Just days after the Indiana Pacers' defeat in the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the franchise's longest tenured player made his way for the exit door by signing a long-term contract with the Milwaukee Bucks.
The news broke courtesy of a tweet from ESPN's Shams Charania, and it seems that members of the Pacers front office found out the news the same way most NBA fans did––on social media.
Team president Kevin Pritchard told The Athletic that he discovered the news of Turner's contract with the Bucks from Charania's tweet, saying that Indiana had been negotiating with Turner's camp up until the center agreed to move to Milwaukee.
"We would have been open on a sign-and-trade because it's sort of mutually beneficial, but we didn't get to that point, unfortunately," Pritchard said, via The Athletic. "I saw Shams tweet it, and that's how I knew that Myles was taken away."
Pritchard admitted the deal caught him off guard, going as far as to say he was "shocked."
He's certainly not the only one.
Throughout Turner's 10 years with the organization, he was frequently the subject of trade rumors, creating a sense of instability regarding his long-term future with the organization. Those talks seemed to subside a bit this year, so it was a stunner to see him depart in free agency once rumors of his exit had finally cooled off.
The Pacers weren't expecting such a sudden departure on his end, and Pritchard indicated the team would've been willing to go "deep into the tax."
"We were negotiating in good faith, but what happens in this league is sometimes you're negotiating, but because a guy is unrestricted, he has the right to say, 'That's the offer I want. I'm gonna take it.'"
Turner played in 642 games across 10 years in Indiana after being drafted with the No. 11 pick in the 2015 draft. He signed with the Bucks on a four-year, $107 million deal.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Pacers President Found Out About Myles Turner Departure the Same Way As Everyone Else.
