Evan Turner

Evan Turner
SG/SF, 6’7, 220lbs, 28 years old, 7 years of experience

$17.5 million per year is a lot of money for 0 win shares. After a season full of career-lows across the board, and with three large non-option years upcoming, Turner’s value on the market is about as low as it can be. The need to cut salary must not mean trading off too many assets just to do it. Some of the cost will have to be swallowed for now. Turner therefore should be back next season, and needs to make it fit better. Picking up his spot-up shooting, keeping the ball moving, keeping the energy up. All the usual Turnerish needs, basically.

Player Plan: Three years and circa. $53.6 million remaining, all guaranteed with no options. If there’s a taker, let them take that contract. But it is hereby assumed that there isn’t.

[...] Carter-Williams's strong start highlights some of these problems for the future. It is easy enough to consider Evan Turner a likely trade candidate, or alternatively a candidate to leave in free agency – both ball-dominant players offering little spacing and far less off-the-ball game, it is difficult to see the two ever co-existing optimally, and Turner’s status as both an incumbent veteran and somewhat disappointment combines with his contract status to make him the obvious sacrifice. Yet the problem goes further than just pairing those two.

Evan Turner

With the exception of Ebi, there isn't really another small forward on this roster. That then suggests that Philly understands the obvious; no matter how much Jay Bilas tells you otherwise, Evan Turner will be a small forward in the NBA. Which is fine. We knew that going in.

Yet it further confirms the obvious problem Philly now has in balancing their roster. They already had two small forwards they were struggling to cohabitate. Now, there's another. And because he's better than both, the game just got switched.

Pick 2: Stern returns to the podium reasonably quickly to a hefty chorus of boos. He announces that the Sixers have done the equally obvious and taken Evan Turner.

There was some speculation that because of their roster set-up, the Sixers would not draft Turner. But that brief speculation overlooked the fact that Turner is the clearcut second best player in the draft. Without athleticism or a three point jumpshot, Turner is a half-court wizard, consistently able to break down half defenses even when they are focused solely on him. Turner can find seams, pick gaps and dance slowly through defenses that didn't even look flawed, with a combination of body control and elite vision, just like an aging Scottie Pippen used to do. He can also play good defense on the perimeter even against players faster that he, be a primary ball handler, rebound, and run halfcourt offense for others. Just like an aging Scottie Pippen used to do. Turner is not comparable to the prime Scottie Pippen, for prime Scottie Pippen was an incomparable player. However, Turner stacks up favourably moreso than anyone else since. For this reason, he was the obvious and correct pick.

[...] How Philadelphia balance their roster from here is not immediately obvious. Even with this huge infusion of talent, the situation is a mess. Andre Iguodala has been used as their primary halfcourt creator over the last two seasons, but really isn't that good at it; unfortunately, he plays the same position as Turner. So do does Thaddeus Young, a man who would be an ideal backup combo forward in the role that Turk Nowitzki fits for Milwaukee (and that Jeff Green should do for Oklahoma City), but who has to share time there with equally effective backup Marreese Speights and the remains of Elton Brand, with whom the team are stuck. Bad trades have also seen the team stuck with Andres Nocioni and Jason Kapono as unnecessary small forward options; meanwhile, the only average guards are Jrue Holiday and Louis Williams, neither of whom are really point guards, but whom also cannot really play together. It's an unbalanced team further penalised by a bad salary situation, a lack of proper two guards, and a centre rotation of Spencer Hawes and Jason Smith that has all the defensive intensity of a playground punch-up.

They've caught an enormous break here, though.

Jay Bilas says that Turner, who used to go by the nickname Evan Turnover for this reason, needs to improve his turnovers. Does this mean that he needs to make less of them, or that he needs to be making them in more spectacular ways?

[...] The best past is that Turner is now a member of the team that just hired Doug Collins. The man who has spent the last five years excitedly shout Kevin Harlan's first name now gets to coach a player called Evan. This should be good.