[Old General Record] Between success or failure, Evan Turner s regret trajectory?

Back to the 2010 draft, Evan Turner became popular in the university basketball world with his image as "Meddy Little", winning a number of personal honors including the John Wooden Award, the Oscar Robertson Award, the Associated Press Best Player, the Naismith College Student Award, and the Best Player selected by the National Coach. In 2010, Allen Iverson had just retired, and the 76ers who were in trouble got a second pick after a 27-win season. The draft pick at that time was almost locked in John Wall, but there was a lot of discussion in the second pick. In the end, the 76ers decided to bet on 22-year-old Evan Turner.

Compared to the talented cornerstone star, Turner is more like a top puzzle. The 76ers' initial expectations for Turner were to hope that he could become a large ball holder and look forward to him joining forces with Holiday to form the future backcourt answer for Philadelphia.

For Turner, at that time, he represented a very typical draft type. This type of player basically knows everything. The description of the draft report is also an all-round type, but under the NBA standards, such a type is basically all-round and is not a prominent advantage.

Turner has a passing vision above the level of qualification, a good rebounding ability in the forward position, and a certain scoring and finishing ability, but that's all. For most cornerstone players or All-Star players, most of them will have their own strongest killer moves, or they are in some ways the top level of the league, but for Turner, this expectation has never been found in him.

Reference Wall and Cousins, who are in the same class as Turner, are used as samples. Although Wall makes too many mistakes in the rookie stage and does not have outstanding shooting ability, everyone knows that he is extremely fast and has strong single-point blasting ability. As for Cousins, the players' emotions are not well controlled, but his killing and damage in the penalty area is definitely the well-deserved first echelon among the rookies of the same class.

Compared with this, Turner does not have obvious technical characteristics and physical advantages, nor does he have the ultimate skill that can directly suppress the opponent by taking it out. When facing an NBA-level defender, although he has a variety of scoring methods in the offense, it is difficult to come up with a stable weapon with 100% scoring.

Of course, Turner is the second place after all, so he is naturally not completely untalented. Every once in a while, he can play a burst of highlights, sometimes with three-pointers from the outside, sometimes with a pass and a series of vision, and even have outstanding performances on the playoff stage. This occasional inspiration once made fans look forward to him, believing that he just needs time to develop and can develop a higher-level player.

Although there are no explosive data like other super rookies, Turner has basically maintained stable growth every season, helping Philadelphia reach the playoffs in 2011 and 2012, and scored a career-high 17.4 points, 3.7 assists, 6 rebounds and 1 steal in the 2013-14 season.

seems stable, but in Turner's growth trajectory, there seems to be a high wall blocking him. In the 2013-14 season, the 76ers' offensive power began to be completely handed over to Turner. Although there were moments of explosion during this period, over the whole season, he averaged 15.4 shots per game, but only handed in 7.1 points and 3.2 rebounds, with a shooting percentage of 42.8%, and a three-point shooting percentage of only 28.8%. In addition to the offense, the defensive end is also in trouble. As a 199-height forward, he has enough body strength to defend his opponents in the 1-3 position, and can even deal with some small power forwards. Excellent defensive diversity is an extremely compatible type in the modern NBA. It can not only switch to the periphery, destroy the pick-and-roll, but also withstand some misaligned single defenses at low positions.

But like offense, Turner does not have any particularly outstanding advantages in defense. He cannot completely block the opponent by playing one-on-one singles. It is very easy to fall into a disadvantage when facing big men with both high strength or guards with obvious speed advantages. His sports explosive power is also far from the league's top stars.

From the beginning, he was regarded as the team's ball-holder successor, Turner eventually became the starting point for the 76ers to knock down and rebuild, entering the darkest plan to play badly.

After leaving the 76ers, Turner stayed at the Pacers for a short time, and then found a new opportunity at the Celtics. Although it was only the third ball holding point for the team, the unimaginable attribute allowed him to take advantage of the situation on the court, playing nearly 10+5+5 for two consecutive seasons, and gradually began to transform into a tall ball holding point that was expected at the beginning of the draft.

also because of its outstanding performance for two consecutive seasons, the Trail Blazers, who urgently needed forward strength, opened a four-year, 70 million contract. Looking at it, this was basically the price of the team's top two cores.

Looking back at Turner's Trail Blazers career, like the Philadelphia, Pacers, and Celtics, although there are occasional highlights, such as playing a key role in the team's biggest playoff victory that went straight to the Western Conference Finals, overall, there is still a great mutual exclusion between Turner and the Trail Blazers.

In the first two seasons, the Trail Blazers have always regarded him as an off-ball shooter, but with one of the few outstanding performances, Turner was able to contribute only by playing the role of the center of the passive ball. However, under the double-gun team, it is basically difficult for the team to give him extra ball rights, and when he is the ball holding point, the offensive efficiency he handed over is not satisfactory.

Turner began to choose to transform into a role player, gradually found his value, began to work outside of the data, become a pick-and-roll bunker for double guns, actively compete for rebounds, and activate teammates in the role of holding the ball and passing the center.

When he focused on these tasks, although the game scene was much better, his personal data was not as good as other players, which also led to him gradually attracting criticism from the outside world, and even rumors of transactions or buyouts appeared many times..

Although the outside world has different opinions, looking at Turner's entire career, as the second pick, he has gone through enough storms and was once regarded as the main force of the team. But after coming to the Trail Blazers, he was willing to give up his position to other young players, and he chose to bend down to focus on the blue-collar role.

For a player who has signed a core contract, this kind of transformation is not something that everyone can do.

Although his performance on the court was mediocre, Turner has always been an important locker room leader for the Trail Blazers. The double-gun guard has publicly expressed his support for Turner many times. Whether in the locker room or on the sidelines, Turner's voice has always been the team's most effective invisible force and the key to gathering morale and calming people's hearts.

In 2023, Turner and Iguodala participated in Redick's podcast program, giving their own definition of the success or failure of the NBA:

"On the NBA stage, everyone is very talented, the key is who can maximize their potential."

Looking back at Turner's career, playing in 705 games, averaging 9.7 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game, shooting percentage of 43.4%, three-point shooting percentage of 29.4%, and free throw shooting percentage of 78.2%. Except for the slightly poor performance on the outside, other data are actually not bad, but for a second-tier show, such a grade point obviously did not meet expectations.

Of course, if Turner is included in the draft player, he is actually not the second place. The 2010 echelon is the first to be a draft pick, and Wall has only played for 13 seasons. His best personal achievement is only the best three teams at one time. In comparison, the most accomplished person among the rookies in the whole class should be Paul George, who played double first team in 2018.

Even so, when participating in Reddick's podcast, Turner still called himself a parallel product, but for this word, Reddick and Iguodala both had their own different opinions:

"I always say that you have been placed in an unfavorable position from the moment you were selected, and Philadelphia should not choose yours."

In Iguodala's statement, he believed that the 76ers at that time already had Holiday, and Turner could only choose to develop to a wing position that he was not very suitable for. Turner described himself as a player between a “second team player” and a “third ball handler”, and that’s true for most of his career. And for this career, Turner also gave his own response:

"I accepted my role too much, and ended up weakening my career."

"I followed the coach's arrangements, obeyed and cooperated constantly. In the end, before I knew it, I weakened my career. What else do you want me to do? Passing? No problem, helping with pick-and-roll? It's OK."

"I could have been a point guard with multiple positions, but I lost the attitude I needed on the court. I shouldn't let myself simply accept it. I only made 4 shots in 38 minutes per game. When I was 14, I fantasized about how to score 38 points in a game, but in the end, you can't tell me that as one of the top 400 players in the league, I couldn't even get a decent tactical opportunity in the half, especially when I defended the opponents at the 1-4 position every night. "

For Turner, he had many assumptions in his mind, but in this league stage where success or failure only exists between the front lines, it often directly determines the final direction of his career in a moment. If you choose the right choice, you will naturally become king, but once you choose the wrong choice, you will never have a chance to miss it.