Myles Turner is about to become teammates with Giannis Antetokounmpo. Damian Lillard now has the chance to pick his next spot.
And just like that, the first full day of NBA free agency brought big surprises Tuesday.
Turner — the longtime stalwart for the Indiana Pacers — agreed to a four-year deal to join the Milwaukee Bucks, who waived the nine-time All-Star in Lillard to make the acquisition happen, a person with knowledge of the moves told The Associated Press.
Turner is agreeing to a deal that ends with a player option, after spending the entirety of his first 10 seasons with the Pacers, who went to the NBA Finals this past season. And the remaining $112.6 million owed to Lillard will be paid out over the next five seasons via the NBA's stretch provision, according to the person who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because neither move was announced by the clubs involved.
ESPN, which first reported the plan by the Pacers and Bucks, said Turner agreed to a contract worth $107 million.
In both cases, Achilles tendon injuries played a role in how things unfolded.
Indiana expects to be without star guard Tyrese Haliburton for the entirety of the coming season because he ruptured his Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder while playing through what was diagnosed as a calf strain. Earlier, Lillard ruptured his Achilles tendon while playing for Milwaukee in Round 1 against Indiana.
Lillard is likely to miss most, if not all, of the coming season. He will be free to sign with anyone he chooses, and teams could simply sign him now, give him a chance to continue his recovery and do so with hope that the seven-time All-NBA selection is fully ready to go by the start of the 2026-27 season.
“This is an opportunity for Damian to stay home to continue his rehabilitation, take time to decide where he wants to play next, while still being paid his entire contract,” said Lillard's agent, Aaron Goodwin.
Turner has averaged 14.1 points and 6.8 rebounds in his 10 seasons with the Pacers, who had to make a decision this summer about whether to surpass the luxury tax threshold knowing that Haliburton likely cannot play this coming season.
Lillard, who turns 35 this month, has averaged 25.1 points and 6.7 assists in 900 regular-season games over 13 seasons — the first 11 with Portland, the last two with Milwaukee.
The Bucks lost Brook Lopez to the Los Angeles Clippers when free agency opened Monday.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder have agreed on a record-setting 4-year, $285 million extension that would give him the highest single-season average salary in NBA history, a person with knowledge of the agreement said Tuesday.
He is coming off a year when he became the fourth player in NBA history to win MVP, Finals MVP and a scoring title and play for a champion in the same season. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did it once, Michael Jordan then did it four times and Shaquille O’Neal was the last entrant into that fraternity — until this past season, when Gilgeous-Alexander joined the club.
Duncan Robinson, the leading 3-point shooter in Miami Heat history, is headed back to Michigan for the next step of his career.
A person with knowledge of the agreement said the Detroit Pistons will land Robinson on a three-year, $48 million contract and the Heat will receive wing Simone Fontecchio in what will be a sign-and-trade.
Robinson started his college career at Division III's Williams in Massachusetts, before finishing at Michigan. He was an undrafted success story with the Heat, part of the 2020 and 2023 teams that went to the NBA Finals.
Veteran point guard and German Olympic teamer Dennis Schröder has agreed to join the Sacramento Kings on a three-year deal, the third of which is not fully guaranteed, a person with knowledge of that agreement said Tuesday. ESPN reported the total value of the deal is $45 million.
Schröder, who is entering his 13th NBA season, is joining his 10th club — and ninth in the last seven years. He spent the first five seasons of his career with Atlanta, then was with Oklahoma City, the Los Angeles Lakers (twice), Boston, Houston, Toronto, Brooklyn, Golden State and Detroit at various times over the past seven seasons.
He has averaged 13.9 points and 4.9 assists in 849 regular-season games.
Sharpshooting wing Tim Hardaway Jr. will be signing a one-year contract with the Denver Nuggets, a person familiar with the player's plans said Tuesday.
Hardaway spent last season with Detroit — he averaged 11 points in 77 games as a starter for the Pistons — and Denver becomes his fifth club. He also has been with Dallas, New York and Atlanta.
Center Jakob Poeltl gets a raise and some job security in a contract extension that keeps him with the Toronto Raptors, a person familiar with that agreement confirmed Tuesday. Poeltl will be finalizing a four-year deal worth about $26 million per year, or about $7 million more on average than what he was in line to make this coming season.
Poeltl — a career 63% shooter — is coming off a season in which he averaged career bests of 14.5 points and 9.6 rebounds.
Philadelphia announced Tuesday night that guard Eric Gordon has re-signed with the team. Because it's a veteran minimum contract, there was no need for the 76ers to wait until the offseason moratorium is lifted Sunday to announce the deal.
“Eric is a prolific shot maker whose ability to space the floor will serve our rotation well. He’s been a great fit on and off the court with this organization and we’re fortunate to have him back,” 76ers basketball operations president Daryl Morey said.
Gordon averaged 6.8 points in 39 games for Philadelphia this past season. He is entering his 18th NBA season.
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA
Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner (33) high fives guard Ben Sheppard (26) during the second half of Game 6 of the NBA Finals basketball series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
FILE - Milwaukee Bucks' Damian Lillard shoots a free throw during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Orlando Magic, March 8, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Aaron Gash, File)
Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner dunks against the Oklahoma City Thunder during the second half of Game 6 of the NBA Finals basketball series, Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States carried out a lightning military strike on Venezuela early Saturday, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and spiriting them out of the country. President Donald Trump said the U.S. is “going to run” Venezuela until a transition of power can occur and the U.S. will tap the country's vast oil reserves as part of a rebuilding effort.
American officials say Maduro and his wife will face narco-terrorism charges in U.S. courts.
The overnight operation left Venezuela reeling, with its leadership uncertain and details of casualties and the impact on its military still to emerge. Countries across the region and the wider world were absorbing the destabilizing implications of the apparently unilateral U.S. action.
Here’s what we know — and what we don’t.
Explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, early Saturday. At least seven blasts were heard in an attack that lasted less than 30 minutes. The targets appeared to include military infrastructure. Smoke was seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas and another military installation in the capital was without power.
Venezuelan ruling party leader Nahum Fernández told The Associated Press that Maduro and Flores were at their home within the Ft. Tiuna military installation outside Caracas when they were captured.
Venezuelan officials said people had been killed, but the scale of casualties was unclear.
The attack followed months of escalating pressure by the Trump administration, which has built up naval forces in the waters off South America and since early September has carried out deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean. Last week the U.S. struck Venezuelan soil with a CIA drone strike at a docking area alleged to have been used by drug cartels.
Trump said during a news conference Saturday the U.S. would run the country and gestured to officials arrayed behind, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and said they’d be the ones doing it “for a period of time.”
Trump claimed the American presence was already in place, though there were no immediate signs of this. He suggested the U.S. would use revenues from oil sales to pay for running the country.
“We’re going to get reimbursed for everything that we spend,” he said.
Trump claimed that Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez had been sworn in as president shortly before he spoke to reporters and added she had spoken with Rubio.
“She is essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again. Very simple,” Trump said.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social network X that Maduro and Flores had both been indicted in the Southern District of New York and “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.”
Maduro was indicted in March 2020, during Trump’s first term, but the indictment against Flores was not previously made public.
In the indictment made public on Saturday, Maduro is charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
U.S. authorities accused Maduro of leading a “a corrupt, illegitimate government that, for decades, has leveraged government power to protect and promote illegal activity, including drug trafficking.” The indictment alleges the drug trafficking “enriched and entrenched Venezuela’s political and military elite.”
Authorities estimate that as much as 250 tons of cocaine were trafficked through Venezuela by 2020, according to the indictment. The drugs were moved on go-fast vessels, fishing boats and container ships or by plane from clandestine airstrips, authorities allege.
Trump said Maduro and his wife are aboard a U.S. warship and will face prosecution in New York.
Trump gave some details of the operation during a Saturday morning interview on “Fox and Friends.”
He said a few U.S. members of the operation were injured but he believed no one was killed.
He said Maduro was “highly guarded” in a presidential palace akin to a “fortress” and the Venezuelan leader tried to get to a safe room but wasn’t able to get there in time.
Trump said U.S. forces practiced the operation ahead of time on a replica building, and the U.S. turned off “almost all of the lights in Caracas,” although he didn’t detail how they accomplished that.
Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, also offered some details of the operation, saying some Venezuelan civilians and members of the military were killed.
The U.S. does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, and the legal implications of the strike under U.S. law were not immediately clear.
The Trump administration maintains that Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela and claims he has effectively turned Venezuela into a criminal enterprise at the service of drug traffickers and terrorist groups.
Mike Lee, a U.S. senator from Utah, said on X that the action “likely falls within the president’s inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to protect U.S. personnel from an actual or imminent attack.”
But some Democrats were more critical.
Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, said in a statement, “President Trump’s unauthorized military attack on Venezuela to arrest Maduro — however terrible he is — is a sickening return to a day when the United States asserted the right to dominate the internal political affairs of all nations in the Western Hemisphere.”
Maduro’s government accused the United States of an “imperialist attack” on civilian and military installations and urged citizens to take to the streets.
Armed individuals and uniformed members of a civilian militia took to the streets of a Caracas neighborhood long considered a stronghold of the ruling party. But in other areas of the city, the streets remained empty hours after the attack. Parts of the city remained without power, but vehicles moved freely.
Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia sent troops to the border and anticipated an influx of refugees.
Latin American leaders were sharply divided over the strikes. Trump’s right-wing ally President Javier Milei of Argentina celebrated the operation, while leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva condemned American actions and warned of the sharp repercussions of past American interventions in Latin America.
Cuba, a supporter of the Maduro government and a longtime adversary of the United States, urged the international community to respond to what President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez called “the criminal attack.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the attack and capture of Maduro would be “an unacceptable infringement on the sovereignty of an independent state.”
U.S. allies in Europe — critical of Maduro but mindful of international law — offered muted responses as they scrambled to understand the scale and implications of the attack.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc “has repeatedly stated that Mr Maduro lacks legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition. Under all circumstances, the principles of international law and the U.N. Charter must be respected. We call for restraint.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he had not spoken to Trump about the attack and stressed that “the U.K. was not involved in any way.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Spain was “conducting a thorough monitoring of the events in Venezuela” and called for “de-escalation and responsibility.”
Lawless reported from London. Associated Press Writer Danica Kirka in London contributed to this story.
FILE - President Nicolas Maduro acknowledges supporters alongside first lady Cilia Flores during his closing election campaign rally in Caracas, Venezuela, July 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)
Pro-government armed civilians patrol in La Guaira, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that President Nicolás Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro embrace in downtown Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Men watch smoke rising from a dock after explosions were heard at La Guaira port, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Smoke raises at La Carlota airport after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
