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2015 NBA Summer League: Indiana Pacers Can Play Faster With Myles Turner After All

By James Fitzgerald

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When the Indiana Pacers took Myles Turner with the 11th pick of the 2015 NBA Draft there were quite a few people who questioned the pick.

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Not that Myles Turner lacks talent because that is far from the truth. But because all the talk surrounding the Indiana Pacers involved aspirations of speeding up their style of play.

Myles Turner is not the fleetest of foot when you watch him run up and down the floor, and by today’s standards, playing fast usually entails teams putting a smaller, more athletic lineup on the court.

A lot of people thought that Arkansas big man Bobby Portis would have been a better fit for Indiana.

However, after seeing what Myles Turner is capable of bring to the court in the Orlando Summer League, and the personnel move Indiana made sending center Roy Hibbert to the Los Angles Lakers, you can kind of see what Frank Vogel and Larry Bird envision for their team going into the 2015-16 season.

Myles Turner showed that his shooting skills and ability to play “pick-and-roll” basketball are up to par for what today’s NBA ask of it’s big men. Being able to hit shots from 15-feet or deeper is a requirement, and Turner showed that he can do that and then some in Orlando, as well as get buckets on post-ups.

Turner played in three games while in Orlando and averaged 18.7 points and 8.3 rebounds. His shooting was very impressive in those games with Turner knocking down 60.5% of his shots from the field including 2 of 3 from downtown.

Turner has shown outside shooting touch even in his days at Texas. But his shooting was not the concern as much as how his foot speed translates into Indiana playing faster on the court.

However, after hearing about what Pacers’ president Larry Bird envisions for his newly healed star player Paul George, things start to make sense as far as Myles Turner’s fit into the equation.

According to a cbssports.com article by James Herbert, Larry Bird plans on seeing Paul George play a lot more power forward in order to speed up the Pacers’ tempo.

Bird was quoted as saying this in the cbssports.com piece:

“He’ll play a lot of the power forward and small forward and he might defend some 2s at times, Paul is going to play a lot of different positions for us this year. I’m the one that thinks he can play the 4 position. I think the mismatches on the offensive end is far greater than the defensive liabilities sometimes he’ll have against the strength. But I think he can handle it. Paul’s very versatile. He’ll do anything that we ask him to do to try to win basketball games. And he wants to play uptempo. He likes to handle and pass and get out and run a little bit.”

-Larry Bird

With Bird’s statement, Turner’s shooting prowess seems like the fit the Pacers will need for their center after all.

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    • Honestly, when you think about how limited Roy Hibbert was offensively for Indiana, Turner’s offensive skills are a welcomed sight.

    Roy Hibbert in the block was similar to having C-3PO from “Star Wars” playing post-up ball — very robotic, very slow, not very flexible, solid defense though.

    Myles Turner looked like he could be the steal of the draft the way that he performed in Orlando. He still has some work to do so he can become better acclimated with the pro game, but his game was on full display in Orlando and he looked great.

    Fact of the matter is Indiana will be able to speed up with Myles Turner. He is an additional offensive weapon that is going to make life easier on the other four players on the floor.

    If you let time pass and watch things develop, things do become a lot more clearer.

    Next: Aaron Harrison Can Earn a Spot with the Charlotte Hornets

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