JANUARY 30: Turner’s extension is now official, the Pacers announced in a press release.
JANUARY 28: The Pacers have reached a two-year extension agreement with Myles Turner, tweets ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Turner’s agent, Austin Brown of CAA Sports, tells Woj that the deal includes a $17.1MM renegotiation on the center’s salary for the current season. Turner will have that amount added to the $18MM he’s already receiving in 2022/23. It’s the largest renegotiation deal in NBA history, according to Wojnarowski, and it’s possible because the team had a significant amount of remaining cap space.
According to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link), Turner’s yearly salaries will be about $35MM for the current season, approximately $21MM for 2023/24 and $20MM for the following season, giving the deal a total value of approximately $58MM in new money.
Because Turner’s current contract contains $2MM in unlikely bonuses, per Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter link), $17.1MM was the maximum amount the Pacers were allowed to add to his $18MM salary this season (Turner’s maximum salary is $37.1MM).
Marks explains that because Turner’s deal came through a renegotiation, the Pacers were permitted to drop his salary by 40% in the first year of the extension, to approximately $21MM in 2023/24. Marks adds that the agreement doesn’t change Turner’s trade status; he’s still eligible to be dealt before the February 9 deadline.
Turner appeared to be headed out of Indiana last summer, as one of the offseason’s hottest rumors was a deal that would have sent him and Buddy Hield to the Lakers in exchange for Russell Westbrook and L.A.’s first-round picks in 2027 and 2029. The Lakers decided against parting with that much draft capital, and Turner is putting up the best numbers of his career with a surprising Pacers team.
He’s averaging career-highs with 17.5 points and 7.9 rebounds per game while shooting 54.4% from the field and 39.1% from three-point range. He’s also among the league’s best shot blockers, swatting away 2.4 per game this season.
Assuming Indiana plans to keep Turner, he will be part of a young foundation for the team to build around, along with Tyrese Haliburton and rookie Bennedict Mathurin. Turner is only 26 and should be well positioned to land another large contract two years from now.
Get ya money young man!!
Yes he got the bag!!! But I’m extremely happy for him because the Indiana Pacers are headed in the right direction.
Laker fans crying
Not this one. I’m realistic. He was never going to the Lakers. Since he’s locked in for a couple more years, I’m curious what Indiana wants from teams in a trade now
Nothing! Not interested in moving him now. Interested in adding to him. Maybe Hield is going somewhere?
Lakers fans doesnt want to add another injury prone, they already have AD!
Not really. Would have been a good pick up but they have more pressing needs than center especially if it was gonna cost both 1st.
Knowing Laker fans somehow someway it’s a sign that there’s something going on for Lakers to get him
Doubtful at least this season. Plus as I said hes not a main focus atm as they still need bare minimum another solid 3/D wing preferably 2. If they do go after a center it’d probably be Bamba from Orlando as hes the same type of player(numbers aren’t far off per 36) and wont cost you a first.
No, actually the deal is more likely to get done now. Lakers wouldn’t make the deal with him not on an extension because we’ll be giving up those 1st round picks with russ, and no commitment from him . Now we have the commitment. Sorry to break it to you that way.
You’re not giving up 2 first for Turner hes not worth it. Sorry to break it to you bub
Some nifty cap work there. Gets him paid and use up the cap space they had this year to reward one of your best players while keeping the cash and cap amounts for the next two years at reasonable amounts making it a little bit easier to trade him if it comes to it.
Yeah, they were gonna have to pay that $ either way, to Turner or to the NBA to spread across their roster for being under min.cap .
win/win
I guess some of his mates, those on minimum contracts, aren’t gonna feel that happy. Good for him though, he deserves it
good now I will not be hearing all the Turner trade rumors that been going on for almost a year now.
This extension doesn’t end the trade rumors, it just lessens the suitors. But for the teams that line up well, it actually makes him more attractive.
Example – Lakers can now pursue him knowing they have him under contract at a great figure for two more years after this one. And at $35M for this year, he’s a matching value for Westbrook’s huge deal. They avoid having a bidding war for Turner as an unrestricted FA.
Conversely, a team like Golden State that could’ve matched salaries with Turner on his $18M previous expiring deal without giving up one of their stars now is unable to do that.
Golden State could’ve gotten to $18M matching but can’t get to $35M. And several other contenders would be in the same boat.
Turner and his people probably know this, so it’s win-win. He gives up a bit of long-term money but gets the big guarantee and makes himself only tradeable to his favorite spot, the Lakers.
Since he signed a extension he can’t get traded until next year.
Did you even read the article?
“Marks adds that the agreement doesn’t change Turner’s trade status; he’s still eligible to be dealt before the February 9 deadline.”
Even more tradeable now.
Indiana making one good move after another. Starting with the Haliburton trade, drafting Mathurin and now this signing, they’ve got some solid pieces to move in addition to a solid foundation to build upon. Certainly like what they’re doing.
Guess I could sleep now for dropping Stix in fantasy lol
I wish more teams would front load deals.
So much for rebuilding.
Herb Simon hates rebuilding. In a way I respect that. Quote from the owner a couple years back.
“I don’t want to see (a rebuild). If I don’t want to see it, the fans don’t want to see it. Why would we want to go through a rebuild when we can build on the go?”
“We’re not a franchise that’s going to dump (games) to get a better (draft) pick. We’re going to try to win every game. Sometimes, we’ll develop rookies who may cost us a game, but we’ll never go into a game to lose while I’m an owner. I don’t believe in that. Some teams do, but I don’t believe in that.”
Smart
What IND is doing is rebuilding. Before tanking (which is of relatively recent vintage, and embraced mostly by the uninitiated) it was the only kind of rebuilding. It’s still the only kind of rebuilding that’s ever built a championship team. Of course, there’s never been so many tankers, so maybe one will build their first one at some point. We’ll see.
On Turner, it will be interesting to see if they still discuss him in potential deadline trades. They had until March 1 to get this extension done. Trade deadline is Feb 9. His contract is now a harder match, but overall more valuable.