While ESPN is convinced that the only basketball player on the planet is LeBron James, fans in the Delaware Valley are less concerned with shenanigans and more worried about how prized rookie Evan Turner and the rest of the Sixers fared in the Summer League.
OK, I may be overstating that last part, but those diehards that are still following the Sixers are likely aware that the NBA Summer League just wrapped up in Orlando. For those not familiar with the league, it’s made up of the young guys and developmental league-type players looking to sharpen their skills and get some ball in over the summer.
The Sixers had several guys playing down in Orlando, but the names you need to remember are Marreese Speights, Jodie Meeks, Jrue Holiday, and of course our #2 overall pick Evan Turner. While it’s nice to see all of these guys get some minutes and try to prove the naysayers wrong (ahem, Marreese), the guy we’re going to focus on now is Turner.
Over the course of these five games we saw some good and not so good things from Turner. We saw a guy that can block (good), but one that needs to work on his shooting (bad). He pulled down plenty of boards, including six of them in the final game (good), but was not in game shape (bad). He also spent too much time jawing with officials, which can either be good or bad depending on who you ask.
The Villain may have ended the short summer season on a high note with 13 points and six rebounds, but his overall play was rather forgettable. The rookie had a rough time and was likely glad for it to be over. Turner looked out of his element, and even he admitted that he had a lot of troubles.
“I know I have to be in shape to compete with this type of competition,” he said. “It’s a lot more competition, and everybody down here is playing so hard. They’re playing to get or keep a job and put food on the table, and I got my butt kicked. It’s the first time in a long time I’ve gotten my butt kicked. I’m glad it happened now instead of in November, December or January.”
You think? I’m not defending his play – the kid needs to get his act together, but it was his first taste of playing against NBA players, granted mostly younger guys and scrubs. He hasn’t played competitively since Ohio State’s season ended, so that did hold him back. Either way though, he did get his butt kicked.
Doug Collins, who’s always looking at the glass half full, did a good job in polishing Turner’s turd of a week.
“I think this was the best 8 days of Evan’s life,” Collins said. “As painful as it might have been, he understands the level now that you have to be at competitively and in shape to play this game. When you’re not in the greatest of shape, you can’t play at the highest level. It doesn’t matter how good your skill level is. He’ll go from here, and now he’s got form now until the end of September to do what’s necessary.”
I am definitely still on the Turner bandwagon. A week like this might bring all of the pro-Favors fans out of the woodwork, but I still believe that the Sixers made the best pick. If you look back to last summer, you might remember that a certain Jrue Holiday played like shit, but if you look across the kid’s rookie season, he came around for sure.
Turner is not going to turn around the team on his own, and there’s a very good chance that he won’t even be starting for most of the season, but his presence is absolutely necessary. If the kid is given time, he will grow and develop into the star that we all know he is, hopefully forming the nucleus of the next great Sixers team.
