Milwaukee Bucks waive and stretch Damian Lillard’s contract, use money to sign Myles Turner

Despite expectations he would, Giannis Antetokounmpo did not request a trade out of Milwaukee this offseason. He sat back, took a trip to South America with his family, and waited for his team to make a bold move to get them back in the mix for the top of the East.

Now, Milwaukee has made about as daring a move as we have seen in the NBA — and Antetokounmpo is not happy about it.

In a stunning move, the Bucks waived Damian Lillard, stretching the nine-time All-Star’s nearly $113 million remaining on his contract over five years to free up cap space. Lillard is expected to miss most, if not all, of next season as he rehabs from a torn Achilles suffered in the playoffs. This is a cold bit of business that will make Lillard a free agent and will result in $22.5 million of dead money on Milwaukee’s salary cap for each of the next five years (this is the largest salary cap stretch in league history). Lillard was set to make $51.4 million this coming season (he still gets all the money from his contract).

Milwaukee then used the freed-up cap space from that move to sign Myles Turner away from the Pacers with a four-year, $107 million contract, all of this broken by Shams Charania of ESPN.

Turner had been central to Indiana’s run to the NBA Finals, averaging 15.6 points a game while shooting 39.6% on 3-pointers, plus adding 6.5 rebounds and two blocks per game. Entering free agency, Turner stated that he wanted to return to the Pacers, the only team he had ever played for in his 10-year NBA career. However, he also sought to be paid at the level of other top centers, a figure that starts at $25 million a season.

However, Pacers’ owner Herb Simon’s fear of the luxury tax (especially after the Tyrese Haliburton injury) cost them a key player.

This is a punch to the gut of Pacers fans, who just came off the high of their team’s impressive and unifying run to the NBA Finals, only to have Tyrese Haliburton go down with a torn Achilles, and now to have Turner leave because ownership would not spend like a contender, even when they have a Finals team.

Milwaukee was aggressive this offseason, spending its money to bring back key players on its roster. The Bucks re-signed Bobby Portis, and also brought back Gary Trent Jr., Taurean Prince and Kevin Porter Jr. The only player that was let walk was Brook Lopez (to the Clippers), then the Bucks found an upgrade at center.

If you think adding Turner and pushing the Bucks closer to contention heading into a down season in the Eastern Conference was going to make Antetokounmpo happy, guess again. He is a man who values relationships.

Antetokounmpo appears more taken aback than anything.

All of this leaves a lot more questions, starting with “Is Antetokounmpo unhappy enough to ask for a trade?” Don’t expect him to. Antetokounmpo did this summer what he has done in the past: Passively-aggressively push the Bucks to make bold moves to keep them in contention. That is how they ended up with Lillard in the first place. He can’t do that and then be that bitter about how it came together.

Then there is “How do the Pacers rebuild this roster now by Haliburton’s return?” and “Which team is willing to snap up a 34-year-old Damian Lillard coming off a torn Achilles?” This is going to be playing out for a while.