We’ve seen this movie before.
Giannis Antetokounmpo gets antsy, sending signals that he’s not so sure about his future with the Milwaukee Bucks. Longtime general manager Jon Horst gets aggressive, shocking the NBA world with the kind of major move that few, if any, saw coming. Antetokounmpo recommits and leaves all those rival teams that were chasing the two-time MVP crestfallen.
The Bucks, who plan to waive future Hall of Famer Damian Lillard so that they can add former Indiana Pacers big man Myles Turner on a four-year, $107 million deal, are betting on that familiar final scene unfolding again with Antetokounmpo onboard.
As star player sagas go, the league has rarely, if ever, seen something as drastic and daring as this. The Bucks, well aware they’re on the knife’s edge here when it comes to Antetokounmpo’s long-term plans, decided to cut ties with Lillard, a 34-year-old nine-time All-Star and seven-time All-NBA team member whose Achilles’ tendon tear in late April derailed their plans. Never mind that they still owe him a combined $112 million that will now be stretched across their salary-cap books for the next five seasons (and paid to Lillard in the next two).
That amount is not only unprecedented as the largest contract ever to be “stretched,” but remarkably is nearly three times bigger than the previous leader (the Knicks waived and stretched Joakim Noah when he had $37.8 million remaining on his deal in 2018). Historically speaking, gambles don’t get any bigger than this. And the Bucks did it all to land Turner, the 29-year-old who so many believed would re-sign with the Pacers after their surprising NBA Finals run and who might be able to help the Bucks return to relevance in the up-for-grabs Eastern Conference.
Their future with the greatest Bucks player of all time depends on it.
The question now is whether Antetokounmpo, who has made it so clear that he wants to win more titles during these prime years, sees this latest stunner as the kind of calculated risk that’s worth co-signing. He did just that when Horst landed Jrue Holiday in 2020 (en route to the 2021 title) and again with the Lillard trade in 2023. It’s yet unclear how the Turner move might change the perspective of Antetokounmpo, who opted not to shut down rumors about his future by dodging the question in his news conference following the Bucks’ postseason elimination at the hands of the Pacers on April 29.
Antetokounmpo has three seasons left on his current deal, with a player option (worth $62.7 million) for the 2027-28 campaign. And while he hasn’t done any public posturing that would indicate he wants out of Milwaukee, his choice to stay quiet while the league-wide speculation swirls has been widely seen as a sign of uncertainty.
Yet even before the Turner addition, Horst had pulled off a dizzying set of transactions during the first 36 hours of free agency — with the goal of restoring Antetokounmpo’s faith in what might lie ahead. Super sixth man Bobby Portis agreed to re-sign on a team-friendly deal (three years, $44 million), which paled in comparison to some of his market comps (Minnesota’s Naz Reid, for example, got a five-year, $125 million deal). They managed to hold onto Kevin Porter Jr., Gary Trent Jr., Taurean Prince and Jericho Sims, reaching two-year deals with all four. The loss of beloved big man Brook Lopez to the Clippers was, eventually, mitigated by Turner’s arrival.
Amid all those concerns that the Bucks roster would be bare by the time Antetokounmpo took a long look at the Milwaukee landscape, there is reason to believe this team could contend. Especially given what’s happened elsewhere in the East.
With the Pacers already devastated by Tyrese Haliburton’s Achilles tear, and the Bucks making matters worse for Indiana by luring a pivotal piece of its core in Turner, the reigning East champs have already taken a serious step back. The Boston Celtics have been decimated, too, with Jayson Tatum suffering an Achilles tear during their title defense and the team conducting a mini-teardown from there. From Cleveland to New York, Orlando, Atlanta, Detroit and beyond, there is no clear-cut favorite. The hope from Milwaukee’s standpoint is quite clear: Antetokounmpo squints hard enough to see some light at the end of this Bucks tunnel.
With the stakes of this situation so high, and Antetokounmpo working through all of Tuesday’s initial confusion while contemplating what comes next, the Bucks’ latest make-or-break move was nothing if not audacious. Again.
And now it’s Turner’s turn to play the part of pivotal Bucks newcomer.
That he was available at all was a monumental surprise.
Turner, who was drafted 11th by Indiana in 2015, was the longest-tenured player on a team that was some 41 minutes away from winning it all less than two weeks ago. Heading into the summer as an unrestricted free agent, Turner indicated his intention was always to return to Indiana, and Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said after the finals that re-signing him was the team’s top priority.
But Indiana was already facing the likelihood next season of playing without Haliburton, who tore his Achilles about seven minutes into Game 7 of the finals, and decided it didn’t want to “overpay” for Turner now, a team source said. The Pacers had signaled a willingness to pay the luxury tax as the offseason neared, but clearly changed that stance in the wake of Haliburton’s injury.
Indiana’s offer to Turner, that source said, never stretched above three years or $20 million per season — well below the deal he struck with the Bucks. Turner’s struggles late in the postseason figured into the equation. He had a hard time against both the New York Knicks in the conference finals and then against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the finals, averaging about 12 points and 3.5 rebounds in those two series on 47-percent shooting (25 percent from 3-point range).
“It’s not really all that stunning when you think about it,” said the Pacers source, who added that the team doesn’t plan to tank next year with Haliburton sidelined. “It’s a bigger deal because it’s Milwaukee — if Myles had gone to Denver or the Clippers, it would be (perceived) totally different as far as (the Pacers) are concerned.”
Turner played in 642 regular-season games for the Pacers, averaging 14.1 points, 6.8 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game. He’s the team’s franchise leader in blocks, is sixth in games played and eighth in minutes played. In the short term, the move is a massive blow to a Central Division rival and a move that makes the Bucks stronger.
In essentially swapping Lopez for Turner, Milwaukee gets a center who is eight years younger and affects games in a similar fashion. He’s a shot-blocking, 3-point-shooting big man, one with even more mobility than Lopez could muster at his late stage.
it’s a unicorn stampede now! pic.twitter.com/ky8dZ4oBJJ
— Todd Whitehead (@CrumpledJumper) July 1, 2025
For Lillard, this is a welcome ending to his time in Milwaukee. As The Athletic reported in early May, Lillard and the Bucks were likely going to discuss whether he wanted to remain with the team after last season if he had remained healthy.
From the frustrations that came with the on-court fit to Lillard struggling at times while being so far from his children in Portland, Ore., it was no secret that he wasn’t long for Milwaukee. But his injury changed everything, leaving the Bucks, who had few draft assets and no cap room, with seemingly no way out when it came to putting impact players alongside Antetokounmpo. Per league sources, the Bucks made Lillard aware of this potential win-win plan on Sunday.
League sources say Lillard is elated with the Bucks’ decision, as it puts him in the kind of basketball-first position that few All-Star-level players, if any, have experienced in league history. In short, he’ll be able to join the contending team of his choosing, either sometime soon or perhaps next summer, without the financial aspect of the decision playing a significant part.
With Lillard owed $54.1 million for this coming season and $58.4 million in the 2026-27 campaign, there is a salary offset for any team that acquires him during those two years. And while the Bucks would surely prefer that Lillard sign for a significant salary as a way to alleviate some of their financial burden, the reality is that he could sign for a minimum-salary deal and still be paid the same amount. That’s a powerful place to be when you’re a future Hall of Famer in your mid-30s who has never won a championship.
Not surprisingly, league sources say Lillard received calls from several contending teams quickly after the news of his Bucks’ ending broke. League sources say the Golden State Warriors, Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers are known to be among the many teams that would have interest in doing a deal sooner rather than later. The question is whether he wants to sign with a team now and rehabilitate while under their care or wait until next summer to reassess the situation. The Bucks, who will have to operate with Lillard’s money clogging their books for the next five seasons, are banking on this latest roll of the dice paying off.
As the salary cap increases in the coming years, the percentage of the cap that dead money takes up will decrease and become less painful for the Bucks, but it’s not going anywhere. It is a reality that Horst, who was given a contract extension shortly after this past regular season, was willing to accept to once again attempt to put the Bucks in the conversation with the other teams vying for the East’s top spot.
But the possibility of peril has never been greater.
With the previous trades for Holiday and then Lillard, the Bucks stripped away nearly all of their draft assets to put themselves in the conversation for the last seven seasons. Now, Horst has taken it a step further. Not only do the Bucks have limited draft capital moving forward, but also they now have $22.5 million less in cap space than they could have had in each of the next five seasons. They’ll be paying for Lillard in the 2029-30 season, one or even two years after Turner has completed the contract he will soon sign to join the Bucks.
Even with the dangers laid bare for all to see, Horst has decided to once again take a huge chance in trying to persuade Antetokounmpo to remain in Milwaukee and finish out his career as one of the NBA’s rarest breeds: a one-team superstar.
When the Bucks put together the East’s best record for the second consecutive season in 2020 behind Antetokounmpo’s second NBA MVP, but disappointingly fell to the Miami Heat in the second round, Horst made an aggressive move. He traded starting point guard Eric Bledsoe, along with five first-round picks, to acquire Holiday in an attempt to persuade Antetokounmpo to sign a five-year supermax contract.
It worked. Antetokounmpo signed the largest contract in NBA history one month after the trade and then led the Bucks to an NBA championship in 2021, the franchise’s first since 1971.
When the Bucks put together the league’s best record but got upset by the eighth-seeded Miami Heat in the first round in 2023, Horst made an aggressive move again to assure Antetokounmpo the organization was still committed to competing for championships. He traded Holiday, the Bucks’ starting point guard and a hero of the 2021 championship run, and three first-round picks for Lillard, one of the top 75 players in NBA history.
It worked. Antetokounmpo signed an extension one month later, adding two more guaranteed years to his deal and a player option that could keep him in Milwaukee through the 2027-28 season, which would be his 15th season with the team. But the Bucks did not find the same on-court success as they did in 2021, getting eliminated in the first round each of the last three seasons, including the last two with Lillard, while dealing with injuries to their biggest contributors.
After a bitter ending to the Bucks’ 2024-25 campaign made Antetokounmpo’s future in Milwaukee appear more precarious than ever, Horst has doubled down on the Antetokounmpo era yet again. With the whole league hoping Antetokounmpo was going to ask out, and rival teams making some decisions in real time this offseason with the goal of landing him in mind, Horst did what he has always done and took extreme measures to persuade Antetokounmpo to stay in the only NBA home he’s ever known.
Will it work once again?
— The Athletic‘s Danny Leroux contributed to this story
(Top illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; John Fisher / Getty, Garrett Ellwood / Getty)
