Pacers Say Myles Turner's Agent Never Gave Them Opportunity to Match Bucks Offer

The Indiana Pacers were not given the chance to match the Milwaukee Bucks' offer for center Myles Turner, per president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard.

Turner was an unrestricted free agent at the start of the offseason, though many NBA experts expected the team to keep him.

The Pacers made it all the way to the NBA Finals with Turner as the team's starting center, and they were projected to keep their core intact — which included Turner.

Instead, Turner went to an Eastern Conference rival after signing a four year, $107 million deal with the Bucks.

According to Pritchard, the Pacers were not given an opportunity to match the offer that he ended up signing.

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"I don't want to get into the specifics of Myles because the truth is he gave 10 great years here. I loved having him be here. I hope I'm friends with him for a long time. I know this, that Herb Simon and Steven Rails and the Simon family were fully prepared to go deep into the tax to keep him," Pritchard told reporters.

"And we really wanted to do that. And 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 going to take it, and that's best for my family.

"It was a little surprising that, you know, how Milwaukee created that."