Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Exult to exile
Heat’s Tucker still seething over Milwaukee departure — as Bucks await in opener
MIAMI — The camera lights were on, the microphones filled the stand in front of him, and P.J. Tucker didn’t want to make himself a focus.
So the veteran power forward downplayed Thursday night’s Miami Heat season opener against his previous team, the visiting Milwaukee Bucks.
“Honestly,” he said, sweat still dripping from a grueling practice at FTX Arena, “as soon as you sign somewhere else, you almost erase it. To me, my mind erased it. I’m on a new team, new challenge, new people I’m playing with. It’s all different, new city. So for me, that’s the last thing on my mind.”
No it isn’t, not after he was the only primary rotation player not brought back by the Bucks from last season’s run to the 2021 NBA championship.
So with his media scrum over, Tucker walked to the side, to a more private moment with just a pair of reporters.
This time, no cameras, just candor.
There he was asked about disappointment over how things ended in Milwaukee.
“Of course it is,” he said. “I mean, come on, we’re competitors. I was part of that. To not be back? For sure. You know it’s like natural human behavior. Definitely, I want to win this game better than I want to win any other game. Yes, I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t.”
In the end, Tucker proved to be no more than a midseason rental for the Bucks, their position so hard against the luxury tax that even matching the Heat’s $7 million offer for 2021-22, lower than even the midlevel exception, was deemed too rich for the 36-year-old defensive-minded veteran.
Asked if he was asked to return for the minimum, Tucker reverted to pushing a question aside.
“I don’t even want to talk about it,” he said. “It’s that far removed from my mind now. Like it’s something that happened. Everything worked out. I’m happy where I’m at. And I move on. But that? Like I’m not going to discuss any more.”
Still, he remained bothered by the perception that it was his choice to move on, as if he had made some type of defection similar to Ray Allen’s from the Boston Celt
ics to the Heat in the 2012 offseason, one that still evokes ire in Boston. So he posted a heartfelt Instagram message thanking the fans of Milwaukee for their playoff support, while also expressing incredulity about the overall situation.
“I just felt like [doing] it for the fans, because everybody blamed me,” he said. “All the fans blamed me right away, not knowing the situation, what happened. So that was definitely a raw emotion, right in that moment.
“But it is what it is. It’s business. They made a decision; I made a decision. And we move on. It is what it is. To say I’m not circling every time we play Milwaukee, I’d be lying to you.”
So, yes, a slight that still resonates. On Tuesday night, his former teammates received their championship rings on national television. His will come during a bit more distant moment, the type of moment he said he never could have envisioned after the jubilation of July 20 at Fiserv Forum, totally unaware that two weeks later he would have a new NBA address.
“I was pretty surprised,” he said of not being invited back at a commensurate salary. “You win a championship and you are part of winning something special like that, you would expect that. A chance of it not happening? There’s a chance. It didn’t happen. Does it happen a lot? I don’t think so, not in that situation, not in those situations.
“You watch role guys in series in the past, usually those guys go back. So I’ll take my situation as just that, a particular situation. I move on from it and keep it going.”