Why the New Orleans Pelicans Should Trade for Myles Turner

Turner Could Reach Another Level on the New Orleans Pelicans

You might look at Turner’s stats on basketball-reference and see that this is a down year for him and conclude the New Orleans Pelicans would be buying low in trading for him (his per game stats are down across the board).

This would miss the context of the Pacers’ 2019-20 season.

This year the Pacers decided that the team would play Turner and Domantas Sabonis together less and instead went with Sabonis as the featured big. This relegated Turner to more catch-and-shoot opportunities and limited his overall impact.

Not to say that Turner isn’t an effective spot-up shooter as he shot 34.2% on three-pointers when taking less than one dribble while taking 42.6% of his three-pointers in this fashion. But the Pacers were more devoted to having Sabonis playing in the post on offense.

Turner could get more opportunities to play in the post with New Orleans if the Pelicans are worried about how Zion will hold up over the course of a full season playing primarily in the paint.

Letting Turner get more comfortable about playing within the offense by allowing him to play more in the paint would make him more engaged in the game in general, as he wouldn’t be stuck shooting threes on offense and blocks on defense.

Before this season the traditional stats for Turner look much better and there’s every reason to believe he can bounce back from this down year and get back to what he showed in his first four years that led the Pacers to extend him during the fall of 2018.

Turner can get better, but we already know a few things he does well.