Why the Celtics Need Evan Turner (For Now)

Evan Turner may drive you crazy, but he may be the most important piece of the Celtics’ offense

During one of the Celtics’ broadcasts last season, Jackie MacMullan described Evan Turner as “an acquired taste”. The description was spot-on.

With little expectations last season for the disgraced 2010 2nd-overall pick, Turner quickly proved his doubters wrong when he gave the Celtics his most efficient season of his career. In a bizarre way, he became the Celtics most important player. While this may seem like hyperbole, if it wasn’t for him the Celtics’ offense would have been largely anemic. The team was previously lacking someone willing to take the big shots and instigate ball movement. Then Turner came along and ultimately helped give Boston the necessary boost to clinch their unexpected playoff berth.

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Turner’s confidence, albeit irrational at times, gave the Celtics a closer who was willing to take the big shots. In the previous season, the Celtics were far too bashful during the closing minutes -and often deferred to the reluctant Jeff Green in these moments. Green proved inept however, and once again (besides here) found himself coming-off-the-bench in Memphis.

While the addition of Isaiah Thomas – an infinitely better scorer than Turner – somewhat crowded ET out of fourth quarter lineups, he remained a vital part of the Celtics’ offense. If it wasn’t for his elite ball-handling skills and passing ability, the Celtics’ wouldn’t evolved into the potent pass-heavy team that made the playoffs.

As the team’s primary ball-handler, Turner orchestrated the team’s offense from the starting lineup. While he behaved as the team’s point guard, he continued to guard two’s and three’s on defense, making him what’s referred to as a point-forward. This allowed rookie Marcus Smart, who’s still fine-tuning his point guard skills, to start and play heavy minutes without needing to shoulder the team’s demanding offensive burden.

Turner Needs to Play in a Fast-Paced Offense

Between Turner’s confidence and ability to command Stevens’ fast-paced system, he proved more-than-capable of commanding the team’s offense. The Celtics ended the season with the fifth highest-pace, thanks to Stevens capitalizing on Turner’s fast break abilities.

Turner’s athleticism and court vision gives him the tools to be an elite fast break player. He’s capable of both finishing a break himself or finding a teammate to finish counter-attacks. His ability to attract multiple defenders’ attention on such drives has always been a strength of his. His herky-jerky movements and well-earned reputation as a fast-break specialist is what provokes defenders to fixate themselves in transition. Even double-teamed, Turner’s creativity in fast-breaks allows him to score over multiple defenders.

Even against the league’s best, Turner can finish:

Prior to this season, one of Turner’s biggest detriments was his efficiency. While his fast break game has always been sound, he often struggled in half-court sets. With Doug Collins’ slow-tempo offense, Turner struggled. Collins’ system marginalized one of Turner’s biggest strengths – fast-breaks – while highlighting his biggest weakness by forcing him to often play off-the-ball. Collins favored the ball in Jrue Holiday‘s hands, and frequently relegated Turner into a corner shooter/occasional cutter. However, with little flow (especially in the absence of Andre Iguodala) the 76ers’ offense frequently went stagnant and forced Turner to take over and shoot inefficient contested shots.

This would all change when Turner was moved from the wing to the top of the key.

Unlike with Philly, Stevens’ half court sets proved conducive to Turner’s game. As the team’s primary ball-handler, Turner – now operating from the top of the key – frequently received ball screen that often provided him an extra step on his defender, which gave him easy access to the hoop. From inside the paint, Turner caused the defense to collapse, in turn, freeing up at least one of his teammates.

The Celtics Should let Turner Play Out his Contract

While Turner was extremely beneficial to the Celtics, his time in Boston should be limited. Ideally, the team’s young guards (Rozier, Smart) will develop the distribution abilities to compensate for Turner once his contract expires following this season.

Looking back at Turner’s Celtics legacy, we should just see his tenure as a bridge between the Rajon Rondo-era to the Marcus Smart-era. He has been the perfect teacher for Smart, whose biggest weakness is his off-the-dribble game – an aspect Turner excels at. Therefore, hopefully by the 2016-2017 season, Smart will be poised to assume the majority of the team’s play-calling duties.

Smart Needs to Learn from Turner before Taking the Reigns

While the heir-apparent still has some work to do prior to successfully making that leap, Smart’s game has begun to show signs of promise. One thing Smart has always had going for him was his tenacity on defense. His shot-anticipation, physicality and horizontal agility helped earn him the reputation of being an-NBA ready prospect prior to the draft. However, his offense, specifically his shooting ability dominated the rhetoric.

It turned out Smart’s shooting ability from three was fine, shooting a decent 33.5%, it was his ability to score in multiple ways that concerned Celtics fans. Towards the end of the season, Smart did begin to allocate more of his shots from inside the paint but prior to that a whopping 57% of his shots came from behind-the-arc. By summer league, it seems his game may have marginally evolved in that regard, as he easily scored over the inferior rim protectors of summer league.

In this particular game, Smart displayed a element of physicality, previously devoid in his offense. He showed a willingness to get to the free throw line, which was largely absent last season. On a per-36 basis, Smart only went to the line, on average, 2.5x a game. Compared to James Harden‘s 10/game, this leaves much to be desired. While his 65% free throw shooting suggests maybe he shouldn’t be so keen to get fouled, his FT shooting will only improve; the more he get’s to the line now, the better he’ll get.

What now remains in order for Smart to complete his transformation into the team’s primary ball-handler, is to become an adept distributor. One thing Smart already has going for him is that he’s not especially turnover prone (1.3 per game). However, he’s not especially assist prone either, only averaging 3.1 per game last season. To Smart’s credit though, an explanation for this was playing alongside Isaiah Thomas and Evan Turner, which put Smart into a more off-the-ball role.

Prior to last season, Smart was used to commanding Oklahoma State’s offense. He wasn’t quite ready to start from day one, however but his ability to quickly adjust to an off-the-ball player was extremely encouraging. It suggests Smart’s game’s extremely adaptable, potentially meaning he’ll easily develop into the NBA-level point guard we’re hoping to see.

While I don’t see Smart developing into the player we’re counting on by this upcoming season, I’m confident he’ll be there by the 2016-2017 season. If Smart can reach that level, it would render Evan Turner obsolete. As sad as that sounds, Turner’s game is just too rigidly specific to adapt to the ever-changing Celtics. But at this very point in time, it’s exactly what the Celtics need for now.

So in the meantime, I expect Stevens to keep the status quo for this season and put the ball back in Turner’s hands on October 28th.

Next: Position Battle: Hunter vs. Rozier

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