New York Knicks star guard Jalen Brunson offered a candid reaction to Myles Turner’s surprising decision to leave the Indiana Pacers and sign with the Milwaukee Bucks during the offseason.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Roommates Show alongside teammate Josh Hart, Brunson reflected on Turner’s departure just weeks after the Pacers reached the NBA Finals.
“I thought the Myles Turner thing was like weird,” Brunson said. “Like he just said he spent like a decade here and all this stuff and everything and then boom, gone. You know what's crazy about that? He was on the trading block like every year. It was always like yeah we're looking to trade Myles Turner. It was like that for like at least five six years.”
Turner, 29, spent 10 seasons with the Pacers and helped anchor their playoff run in 2025. Indiana defeated the New York Knicks in six games in the Eastern Conference Finals before falling to the Oklahoma City Thunder in a hard-fought seven-game NBA Finals series. Turner then signed a four-year, $107 million deal with Milwaukee, a move that caught many fans and players off guard.
Hart, who joined Brunson on the show, emphasized the financial and personal factors that often go into such decisions.
“I’ll say this because it’s always like funny to me seeing situations like that,” Hart said. “And it’s like, we’ll never really know all of the facts… if you base everything on reports and what was allegedly, it’s like for NBA players we have such a small window for our lives to make the most money we can and so in a certain aspect we have to be kinda selfish in that regard.”
Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart reflect on Myles Turner’s Bucks deal
He continued, “You have a team that you’ve been with for a long time where you have a great relationship and then they offer you a substantially less amount of money than another team is. A lot of times you’re either going to go with the money or… oh, these people value me more or these people believe in me more.”
Turner’s deal with the Bucks includes a player option in the final year and a 15% trade kicker, signaling the franchise’s long-term investment in the veteran center. To make room for the contract, Milwaukee waived Damian Lillard and stretched the remainder of his $113 million salary, a bold decision that general manager Jon Horst later defended as a necessary step in maximizing Giannis Antetokounmpo’s championship window.
Hart concluded his thoughts by addressing the perception of loyalty in the NBA.
“I think it’s funny because people obviously looked at that and were like oh, he should’ve just took the money and been loyal, but the flipside of it is a lot of times the teams are never loyal to what the players are.”
Turner’s move to Milwaukee marks a major shift in the Eastern Conference landscape, and as Brunson and Hart noted, it serves as a reminder of the complex factors that drive player movement — even after a Finals run.
