Myles Turner Mock Trade: Striking a Deal to Bring the Talented Big Man to Charlotte

Championship teams come in all shapes and sizes.

The newly minted champions, the New York Knicks, were built almost entirely through trades and free agency. The team that hung a banner in 2025, the Oklahoma City Thunder, were primarily built through the draft and some shrewd dealings on the trade market.

There are countless ways to build a championship team, but there are some non-negotiable traits of those great teams that must be considered when a front office looks to put together a roster worthy of the Larry O'Brien Trophy -- one of them being the ability to run a five-out look on offense.

Every recent champion has had a big man that can step out and knock down threes on offense while deterring shots at the rim on defense.

Karl Anthony-Towns. Chet Holmgren. Al Horford. Nikola Jokic. The standing of these players in the NBA's player hierarchy varies, but they all blend some level of rim protection and shooting that buoys both an adequate offense and defense.

As of right now, the Charlotte Hornets don't have a player of that ilk, and there isn't really a player in this year's draft class who offers that particular set of skills. Charlotte will have to acquire that player via free agency or trade, and they have a clear path to buying low on a premier big man who fits this archetype nicely.

Myles Turner Mock Trade

Mock trade landing Myles Turner in Charlotte | Spotrac Trade Machine

I bet you thought you were done with Myles Turner x Hornets mock trades, didn't you.

This trade makes all of the sense in the world for Charlotte at this juncture. Turner is coming off of a disappointing season in Milwaukee, but the underlying numbers say that he was still a productive player despite the chaos in the Cream City.

Dunks and Threes graded out Turner in the 78th percentile of defensive impact, carried by his 95th percentile block rate. His numbers dipped slightly from his peak in Indiana, but Turner is still an impactful rim defender even on the business end of thirty. In fact, Milwaukee's defense improved by 7.2 points per 100 possessions when Turner was on the floor compared to when he sat.

More importantly, though, Turner just put in the best three-point shooting season of his career. According to Dunks and Threes, Turner set a career-high in three-point attempts per 100 possessions (9.6) and connected on 38% of those looks. His intersection of shooting and rim protection could unlock potential lineup combinations for Charlotte that were previously undiscovered.

Moussa Diabate could start alongside Turner and play long stretches as a power forward with a true floor-spacing five on the court. Same goes for Miles Bridges, and whichever big Charlotte inevitably lands with the 14th overall pick (Morez Johnson Jr., Yaxel Lendeborg, or Hannes Steinbach).

On the Bucks side, I'm operating under the assumption that Giannis will have been traded by this point, and Milwaukee will covet the opportunity to add a high-upside prospect at #18 and bring in Grant Williams as a veteran presence to shepard their youth movement.

2026-27 will mark the second year of the four-year, $108M contract Turner signed with Milwaukee last offseason, which is definitely something to note here. That's a lot of money to pay a seven-footer at this stage of his career.

However, I believe the pros outweigh the cons here, and Turner represents the perfect offseason addition to vault Charlotte into playoff contention and give LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, and Kon Knueppel the high stakes reps they need to grow into a championship-level core.

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