I think most "experts" are missing the point of our off season acquisitions. Evan Turner was not brought in to be a scorer. He was brought in to be our secondary ball handler/distributor. That's playing to his strengths and addressing a major weakness we had last year that was especially exposed in the playoffs. Last year, we didn't have a single ball handler coming off the bench that played significant minutes. Our backup PGs were Tim Frazier and then Brian Roberts. Between the two of them, they only played in 51 games, and when they did play, they only averaged 7 MPG. It was even worse in the playoffs when Roberts averaged only 3.6 MPG, almost entirely in garbage time.
And there's a reason they didn't play more. Both are generously listed as 6'1" (and Frazier isn't even close to that). Given that Dame and C.J. are both just 6'3", playing one, or the other, with Frazier or Roberts left us severely undersized in the back court.
Enter Evan Turner. At 6'7", Turner can easily play with Dame, or C.J., or both. This is the real reason we brought in Turner. Most in this forum seems to understand this, but many in the national media do not. Anyone who says Turner isn't a good fit, has entirely missed this point. Last year, when either Dame or C.J. sat, we were left with one ball handler on the court - and that one ball handler happened to also be our best/primary scorer. Do you know how easy that is to defend, especially at the NBA level? Just swarm the heck out of the guy handling the ball and you shut down not only his scoring, but your entire opponent's offense.
Turner gives us a 3rd ball handler/distributor. That means we can always have 2 of the 3 of Dame, C.J. and Turner on the court. No longer will Dame or C.J. be left on an island when the other rests. That's a HUGE improvement. It also lets Dame and C.J. both play off the ball more, which will result in more, higher percentage, catch and shoot opportunities. The player Turner is replacing on the roster is Gerald Henderson. Henderson was a decent scorer off the bench, but like our other leading bench scorer, Allen Crabbe, he is not a distributor. His 8.2 AST% is only about 1/3 of Turner's 23.9. And, we don't really sacrifice much in scoring. Although he isn't a primary scorer, Turner's scoring rate and efficiency was only slightly lower than Henderson's. The real benefit of adding Turner is more catch and shoot opportunities for everyone else, not just Dame and C.J. Add Crabbe, Meyers and Aminu to that list.
