{"id":333800,"date":"2025-10-10T20:58:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T20:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/333800\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T20:58:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T20:58:27","slug":"myles-turner-says-finals-experience-with-indiana-adds-to-motivation-in-milwaukee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/333800\/","title":{"rendered":"Myles Turner says Finals experience with Indiana adds to motivation in Milwaukee"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILWAUKEE \u2014 Myles Turner says coming so close to a championship last year made him that much hungrier to win it all.<\/p>\n

In that regard, the Euless Trinity product made an interesting decision when he left the Indiana Pacers<\/a> in free agency to sign a four-year, $108.9 million contract with the Milwaukee Bucks.<\/a> His former team beat his new team in the first round<\/a> of the playoffs each of the last two seasons.<\/a><\/p>\n

His change of address isn\u2019t changing his expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so many years you felt like that was such a long shot, to get there,\u201d the 6-foot-11 center said. \u201cNow that I\u2019ve actually experienced it and know what it\u2019s like to be in that room, be so close, it\u2019s something that drives me more now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Turner cites the Bucks\u2019 championship background from winning the 2021 title.<\/a> The only current Bucks players who were part of that championship team are two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bobby Portis and Thanasis Antetokounmpo.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in an organization that\u2019s done it before, I understand what their mentality is and what they want to get back to,\u201d Turner said. \u201cThe fact we share similar mindsets is everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bucks made a big bet on Turner as they attempted to get younger and more athletic. They\u2019re trying to bounce back from three straight first-round postseason exits and show they\u2019re still capable of contending.<\/p>\n

Giannis Antetokounmpo believes Turner\u2019s arrival should help in that regard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very, very excited that he\u2019s on the team,\u201d Antetokounmpo said. \u201cHe\u2019s one of the bigs that I feel like, we could fit so well together. I think he gives our team so much depth. He\u2019s one of the best bigs in the league. He can shoot. He can take you off the dribble. Great defender. I feel he\u2019s an unbelievable guy in the locker room, very high-character guy. I\u2019m very, very excited for him. I think that was an incredible and great move by the Bucks.\u201d<\/p>\n

It certainly was a bold move.<\/p>\n

The Bucks created the cap room to sign Turner by waiving seven-time all-NBA guard Damian Lillard<\/a> and agreeing to pay him just over $20 million over the next five seasons via the NBA\u2019s stretch provision. Lillard isn\u2019t expected to play<\/a> this season after tearing his Achilles<\/a> tendon in Milwaukee\u2019s playoff loss to Indiana.<\/p>\n

Bucks officials said they were willing to absorb the long-term financial hindrance that came from waiving Lillard and stretching his contract if it enabled them to land a player of Turner\u2019s caliber.<\/p>\n

\u201cMyles has been someone who\u2019s been at the top of our board for a long time, in terms of where he\u2019s at in his career age-wise, style of play,\u201d general manager Jon Horst said.<\/p>\n

Turner was vacationing in Hawaii as everything came together. He would be changing teams for the first time after spending 10 seasons with the Pacers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a chance to reach out to everybody on the (Pacers) team through our group message and what not,\u201d Turner said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of bitter, you know what I mean? You go through war with these guys. These guys are your brothers, and you don\u2019t realize that\u2019s the last bus ride you\u2019re going to have with these guys. You don\u2019t realize it\u2019s the last meal you\u2019re going to share with these guys, that stuff. Unfortunately, it is a business. That\u2019s something I\u2019ve learned over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Turner was drafted by the Pacers in 2015, he built up his basketball r\u00e9sum\u00e9 in the Dallas area. Turner earned multiple awards during his high school career at Euless Trinity, being named a McDonald\u2019s All-American as a senior.<\/p>\n

He spent just one year at Texas before declaring for the 2015 NBA draft, where he was taken 11th overall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Turner never made an All-Star team during his decade with the Pacers, but he developed into a reliably versatile big man who combines rim protection with 3-point shooting. That makes him an ideal replacement for Brook Lopez, who signed with the Los Angeles Clippers<\/a> after spending seven seasons in Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old Turner is eight years younger than Lopez. He\u2019s a two-time NBA blocked shots leader who has a career average of 14.1 points and 6.8 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n

He had 15.6 points per game last season while making a career-high 156 3-pointers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we can get him even more 3\u2019s this year,\u201d Bucks coach Doc Rivers said. \u201cI felt one of the things that Myles is really going into is he punishes switches. If you switch a guard on him, he\u2019s going to go and put his head under the basket and punish you for it. I think that\u2019s something we want to use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rivers also noted that the Pacers seemed to have positioned on the elbow in a passing role more often than before last season. Rivers expects to use him that way as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are parts of my game I\u2019ll be able to embrace more now, that I haven\u2019t been able to embrace in the past,\u201d Turner said. \u201cI think I might be asked to do more now than I\u2019ve done in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bucks will need Turner to produce at that level if they\u2019re going to get back to competing for titles.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, Myles really, really wants to win,\u201d Horst said. \u201cHe was right there on the verge of doing it. He tasted that and wants it more than anything. He chose us for the opportunity to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Find more NBA coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILWAUKEE \u2014 Myles Turner says coming so close to a championship last year made him that much hungrier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,1529,149,16988,113,126,3866,166,6,114,2398],"class_list":{"0":"post-333800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indiana-pacers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-colleges","10":"tag-dallas-mavericks","11":"tag-euless-trinity-school","12":"tag-indiana","13":"tag-indiana-pacers","14":"tag-indianapacers","15":"tag-mavericks","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-pacers","18":"tag-texas-longhorns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115351880046806704","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}