Myles Turner has a new job and new fans. What he left behind is all business.

INDIANAPOLIS – Myles Turner shooting on the court in Gainbridge Fieldhouse is hardly a new sight. For a decade, it was totally normal. When Turner was drafted, the Indiana Pacers practice court was in the arena. It has since moved across the street, but the 29-year old big man has taken 10s of thousands of shots in the building, perhaps approaching six figures.

6,683 of them came in regular season games. Another 672 in the postseason. The high-arcing, above-his-head jumper is well known and an easy visual for the Indianapolis populace.

The newer visual is the coloring and words of his uniform. As Turner took the court Monday morning, he donned a white jersey with black trim. Across the front, in huge Green letters, read "BUCKS". Just below it, the number 3. Not the 33 he rocked for 10 years with the Pacers.

Turner chose Milwaukee's offer in free agency, one that guaranteed him more total money and more guaranteed years of employment. Several league sources with knowledge of the negotiations shared that the Pacers offered three years and just under $70 million in total. You've certainly read that elsewhere. The Bucks, after waiving Damian Lillard, offered more money, another season of guaranteed money, a player option, and a trade bonus that could be worth quite a bit of cash. Turner took that offer without giving the Pacers to match.

Indiana may have matched that contract if given the chance. They may not have. My guess (to be clear: guess) is that the Pacers would have offered more years and more money if negotiations continued, but perhaps not all the bells and whistles – options, trade kickers, etc. That part of the story is done and has been told.

A new part of the story will be told tonight. Turner will play in Gainbridge Fieldhouse as a Pacers foe for the first time ever. He'll walk on and off the court from the tunnel at the South end of the arena, not the Northeast corner. It will feel weird and odd in some ways, yet natural in others. It's how the NBA is now, players move around. But a decade is a decade. A fan section named after you can't simply be snapped away.

"I was out here fighting for this city, fighting for this team. And I hope those feelings are reciprocated tonight," Turner said this morning of his upcoming reception. "I'm expecting the best, but you never know."

There will be a welcome back of some kind, at least. Turner doesn't know how he will feel. He's expecting a mixed reaction – a near certainty, if you ask me. The big man will be forced to remember 10 formative years of his life in about a three minute period, surrounded by familiar faces turned opponents. It's impossible to know how you'll feel in a moment like that, especially when the sounds coming from above will be an unpredictable mix of boos and cheers.

How Turner feels about some of those familiar faces will be telling. He made it clear: those who paid for tickets, he still loves. Some decision makers, though? That's different.

"I say it all the time, this league is a business and I got my first real taste of what that business sense meant. Obviously you gotta take some of the emotions out of it. So no, it didn’t change how I felt here," Turner said when asked how free agency impacted his feelings about the Pacers and the fanbase. "Now, ownership and front office, that’s a different story. That has everything to do between me and them, nothing to do with the fans."

That is a logical place for Turner's mind to land. The best season in Pacers history ends and less than two weeks later he's in a challenging negotiation with the only franchise he's ever known. Even if the Bucks hadn't come in with an offer that was appealing and logical, it would have been easy to follow his mind and emotions. It's also understandable why the Pacers, after a rough NBA Finals from Turner and a torn Achilles for Tyrese Haliburton, changed their spending approach. The degree to which they shifted can and should be debated, but it wasn't without merit. Nobody has to be in the wrong.

And that leads to tonight, with Turner and the Pacers opposite each other for the first time ever – or perhaps the second time ever if you count the negotiating table. But the larger part of Turner's time this morning wasn't spent discussing those emotions and the specifics of Turner's departure. Rather, a significant amount of time was dedicated to clarification – Turner had a lot to explain when it came to some comments he's made since exiting Indiana.

And I think, from my own experiences in the recent weeks, both Turner AND fans have their heads in the right place.

I was there in Las Vegas when Turner was introduced for the first time as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks. I wrote about it in July – in some ways it was a familiar scene. Turner, in front of reporters seated by his coach and GM, answering questions about a contract decision. It was the same setup for the Pacers when they gave Turner a contract extension in 2023. But this time, he was with Bucks leadership.

Turner fielded many inquiries about his decision to switch addresses in the Central Division. He answered with things like "I hate when they say the grass can't be greener on the other side. I'm confident enough to say the grass is going to be greener wherever I go," and other things like, "For me, ultimately it was about just staying competitive... Two years ago, we got to the conference finals. Obviously, last year we got to the Finals. Being a big part of winning basketball just changed my entire perspective on this league. I saw a chance to remain competitive here."

Of course, the Bucks have a higher ceiling than the Pacers this year. But these quotes highlight the summer tension the big man created. The grass is greener wherever he goes, meaning he would be happy wherever he is. He wants to remain competitive, meaning he thinks Milwaukee can be competitive this year. Understandable things to say, in my opinion.

For many in Indianapolis, those lines hit on the backswing. The grass is greener wherever he goes, which isn't Indy anymore. The implication for those with Pacers ties: the grass in the Circle City is withered. Turner wants to remain competitive – well, his former team was 24 minutes from a title. Sure, the current season might be a bit more painful, but it doesn't get more competitive than that.

It's totally understandable why the Pacers' masses were frustrated by Turner's words. This column isn't meant to tell anyone how to feel. I'll say this, though. I get what Turner is saying and don't believe he had ill intent every time he opened his mouth.

I say that as someone who was making a (albeit much smaller and without hundreds of millions of dollars involved) big decision recently. The website you're reading launched less than two weeks ago (okay, I made it in April but didn't really launch it until October). You can read the announcement post here, but there's one line that matters for this story.

"Some outlets I work for ask for specific kinds of stories. Here, I have much more creative freedom and can use first person, which I think is additive in many ways."

I typed that entire sentence out with the hope that I could do what you're reading right now. I'm writing this exact sentence in first person – I've never been able to do that before. There is an embed above to a video interview performed this morning, a picture I took years ago, words emphasized with italics, and my opinions of past events. Hell yeah! I can cuss, too!

That's all exciting, and I think it adds to the writing. That's why I do it! But, that doesn't mean any of my past or present employers deserve ire for not letting me do those things. They have their own style guides and specific coverage they asked of me, and I thank(ed) them for the opportunities.

I've covered two coaching changes in the NBA and three in the WNBA. Every time a newly-coached team starts to perform well, players are asked what they like about their new sideline leader. Never once did I view the positive description of a new coach as a listing of shortcomings for the old coach.

So, back to today. Most of the time Turner was talking about his choice to go from Indiana to Milwaukee, I viewed it as exclusive praise of the Bucks and his new organization and not shots at his former employer. I do understand how it could be interpreted in other manners and am, once again, not trying to persuade you otherwise. But as someone who also just made an employment decision, I get it.

That all said, there were specific questions to Turner about why he didn't choose to stay with the Pacers. I asked one in July! He talked about alignment. There are clearly things about the Pacers he doesn't/didn't like, at least right now. And I'd say there are roughly 40 million things he prefers about the Bucks.

But Turner deserved a chance to at least clarify what he meant all summer. He thought he'd stay in Indiana, and many within the Pacers believed he'd be back. July 1 was a memorable day for the organization as he agreed to sign somewhere else. But Turner also said the following of Milwaukee: "I'm in a city now that wants to celebrate me. There's a great quote that says 'go where you're celebrated'. I feel like that's here."

He was certainly celebrated in Indiana, even after his dismal Finals play. He clarified those comments on X, saying they were directed at the free agency process and not fans.

Today, he closed the loop on that. "I feel like, let's talk about value. Go where you're valued, in a sense. And I feel like the front office and the ownership valued me in Milwaukee more than the front office and the ownership may have valued me here in Indiana," Turner began. "So, again, that wasn't a shot at the fans. I see how fans would have taken that personally, just how fresh you were off such a great run and whatnot. But again, I'm going to say this right to the camera. By no means did anything I say have anything to do with the fans or the city. This is strictly a business decision for me personally."

That was his best answer of the morning. He explained his decision, clarified his comments by using a better word – value – and admitted that he understands how fans could have interpreted his words.

It's a challenging line to walk, as Turner is finding out the hard way. As he said, it's just business, and this is the other side of it. Tonight, he'll hear some boos and some cheers. The game will end, and this story will become much smaller. Some happy memories will grow in importance, other dark ones will remain. That's sports. And that, too, is business.

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