Knicks, giving them the kind of shooter and bench forward scoring that they needed to go with their team. So now they add him and Jordan Clarkson to their to their roster. They get deeper. They add some more offense off the bench when they at times had trouble with that in the playoffs. Couple nice moves for them. But this Miles Turner thing is a dramatic move in the NBA and one that I don’t think anybody could have seen coming. Look at look at Tim Bontemps here on set. Breaking news for us on first take. I love it. So, let’s get a little bit more information here on the Miles Turner situation. We were just talking about how the Bucks need to add a center potentially and they go out and do that. We were talking about how the Knicks add some depth and they go out and do that. And so, uh, free agent center Miles Turner has agreed to a 4-year $17 million deal with the Milwaukee Bucks plus a player option for year four in 28 and 29 and a full 15% trade kicker. That is what we are hearing from Sham Shirana. He also added that Turner is the longest tenur pacer. He made it known that he wished to remain in Indiana, but since the game seven exit, Turner’s reps pushed to get a deal done. Ultimately, Indiana’s aversion to the tax, which grew after Tyresese Hallebertton’s injury, allowed the Bucks to now get a new franchise center. And go ahead, DD. You want to react to this?
Yeah, this is this is surprising. This changes the Eastern Conference functionally as we kind of know it. Like we see what the Pace We knew the Pacers were going to take that step back. We knew the Celtics were not going to be there, but now you have an opening here for Giannis to look at this roster and say, “Hey, maybe we can make some moves here. Maybe we can do something with me as the best player in the Eastern Conference with Miles Turner with me with bringing back some guys and maybe we can make a couple other uh moves in the margin to say, “Hey, let’s run this thing back and let me see how far I can carry this team in a depleted conference where the Knicks don’t have a coach, where the Cavs, uh, you know, are still probably the favorite, but they petered out in the playoffs last year. The Pacers aren’t there, the Celtics aren’t there. I think this changes the Bucks. I think this changes the Eastern Conference. I’m surprised. I thought Miles Turner was for sure going to go back to Indiana.
What do you think, Wendy? I don’t know how they did it. They don’t have the salary cap space to do this. So, they either made some sort of deal with the Pacers, um, which would be surprising because the Pacers would have just traded. This is one of their biggest rivals. Um, and I don’t know how they did this quite frankly. They they didn’t first off two other times when they needed Jiannis Tennako to get recommitted. They made major moves. They acquired um uh Drew Holidayiday that was and Giannis extended his contract. They acquired Dame Lillard. Giannis extended his contract, but they were out of draft capital um and they’re out of salary cap space. In fact, they signed several players yesterday using various exceptions. Um I’m not sure how they did it. Um so that’s number one. Number two, this has Lakers ramifications because the Lakers were competing with the Bucks for DeAndre Aton. And so this leaves the DeAndre Aton to go to the Lakers to be their starting center as a as a possible ramification of this.
Okay, so Wendy says he’s not sure how they did it. Tim’s over here taking notes, texting. I don’t know. Go ahead. I’m guessing and I I probably shouldn’t guess on live TV, but the only way this makes sense logically from a cap perspective that I can think of and Bobby Marks called me before so I couldn’t take it, but I’m guessing this involves some sort of a trade involving Kyle Kosma who is making around 21$22 million this season. Um, and that would be the way you could do some sort of a signin trade and make the money work and get Miles Turner into Milwaukee while not having saf. But look, full credit to John Horse. This is a guy who has aggressively gone out and improved the roster time and time again over the past several years. To Brian’s point, they went and got Drew Holidayiday. They went and got Dame Lillard. Now they’ve gone and gotten Miles Turner. This is the kind of move that coming into the summer, it did not look like the Bucks are going to be able to do with the limited resources they had at their disposal. Full credit to them for doing it. And we have talked about the Pacers for a while. It’s a little different with the Tyresese Albertton injury, but this is a team that has not paid the larger tax in decades. I’m not exactly surprised that this went this way after uh the way the Tyrese Hallebertton thing went. We also should point out I think Miles Turner’s market changed once Nas Reed signed a 5-year $125 million contract. I think that raised the price for Miles Turner who is a better player than him, a clear starter on a team that went to the NBA finals. I mean, again, just going back, pulling way back, the injuries to Jason Tatum and Tyresese Hallebertton in the playoffs just fundamentally changed so many things that have happened across the Eastern Conference. We’ve seen the Celtics get broken up. We’ve seen Atlanta and Orlando go all in. Not all in, but Orlando’s case all in. Atlanta’s made moves to get better because of those injuries. Now, we’ve seen Miles Turner leave the Indiana Pacers in large part because of that injury, allowing the Milwaukee Bucks to strengthen their roster, potentially keep Yiannisako moving forward. All of those things go back to the injury to Jason Tatum in the second round, the injury to to Tyresce Albert in the NBA Finals, and now we sit here in a much different Eastern Conference than it was at the start of this segment.
Well, my next question was going to be, does this move now keep Jiannis Tukumbo in Milwaukee? What do you guys think?
I think it I think it makes a better shot. I mean, uh, when you’re looking at this, I didn’t see we just say I didn’t see the moves before this news came out, the moves that would move the needle, that would make them feel like he could do something in the East. I think this moves them closer to that for sure. believe is looking for reasons to stay in Milwaukee. That is one of the reasons why he has stepped back and let them go through their process. It’s it they didn’t just trade for a Hall of Famer here, but they upgraded at his position and undercut and injured the team that is the defending Eastern Conference champions. So, if Giannis was looking for a reason to stay in Milwaukee, this is enough of a reason to be excited about coming back because he was having to play both center and point guard um at the end of last season because uh you know at different times. So, this is definitely an incredibly strong move and like I I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted to know more about how a team pulled something off because
I I’m this is fascinating on about six different fronts. Again, not that Miles Turner is a perennial all-star, but this is a guy who had played 10 years in Indiana and the the Pacers had a lot of incentive to try to keep him. And frankly, Kyle Koosma’s value, if this is how they got him, is not super high and his contract is not super attractive. So, I am dying to find out how the Bucks pulled this off. And I am extremely impressed that they found a way to do this. And there may be another side of this trade that I haven’t found out yet. They don’t even have any They can’t trade any draft assets. So, uh, this is so far this is one of the more fascinating moves we’ve seen, uh, really in the NBA in the last year for sure. When you talk about off the board moves, that doesn’t begin to describe this trade.
This is completely out of the bounds of what anybody was expecting. Well, as as Winnie just pointed out too, I mean, this is the longest tenur pacer that was on this roster and then we’re just what weeks removed from the finals and they go ahead and trade him. And obviously, this has a lot to do with Tyresese Hallebertton’s injury. Well, moments ago we heard Brian Winhorse say, “How is it possible that Miles Turner is now a Milwaukee Buck?” And here is how we have our answer. According to Sham Shirania, this is just in. The Milwaukee Bucks are waving Damen Lillard and stretching the remaining $113 million on his contract in order to acquire one Miles Turner. Lillard’s two seasons in Milwaukee now come to an end as he rehabilitates his torn Achilles tendon. And so essentially the Milwaukee Bucks are saying goodbye to Damen Lillard to make room for a center in Miles Turner, someone who was the longest tenur pacer up to moments ago. What more can you tell us here, Tim? Well, this is the biggest uh contract in terms of waving a player like this in the history of the league. There was talk that potentially this would happen with Bradley Beal sometime in the coming days or weeks. We’ll see if that happens. Obviously, his situation in Phoenix has been in flux for a while, but Dame Lu makes even more money than him. And so to move on from over $110 million over the next couple years, that means the Bucks are going to have $20 million on their books for the next five years, that is a lot of dead money. But they that shows the level of pressure that this Milwaukee Bucks team is under to go out and get a guy in Miles Turner who can help them right now. Now, the Bucks still have a lot of things to sort out. They still need point guard help. Kevin Porter Jr. is not really an ideal long-term option as a starting point guard. they’d like to get another fix there, but this does give the Bucks some additional flexibility to go out and make more moves to add to this roster because they did lop off a whole bunch of money from their book. So, they should be able to go out and sign another player. To Brian’s point, DeAndre Aton was a potential option here. Maybe now they can go use that money to go sign a guard or two to help out their rotation. But, I mean, this is again to go back to what we said last segment, this was completely off the board in terms of what the expectations of people was around the league for how things were going. there is no salary cap space available. Miles Turner was clearly the best free agent on the board this summer. The expectation once especially once the Brooklyn Nets and Detroit Pistons started to use their cap space was that he was going to go back to Indiana and was going to be haggling over what that number was going to be particularly after that Nas Reed deal probably raised his market. Instead, he now leaves Indiana. He goes to Milwaukee. The Bucks have a completely different outlook now. The Pacers are scrambling and again the whole Eastern Conference has just been completely upended by these two Achilles tears. really when you count Dames a third one cuz now you know this has led to a pretty seismic move by the Bucks
but waving Damen Lillard so surprising
well I guess uh Tim was right last segment about the team that’s most desperate to make a move because this is Milwaukee Bucks saying we need this is not just a move about Dame and the Bucks this is a move about keeping Giannis and the money that you’re paying to keep Giannis on the Koopo there that is beyond Dame that’s beyond Miles Turner the money that you’re paying the extra $20 million a year is worth an extra $20 million a here if Giannis says I’m coming back and they’re they’re moving like they are trying to win this guy back. This is a move that says we want to do what we can in the Eastern Conference right now starting in October given the injuries and given what we have with Giannis. This is some uh magical work that they’ve done to get something that uh is we did not see coming to build around this team. I it’s a stunner of a move, but it’s something that they feel like they need to do because if you have Yiannis and you can build a couple of those guards around you and you have Miles Turner there, you’re saying we can make a run in the Eastern Conference. What we have
last block you said there wasn’t much the Milwaukee Bucks could do to really move the ball.
I didn’t think I didn’t think this was possible.
Okay, that was moments ago, people. Things are changing quickly. Wendy, you also said last last block that you’re like, I’ve never wanted to know more how we got to this place in terms of Miles Turner leaving the Pacers and now becoming a part of the Milwaukee Bucks. Now we know how we got here. What’s your reaction? All right, I’m gonna take a deep breath here. This is mortgaging your mortgage to buy a sports car. Um, I guess if you get the girl, which is Giannis in this case, maybe it’s worth it. Um, I just want to put into context here, the largest buyout in the history of the NBA is $31 million. And if I gave you 600 guesses, you wouldn’t get it. And the only reason I know is because as as Bontam said, we were researching this with Bobby Marks the other day. It’s bison day in 2000. Yeah.
Something that hasn’t happened for 25 years is a reason for that. And so that was $31 million. This is $113 million that the Bucks are now going to put on their cap over the next five years. For the next five years, Damen Lillard will appear on the Milwaukee Bucks cap sheet for $23 million, give or take, based on my, you know, back of the envelope math here. Okay? And I’ve got executives texting me saying that Miles Turner isn’t even dramatically better than Brook Lopez. Now, we could debate about that. Um, uh, Miles Turner is a excellent center who’s a basket defender. He is not an all-star. So they are going to be paying Miles Turner $26 million and they are going to be paying Dame Lillard $23 million for the foreseeable future. So this is going to basically become a $50 million salary slot so that they can hope that that Giannis doesn’t demand a trade. Um, and maybe it will work this year, but this is a wild quadrupling down on a move that will be jaw-dropping for the next I mean the my phone is people can’t believe it. This is going to be one of the big topics of the summer. But and I and I I have enormous respect for Miles Turner. I I I really like him as a player. He he’s not a needle mover. He he’s a needle mover in that they didn’t have anything to do to improve this roster and they just improved it. So that like in terms of you connected on a Hail Mary, but you connected on a Hail Mary to you didn’t tie even tie the score. So I I think what’s what’s also interesting here is the Pacers. The Pacers have just been kneecapped here because they have not been willing to pay the luxury tax for 20 years. And they were determined for the first time to pay the luxury tax a little bit to go into the luxury tax a little bit to keep Miles Turner who’s been their franchise center for the last decade. And now they frankly this price for Miles Turner isn’t outrageous. You know the Pacers backing away from this. This is a devastating. Like I don’t if I’m if I’m a a Indiana Pacer right now, I’m I’m absolutely disgusted. I am sick to my stomach. If I’m Tyrese Hallebertton, I am breaking things right now. If I’m Rick Carile, I’m furious at just what’s happened because they were unwilling to spend a little bit of luxury tax money to hold this team in place for a year when Hallebertton came back to go to a team that they hate. They hate the Bucks. So, um, it’s going to take a while to digest this. And if Giannis tweets later today a big smiling emoji and indicates that he is happy as a clam, the Bucks can declare a win. But I’m not sure the balance of power was changed in the Eastern Conference even though this has been a stunning turn of events.
Actually posted what we’re going to show you here in the wall. And I don’t know if it’s him jumping up and down and smiling. It’s more Jiannis Antumbo showing that what exactly is going on. He’s not sure this is him. I don’t know what’s going on right now, man. That’s what Jannis Tuba posted and it says mood 100. I would we count that as big smiles or maybe confusion? Does that count as him staying with the Milwaukee Bucks? I don’t know. How do we interpret that?
I mean, it’s I’m I’m a little loathed to be doing too much interpreting of social media. However, a couple of hours ago, Miles Turner or Miles Turner, Janet Koopo tweeted something else, which is my uh I would say T-Rex, I guess, is the best best way to put it. And Brook Lopez before every game would put the Toy Story T-Rex to Brook Lopez a very noted famed Disney fan company man. He would put the Toy Story T-Rex on the scores table for every game. So that was sort of an indication of, you know, I love Brook Lopez. We won a title together. We’ve been friends for a long time, etc. Now he posts this picture of him holding a T-Rex with the championship celebration from back in 2021. And he’s now, I guess, talking about Miles Turner going to the Pacers or going to the Bucks. I mean, this this entire thing is just very wild. And to Brian’s point, Miles Turner is now a $50 million player. They had $50 million in dead salary on their books by having Damen Lillard with a torn Achilles on it this year. They have now replaced it by having $50 million of Miles Turner on their books for the next four years. That is a dramatic move to make and again one that you make because you feel pressure to have the Bucks be good enough to be a factor with Giannis Tenkoopo going forward. I’m with Brian. This is a nice move. I think it hurts the Pacers much more than it dramatically improves the standing of the Bucks. It is a real statement of intent from the Bucks. And if Jiannis said, “Hey, go get me Miles Turner and I’ll stick around,” then great move for them. But this is still a very flawed roster without a lot of perimeter defense, without a lot of uh scoring options outside of Giannis. Miles Turner will help, but I it this is just it’s really a jaw-dropping thing for this to happen in this manner and it sets up for a pretty wild summer going forward and frankly a very uncertain Eastern Conference.
What a better way to celebrate Bonnie Bonia Day than having $20 million in dead cap space for Jame. You got that right. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Brian Windhorst, Tim Bontemps and David Dennis Jr. join Shae Cornette on First Take to discuss how the Milwaukee Bucks waiving Damian Lillard and acquiring Myles Turner affects the Eastern Conference.

0:00 Bucks acquire Myles Turner
6:30 What does this mean for Giannis Antetokounmpo?
8:13 The Bucks waive Damian Lillard
11:23 Can the Bucks go on a run next season?
15:20 Giannis reacts to the trade on social media

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