After signing Myles Turner and waiving Damian Lillard, where do the Bucks stand?

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One week after Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst stunned the NBA with a flurry of proposed high-profile moves, including agreeing to sign a division rival’s starting center and planning to waive and stretch the contract of a nine-time All-Star, those transactions became official over the last 24 hours.

The Bucks’ 2025-26 roster has begun to take shape, providing a clearer outline of what’s been accomplished and what moves they still need to make.

While much of the day involved using ink to rewrite things that had been written in pencil, the most significant revelations may have come from Indianapolis, where Indiana Pacers president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard told the media that he was shocked by how his team’s negotiations with former center Myles Turner unfolded.

“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. “I saw Shams tweet it, and that’s how I knew that Myles was taken away.”

#Pacers president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard on Myles Turner signing with the Bucks:

“Herb Simon and Steven Rales and the Simon family were fully prepared to go deep into the tax to keep him, and we really wanted to do that.” pic.twitter.com/Et8zTQUcHN

— WISH-TV News (@WISHNews8) July 7, 2025

Pritchard sidestepped direct questions regarding whether or not the Pacers were given a chance to match the Bucks’ offer, but Pritchard left little doubt that he was not expecting the Bucks to create cap space and sign Turner at the start of free agency.

Instead, that is precisely what Horst did by waiving Damian Lillard and stretching his $112 million contract — the most significant such move in NBA history — and shocking the basketball world, including Pritchard.

Business behind the news

While we reported a lot of Bucks news over the last week here at The Athletic, there were going to be more details revealing how the Bucks pulled off their roster-building strategy.

Waiving Lillard and then stretching his contract over the next five seasons (for roughly $22.5 million each year) created much of the cap space the Bucks needed to sign Turner this summer, but not all of it.

The Bucks needed to find a way to clear a bit more space, and they did that by trading Pat Connaughton and two second-round picks to the Charlotte Hornets for Serbian guard Vasilije Micić. Not only did Micić make less ($8.1 million) than Connaughton ($9.4 million), but Micić was also willing to work with the Bucks on a contract buyout. That assistance helped the Bucks create enough space to sign Turner and also prevented the team from exceeding the stretched salary threshold for the 2025-26 season.

On Monday, The Athletic reported that Micić agreed to a $6.1 million buyout, which shrunk his salary cap hit for the 2025-26 season to only $2 million before the Bucks waived him. Teams are not allowed to have more than 15 percent of their salary cap taken up by stretched money in any season, and that buyout, plus the subsequent waive-and-stretch, kept the Bucks from going over the limit.

A leader as resilient and clutch as they come. You gave your all for this team and this city.

Thank you, Dame. pic.twitter.com/CB1fYOyCoW

— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) July 7, 2025

On Monday, the Bucks thanked Lillard for his time in Milwaukee. With injuries hampering Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo in the postseason, Lillard’s time in Milwaukee did not go as anyone could have expected when Horst made the surprising move to acquire one of the NBA’s top 75 players a few days before the 2023-24 season.

In 131 regular-season games with the Bucks, Lillard averaged 24.6 points, 4.5 rebounds and 7.0 assists, but he ended up only playing 62 playoff minutes with Antetokounmpo in three playoff games, all this postseason.

More signings are expected to become official in the coming days. On Monday, the Bucks announced that they had signed Turner and re-signed point guard Kevin Porter Jr. and big man Bobby Portis.

On Monday night, Mike Scotto reported that Turner’s deal with the Bucks was for four years and $108.9 million. The Athletic can confirm that report, and the cap math behind it shows that the Bucks ended up giving every dollar of cap space they created by waiving Lillard and Micić to Turner’s first-year salary.

Also, a league source tells The Athletic that Andre Jackson Jr. and the Bucks agreed to push back the guarantee date on his $2.2 million contract for the 2025-26 season. In exchange for allowing his guarantee date to be pushed back, the Bucks guaranteed a portion of Jackson’s contract for next season.

The move does not alter the contract options the Bucks have available to sign free agents at the moment or “open up more space” for a free agent. The Bucks are still only able to use minimum contracts or what remains of the room exception (roughly $3.6 million, which is about the same as a minimum contract for a 10-year NBA veteran) after using part of it to sign Porter.

Depth chart

While more moves still need to become official, this could be a reasonable facsimile of a depth chart for the Bucks for the time being:

While the chart above lists a group of starters, there are plenty of other combinations among the top eight to 10 players that could make sense in the starting lineup.

Reasonable minds can disagree on starting Gary Trent Jr. over AJ Green or only starting one of the Bucks’ two best 3-point shooters. Others might feel better bringing Kyle Kuzma off the bench or letting Porter work with the reserves while Ryan Rollins opens the game with the starters, as the Bucks chose to do at the end of the regular season. All those opinions are reasonable, but this is a simple projection of the roster for now because those questions will work themselves out once the team opens training camp in three months.

Typically, over the last five years, this would be the space where we’d explain how much money the Bucks have between various aprons and their options for avoiding different problems. This time, however, the drastic move of waiving and stretching Lillard (and Micić) and signing Turner with cap space took the Bucks out of those types of conversations.

The signings (and re-signings) of Harris, Prince, Rollins, Sims and Trent still need to be announced and the official details need to be confirmed. Still, as it stands unofficially, the Bucks currently have two open roster spots left for free agents, and they sit over $20 million away from entering the luxury tax. That number will shrink with signings, but the Bucks are not subject to either of the CBA’s hard caps.

The Bucks have the option to use one of those open roster spots on Bogoljub Marković, the No. 47 pick in this past year’s NBA Draft. They could also keep him stashed overseas or maybe see if he’d be willing to sign a two-way deal as Koby Brea (No. 41 to the Phoenix Suns) or Jamir Watkins (No. 43 to the Washington Wizards) did. They could also open up a third roster spot if they wanted to waive Jackson and only end up paying him the money they guaranteed to him by pushing back the guarantee date on his contract. They could take on more salary in a trade if they found the right deal.

There are options, but those options currently do not include spending more than roughly $3.6 million in the first year of a free agent’s salary.

Remaining needs

The roster above shows a team built around Antetokounmpo as its lead playmaker, a strategy the Bucks used to close out last season when Lillard was sidelined due to deep vein thrombosis. After a test run to close the regular season, the Bucks also leaned into that setup in the playoffs and found themselves in a position to steal Game 5 in Indiana.

However, a series of unfortunate events in the final minutes led to a loss and eliminated them from the playoffs. Antetokounmpo was spectacular in Game 5, putting up 30 points, 20 rebounds and 13 assists, but he also committed seven turnovers.

With so much shot-creation responsibility put on his shoulders without Lillard, Antetokounmpo committed more turnovers than usual. The same was true in Game 1 without Lillard when Antetokounmpo committed five turnovers. After the Bucks were eliminated, the two-time NBA MVP discussed how much he enjoyed the role and how he can envision it being the next stage of his career. That, however, doesn’t mean the Bucks should surround him only with shooters and let him handle the ball, creating everything for his teammates on every possession.

Adding more ballhandling or shot creation could make things easier for Antetokounmpo. That should be a priority for the Bucks as they finalize their roster. Porter, 25, and Rollins, 23, are solid upside bets as point guards alongside Antetokounmpo. Still, the Bucks may want to find a sure-handed veteran point guard who can set up the team or a shooting guard such as Bradley Beal, who had the Bucks on a list of teams he’d consider if the Suns buy him out. Beal can be a playmaker, rather than relying primarily on his 3-point shooting like Trent and Green.

As always, the Bucks might also want to see if they can find any young players to add on the wing. Teams can never have enough capable wings. While the Bucks have Kuzma and Prince in that spot now, both might be a better fit at the four, if not for the lack of available minutes at the position.

If the Bucks could add a young wing with size, such as Dalano Banton or Amir Coffey, it might end up being a worthwhile investment for the future.

(Photo of Myles Turner and Bobby Portis: Joe Murphy / NBAE via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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