Indiana Pacers salary cap, contracts, free agents: Will they re-sign Myles Turner in offseason?
The Indiana Pacers enter the 2025 offseason without a center under contract, but with all their other positions set.
The biggest roster question is: Will the Pacers keep Myles Turner in free agency? Another popped up in the wake of Sunday night's Game 7 NBA Finals loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder: Do the Pacers make any moves in anticipation of a long Tyrese Haliburton injury rehab?
Turner, a 10-year veteran, averaged 15.6 points and 6.5 rebounds per game in 2024-25, making 39.6% of his 3-pointers. The 29-year-old counted $19.9 million toward Indiana's salary cap. IndyStar's Dustin Dopirak recently pondered the possibility of keeping Turner at about $30 million per year over four or five seasons.
Other Pacers centers on expiring contracts:
Locker room presence James Johnson, rookie forward Enrique Freeman and guard Quenton Jackson are also entering free agency. RayJ Dennis is on a two-way contract.
Here's the contract status of Pacers players, according to Spotrac.
Haliburton counted $42.1 million toward the Pacers' 2024-25 salary cap.
Age: 25
Experience: 5 years
2024-25 performance: 18.6 points, 9.2 assists, 1.4 steals, 38.8% 3-pointers, third-team All-NBA
He was on the Toronto Raptors' 2019 NBA championship team.
Age: 31
Experience: 9 seasons
2024-25 performance: 20.2 points, 6.9 rebounds, 38.9% 3-pointers, All-Star
Age: 25
Experience: 3 seasons
2024-25 performance: 10.0 points, 5.0 assists, 1.2 steals
He started four games in the 2024-25 season.
Age: 27
Experience: 5 seasons
2024-25 performance: 10.5 points, 4.0 rebounds, 36.5% 3-pointers
Age: 25
Experience: 5 seasons
2024-25 performance: 12.0 points, 4.0 rebounds, 43.1% 3-pointers
McConnell counted $9.3 million toward the 2024-25 salary cap.
Age: 33
Experience: 10 seasons
2024-25 performance: 9.1 points, 4.4 assists, 1.1 steals
*-club option
Age: 23
Experience: 3 seasons
2024-25 performance: 16.1 points, 5.3 rebounds
Walker suffered an ankle injury in the Eastern Conference Finals that kept him out of the NBA Finals.
Age: 21
Experience: 2 seasons
2024-25 performance: 6.1 points, 3.1 rebounds, 40.5% 3-pointers
*-club option
Age: 23
Experience: 2 seasons
2024-25 performance: 5.3 points
*-club option
Age: 20
Experience: 1 season
2024-25 performance: 2.1 points, appearing in 50 games
*-club option
That will be confirmed in July. Spotrac projects it at $154.6 million, with the luxury tax threshold at $189 million. The Pacers head into free agency with about $168 million already spoken for.
First round: 8 p.m. ET Wednesday, June 25, 2025, at Barclays Center in New York.
Second round: 8 p.m. Thursday, June 26, 2025
Making moves: Pacers trade away their first-round pick, but have a second-rounder
July 5-8: NBA Summer League play in San Francisco and Salt Lake City.
July 6: NBA teams can sign free agents beginning at 12:01 p.m. ET.
July 10-20: Las Vegas Summer League.
Oct. 21: NBA regular season opens.
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NBC Sports
18 minutes ago
- NBC Sports
Tyrese Haliburton reportedly suffered torn right Achilles in Game 7 loss
Tyrese Haliburton suffered a torn right Achilles tendon on Sunday night, according to a report from ESPN's Shams Charania. Breaking: Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton sustained a torn right Achilles tendon in Game 7 against Oklahoma City, sources tell ESPN. Haliburton played through a calf strain in the same leg during the NBA Finals for an opportunity to win a championship. The worst case scenario has been confirmed after Haliburton went down during the first quarter of Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the Thunder. He got off to a hot start, scoring nine points in the first seven minutes before going down with the injury. Prior to the game, Haliburton had been dealing with a right calf strain that he suffered in Game 5, which resulted in his name appearing on the injury report ahead of Games 6 and 7. But with a ring on the line, Haliburton played through it. Things went well in Game 6, with Indiana winning 108-91 while Haliburton only needed to play 23 minutes. Even after Haliburton went down on Sunday, the Pacers, who have been resilient throughout their postseason run, were able to take a lead into halftime and keep things competitive early in the second half before OKC took control late in the third quarter before going on to win 103-91. There is no official timeline for Haliburton's return at this point, though there should be an update after he undergoes surgery to repair the tendon. However, Haliburton's status for the 2025-26 season is in jeopardy. The Pacers recently traded away the 23rd pick in the 2025 draft to reacquire their 2026 first-round pick, which means they'll only be able to add help in this draft with the 54th pick, unless they make another move. They can also apply for an injured player exception between July 1 and January 15, which would allow them to sign a free agent for half of Haliburton's salary for next season, giving them roughly $22.75 million to work with. Indiana will likely turn to Andrew Nembhard and T.J. McConnell to split the point guard duties until Haliburton returns.


USA Today
19 minutes ago
- USA Today
6 NBA contenders standing in the way of a Thunder repeat in 2026
On Sunday night, the Oklahoma City Thunder became the youngest NBA team to win it all in nearly five decades. And they're led by reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who will only be 27 come next season, while his running mates like Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren continue to grow. This paints the picture of a young Thunder squad potentially primed to complete the league's first repeat in 2026. But as we all know, that is much easier said (and theorized about) than done. When the target's on your back with everyone else using you as a de facto measuring stick, things are different. They're more heated throughout a long season than they should be because no one gives you a night off. No one. Throw in a natural, all-too-human tendency toward possible complacency — it's really hard to be just as hungry for and committed to winning a repeat title right after winning your first — and a Thunder repeat next year is anything but a guarantee. Even the Thunder's healthy culture isn't immune to that. That's to say nothing of the Thunder's competition, which will be preparing for and loading up accordingly to beat them this summer. Let's examine the biggest challengers to the Thunder's throne in 2026, talk about what questions and strengths they have, and give them a good old-fashioned ranking. 6. Golden State Warriors Barring some major changes, I'm concerned about the Warriors' core (Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler) all being players in their late 30s. The NBA is a young man's league, especially when you have to play around 100 games over roughly eight months to win the title. But there's no denying that the Warriors have a lot of juice with Butler in the fold. Give these guys a full offseason and training camp together, and they might morph into a powerhouse. 5. Minnesota Timberwolves Are Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert long for Minnesota? Can an aging Mike Conley handle another full season as the Timberwolves' primary offensive initiator? These are questions the Timberwolves will have to ask themselves in earnest over the next few weeks. But after two consecutive Western Conference Finals appearances, I'm not quite ready to bury Anthony Edwards' bunch yet, even if they could take a temporary step back. I still think this group can do something special if given the chance. 4. Houston Rockets I won't deny that the Rockets will likely become a bona fide NBA title contender after adding Kevin Durant. The legendary scorer is exactly what the doctor ordered for a defensively oriented squad that needed more dynamic creation and shotmaking. With that said, the Rockets will be Durant's third team since 2023 after stints with the Brooklyn Nets and Phoenix Suns. And everyone also talked up the Nets and Suns with Durant in a similar fashion before they ... eventually fell flat on their face. This time around, Durant will also be 37 with a lot of mileage. The Rockets are in a better position than most to mitigate an aging Durant's workload, but he'll still be expected to carry a lot as a No. 1 scoring option. If he remains capable of doing so for a full season, then the Rockets will definitely live up to the hype and be a championship-caliber force. 3. New York Knicks Fun fact: Each of the last three Eastern Conference runner-ups (the Miami Heat, the Boston Celtics, and the Indiana Pacers) all made the NBA Finals in the following season. Next in line to follow this trend is the Jalen Brunson/Karl-Anthony Towns New York Knicks. As flawed as the Knicks might seem, the top of the East should be a smoldering mess for a little while after Jayson Tatum's and Tyrese Haliburton's Achilles tears. Upstart squads like the Orlando Magic and Detroit Pistons might enter the fray, but they're a bit too young and inexperienced to fully trust just yet. 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Denver Nuggets For the time being, Nikola Jokić's Nuggets are stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, Denver's starting five, led by the best player in the world, remains one of the finest the NBA has to offer. That same starting five pushed the rival Thunder to seven games in the second round, and that was with injuries to Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter Jr., and Russell Westbrook. Realistically, the Nuggets might only be a couple of good bench contributors away from turning themselves back into a title-caliber juggernaut. They're that close. On the flip side, the Nuggets will likely find it challenging to add those necessary bench pieces this offseason, given how expensive their core already is. Denver has had issues with depth dating all the way to its first NBA title run in 2023. It's on a newly minted front office to make the right and prudent choices with the Nuggets' limited assets to fill in the blanks. If they do, the Nuggets should be neck and neck with the Thunder while seeking payback next spring.


CNN
20 minutes ago
- CNN
Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton suffered a torn right Achilles tendon in Game 7 of NBA Finals, per multiple reports
Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton suffered a torn right Achilles tendon during Sunday night's Game 7 of the NBA Finals, according to multiple reports. The news – first reported by ESPN's Shams Charania – builds on what Haliburton's father told ESPN's broadcast during the game, which was that the point guard had suffered an Achilles injury. CNN has reached out to the Pacers for comment. Haliburton's injury was a brutal moment. Starting the game with three 3-pointers, Haliburton was talking trash to the Oklahoma City crowd, bouncing around like a ball of energy and looked ready to put his team on his back in the biggest game of his life. But with about five minutes to go in the first quarter, he made a quick move and planted his right foot onto the court. In slow-motion replays that were eventually shown repeatedly throughout the broadcast, the snap of his Achilles tendon was clearly visible, and he crumpled to the floor. Haliburton immediately looked distraught, pounding the court and appearing to yell, 'No!' repeatedly. Adding to the pain of the moment was the fact that Haliburton had said after a dominant Indiana win in Game 6 that he wasn't going to let an injury stop him from playing and that he knew the risks – but wanted to play on the biggest stage. 'I want to be on the floor, and if I have the ability to, if I can – like I said, if I can walk, I want to be out there,' Haliburton said after Game 6. 'I just want to be out there with my brothers to compete. Yeah, those guys have my back, and I feel like I have theirs at the same time. You know, that was important for me.' The look on Haliburton's face as he was treated on the floor said it all. Much as when Kevin Durant ruptured his Achilles in the 2019 NBA Finals, he appeared to know his night – and potentially all of the 2025-2026 season – was done. He was helped off the court with a towel covering his head. For a time, his team rallied without their star. The Thunder and their fans at Paycom Center actually appeared to be the ones most affected by the injury as the eventual champions looked flat and listless for much of the second quarter while the Pacers played inspired ball. 'You just hate to see it in sports in general, but in this moment, my heart dropped for him. I couldn't imagine playing the biggest game of my life and something like that happening. It's not fair. But competition isn't fair sometimes,' said Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder star who would be named the Finals MVP. But after the halftime break, the adrenaline wore off for Indiana and the Thunder returned to their normal, world-beating selves. A massive third quarter sparked a romp to victory for OKC as the Pacers could only be left wondering what might have been if Haliburton had been out on the floor. It was clear how much the game took out of the Pacers as they came off the floor following the game. Haliburton was shown on crutches, hugging his teammates as they came off the floor. Multiple Pacers were in tears as the emotions poured out. 'We needed Ty out there. He's been good for us all year, and for him to go down in the beginning of the game like that, it like it sucked the soul out of us,' Pacers forward Obi Toppin said. Said Indiana star forward Pascal Siakam: 'He did some incredible things, like this whole playoff run and this year, and yeah, like I'm just super proud of him. Obviously, it hurts because we couldn't get it done, and I wanted it so bad for him just because I know that he gave us everything, you know, everything he had. It just hurts that he couldn't see it through with us.' Haliburton was the key to the Pacers' impressive playoff run, hitting big shots over and over as Indiana looked undeniable at points. He produced one of the signature moments of the playoffs in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals as he led the Pacers on a massive comeback in the final minutes against the New York Knicks, eventually hitting a tying shot as the buzzer sounded to send the game to overtime – and mimicked Reggie Miller's famous 'choke' celebration on the Madison Square Garden floor. Indiana eventually won that game in overtime. In the Finals, he recreated those heroics by helping to engineer a comeback win over the Thunder on the road in Game 1. He hit a mid-range jumper with 0.3 seconds to go in the game to give Indiana its only lead, stealing the series opener on the road. After being named the most overrated player in the league by his peers earlier in the season, Haliburton seemed to be on a mission to prove all the doubters wrong in the playoffs. He also hit game-winning shots to beat the Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavaliers in the earlier rounds. 'I can't imagine how he's feeling. He's having an amazing run to even get to this point, and for it to end like that, it's heartbreaking,' Pacers center Myles Turner said. Haliburton now faces a long layoff that tosses the Eastern Conference next year into uncertainty. Milwaukee Bucks star Damian Lillard and Boston Celtics lynchpin Jason Tatum also suffered the same injury during these playoffs, and it's unknown how their teams will react to the long-term injuries.