The Pacers responded to Turner s departure for the first time: I thought it was about to reach an agreement, but I didn t expect that he would really leave

July 9th news Not long ago, Pacers' basketball operations president Kevin Prichard responded for the first time that free agent Miles Turner joined the Bucks in the same district. He mentioned that the team had "sincere" negotiations with Turner, and the team's boss was willing to "pay luxury tax" to keep him, but he did not expect Turner to leave.

Prichard said: "If we left Turner at the quote we discussed at the time (or the same price) and followed the signing operations we planned at the time, we would not only touch the luxury tax, but we might have exceeded the second luxury tax payment line." He then added that the team was not planning to exceed the second luxury tax payment line set by the league at the time, so the "second phase" he mentioned was more likely to refer to the incremental mechanism of the luxury tax range - for every $5.75 million exceeding the tax line, the tax rate paid by the team would become more demanding.

But in this case, Prichard said: "I thought we were gradually approaching a deal. Because when you are a non-restricted free agent, just hear a number that makes you feel appropriate, then you have the right to say, 'This is what I want, I want to accept it.'"

"...This is his opportunity, he has the right to say, 'Let it be, I'm going to go the other way.' We communicated smoothly throughout the process without any hostility. I think the offer we gave is already very close. But this is my opinion, and it may be a little short of it for him." Prichard admitted that he learned that Turner decided to join the Bucks through social media reports by reporter Shams Charania.

Prichard: "To be honest, I was shocked when I heard the news. I thought we were still in open and active negotiations. We had also completed large transactions with the agency where Miles belonged to. They were very good people and we would continue to cooperate in the future. But Miles heard something he could not refuse on the Bucks, so he immediately decided to accept it." "We are actually willing to cooperate with a sign-first and then exchange transaction, because that would benefit both parties. Unfortunately, we didn't even enter this stage,"

If we had sign-first and then exchange transactions at that time, the Pacers might at least get some rewards from Turner's departure. But the Bucks finally made room for direct signing through a series of operations—including cutting Damian Lillard.

Prichard said he was surprised by the Bucks' decisiveness and radicality in their operations, although they had previously considered that some Super Hat teams would create space in special ways.

"We often say that there are two types of teams with cap space in the league: one is that there is room on the books; the other is that you can create space by buying out players or trading, but it is very challenging. It is worth paying tribute to the Bucks... We didn't fully expect that they could do it at the time."