Indiana Pacers: Myles Turner’s progress

Amidst this surprisingly successful season, one thing that is not clear for the Indiana Pacers is what will become of Myles Turner.

While the Indiana Pacers have had steady success this season, it has been a more turbulent ride for their young center Myles Turner.

Sure, anyone with a pulse was cheering for the Pacers when they beat up on the reigning champion Golden State Warriors this week, despite the fact that the Dubs were extremely shorthanded due to injuries.

The Pacers’ success is nothing to be twisted about, but the future road for the young center who should be the most exciting piece of this roster outside of Victor Oladipo is looking at a bumpy third year to say the least.

Looking at his stat lines alone, Myles Turner has had more duds this season than anyone would have expected. For argument’s sake, let’s call a dud game when Turner shoots less than 30 percent from the field and scores less than 10 points in at least 15 minutes of game action. To be clear, that is a truly bad performance for nearly any established NBA player.

Based on that criteria, he has had three dudes in his last four games, which is overwhelmingly bad. In addition, he’s had two games in March outside of the previously mentioned ones where he scored less than 10 points on otherwise bad shooting percentages in 20 and 29 minutes, respectively.

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Meanwhile, in that time, he has also seriously busted out with five games of eight or more rebounds, and eight games with double-digit scoring. In 13 March contests, he has also averaged 1.5 blocks. In short, he has been playing like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

One of the hardest parts about processing this is that Turner is making it harder on his already injury-prone self by making bad basketball decisions. For instance, Turner has continued his early season trend of shooting the ball from further away than he has historically. For a 6’11” center, this is a bad idea. On March 25, Turner went 1-for-8 from the field against the Miami Heat and only took one shot from within 10 feet. That is inexcusable.

Strangely enough, Turner’s hot and cold play has had an inscrutable effect on the Pacers’ winning. In March, the Pacers have won 10 games and lost four. Of those 10 wins, Turner turned in terrible stat lines in four of them. Meanwhile, in the four losses of the month, Turner has 24 points in one of them, a double-double in another, and again posted less-than pedestrian lines in another two. In other words, the Turner effect is a bit of a puzzle.

There is hope, however, that he can grow personally and also be coached out of these bad habits, but as far as the Pacers’ playoff projection looking like a tough first round matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers, it is clear that Turner must show up as the best version of himself if they’re going to move on.

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Don’t forget, in the two most significant matchups (and subsequent wins) of the month, the Boston Celtics on March 11 and Philly on March 13, Myles Turner played huge. As these are both likely playoff matchups, the Pacers should hope that he figures this thing out, and soon.