Thursday, February 20, 2014

Pacers continue to go for it with Turner deal

Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. The Pacers are on the brink this season of not only competing for a title, but winning a title.
So, when they got Danny Granger back two months ago, it was thought that the former all-star forward would give the Pacers bench a much needed boost. Since he had missed nearly a season and a half with a knee injury, everybody knew there would be rust in his game. And while Pacers coach Frank Vogel was preaching patience in Granger's case, with Thursday's trade deadline here, the Pacers could not afford to be patient any longer, trading Granger to the Philadelphia 76ers for Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen.
So the big question now is will this work? The big answer is nobody knows for sure.
The Pacers were not getting the type of offense they thought had hoped for from Granger, and while he seemed to be trying on defense, it was clear he was not moving the same as he did before his knee surgeries. But that part of the game might have been OK to live with if Granger could have provided significant offensive punch off the bench. Granger, however, had shot 50 percent or better from the field in just nine of the 29 games he had played in this season. Also, he is shooting just 33 percent from 3-point range.
Turner's statistic have not been off the charts either, shooting just 43 percent from the field and 28 percent from 3-point range. But he does give the Pacers is a more athletic player on defense to guard a team's top scorer off the bench. The more athletic Turner could also help the second unit play a little more pressure defense and up-tempo style to create some offense.
Evan Turner was averaging 17 points for the 76ers this season.
One of the big questions here is  what type of team chemistry this will create, or maybe uncreate. With this trade leaving the Pacers at one over the roster limit with 16 players, they had to release one player and it turned out to be guard Orlando Johnson. The Pacers by all accounts have been a pretty tight bunch. Turner, you would hope, will be excited to come a title-contending team and helping them at least reach the NBA Finals, instead of playing for a team that is clearly looking for the best draft pick possible. It also might help Turner to return to the Midwest, since he played at Ohio State and is originally from the Chicago area.
But this is a risk Pacers President Larry Bird pretty much had to take. Sure, it's emotional to see Granger go, who had only played for the Pacers in his nine-plus seasons. He carried the Pacers when they were not a good team under coach Jim O'Brien, rebuilding in the post-brawl years. And it was a shame that Granger's best years coincided with the team's worst years. There were many games where the primary reason to watch the team was just to see how Granger would do.
When Vogel took over as the Pacers coach, Granger did struggle a bit as Vogel's and O'Brien's philosophies were essentially polar opposites. Granger went from being the man to being part of the team.
And there is the question too that if the Pacers can't sign Lance Stephenson after this season, that maybe having Turner, who is a restricted free agent, could be a fall back plan. That may or may not be true. But what is definitely true is that Bird and General Manager Kevin Pritchard believe the deal will help the team now.
But if you are skeptical about this deal working for this year, there is one statistic to take into consideration. With some help from my crack research team (that would be me), not since 1950 has a team won an NBA championship without at least one player on the team being picked ninth or higher. Before this trade, the Pacers highest drafted players were Paul George and Andrew Bynum each at No. 10. So, they were in the midst of trying to make a bit history here. Well, now they've got Turner, who was an overall No. 2 pick in the draft, so, hey, maybe this deal really will push the Pacers over the top.


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