Amidst The Athletic’s Shams Charania and Bob Kravitz’s report on the Indiana Pacers potentially pursuing a roster rebuild, centre Myles Turner has voiced concern over his current role on the team.
“It’s clear that I’m not valued as anything more than a glorified role player here, and I want something more, more opportunity,” Turner told The Athletic Tuesday. “I’m trying really hard to make the role that I’m given here work and find a way to maximize it. I’ve been trying to the past two, three seasons. But it’s clear to me that, just numbers-wise, I’m not valued as more than a rotational role player, and I hold myself in a higher regard than that.”
Turner had one of his best games of the season in a 122-102 win over the New York Knicks on Wednesday night, scoring 22 points, while shooting 8-of-13 from the field and 3-of-7 from the three-point line. The 25-year-old’s best outing came in the second game of the season against the Washington Wizards when he scored 40 points and recorded 10 rebounds.
“When you show little tidbits and tastes of how you can play, you see the potential in that,” Turner said. “I hate that in year seven, you’re labeled as a finished product, and I want to show that I’m not a finished product. I’m just scratching the surface, and I want to show that I’m ready to take the next step. The potential I’ve shown this season, I think I’m ready to turn that into a more intricate and prominent role on a nightly basis.”
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Turner is currently averaging 12.9 points, 7.4 rebounds and a league leading 2.8 blocks in the 26 games he has played in this season. The figure that concerns Turner, however, is the amount of inside scoring opportunities he is provided in this Pacers offence. The Texas Longhorns product has attempted just 4.1 two-point field goals per game in the 2021-22 campaign, down from his career average of 7.2 attempts.
“I’ve settled for being just a floor spacer who runs up and down and sits in the corner all game and isn’t active because I thought I was doing what was best at the time,” said Turner. “I wasn’t looking out for myself and was looking out for the team. But I realized that looking out for myself in turn is looking out for the team, so I’ve flipped my mindset going forward.”
Turner, along with teammates Domantas Sabonis and Caris LeVert, were mentioned as the primary trade pieces the Pacers could offer rival teams in The Athletic’s Tuesday report on Indiana’s potential roster shake up.
However, Pacers general manager Kevin Pritchard may be hesitant to move the seven-year veteran mid-season, even if Turner is set to become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2023.
“Making trades at the trade deadline can help. But, really, there’s no proof that you can really substantially improve,” Pritchard told The Athletic. “You can change it for a later timeline. But to improve today, it’s awfully hard. Because a lot of times, you have to find good trading partners, a team that’s going in a completely different direction. The thing about the NBA right now is there’s only like four or five teams that are really trying to look to the immediate future.”
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