The fifth annual Luke Walton All-Stars (Feb 8, 2016)

[SlyPokerDog]

Luke Walton was just a number -- injured salary cap fodder the Los Angeles Lakers sent to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2012 to snag Ramon Sessions. Walton had logged just 65 minutes that season in L.A., and back injuries had sidelined him for most of the two prior seasons.

He was done.

Then out of nowhere, he found magic on the Cavaliers' second unit with Shaun Livingston, another broken body Cleveland scooped up after Washington waived him. In practices, they discovered such potent give-and-go synergy that Byron Scott, the coach of those sad-sack post-LeBron Cavs, started calling plays for them.

"I have such fond memories of that time," said Walton, who now coaches Livingston and Marreese Speights -- another member of that Cavs bench mob -- in Golden State. "It was a great way to end my career after all the back injuries. We all still laugh about it. The game was fun again."

And thus was born the Luke Walton All-Stars, our annual roster of journeymen and role players thriving in unexpected ways. One or two players have bristled at earning Walton status, but it is meant to be an honor. Not everyone can be a star. A Walton is a shape-shifter who tailors his game to fit the context of a particular team, and revels in the grunt work. He makes everyone's life easier.

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http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/14743788/who-nba-players-found-suddenly-relevant

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Evan Turner, G, Boston Celtics: For most teams, there are segments of every game that are just about surviving -- scrounging for points until the star is ready to come back in, and manufacturing stops when mismatches shove you onto your heels. It's the NBA equivalent of plugging holes in a leaky dam.

Turner has done that as Boston's de facto backup point guard, keeping the offense afloat while Isaiah Thomas, the Celtics' only other reliable source of dribble penetration, takes his breathers. That is a demotion after Turner started most of last season, but if he's disappointed to be a backup, he hasn't shown it.

"We never heard one word," Boston coach Brad Stevens said. "He just wants to help the team. That's the most underrated thing about him: He loves basketball. He talks about it all the time. He watches high school games. Everyone likes basketball, but he lives and breathes it, and you never lose sleep over a guy like that."

Turner bricks a lot of pull-up jumpers, but he's slithering to the rim more often, and he can create a decent shot from scratch when the shot clock winds down. He's a good passer, though a bit turnover prone when he gets too cute threading no-chance fancy passes through tight quarters.

He loves to mosey around a pick, "snake" back in the other direction, and rise for a jumper -- or pull the ball out and exploit a bigger defender if the opponent switches. Turner has canned a tidy 44 percent of his long 2-point jumpers, a career best.

Turner has allowed Boston to ease Avery Bradley and Marcus Smart into more ballhandling duties without overextending them. Thomas can spot up for 3s, a less taxing job, when the Celtics pair him with Turner.

Turner has nearly abandoned the 3-pointer, and defenses ignore him when he doesn't have the ball. Boston schemes around that by pairing Turner with its spaciest big man combination -- Kelly Olynyk and Jonas Jerebko -- and inverting the floor for Turner bully-ball post-ups.

Turner settles for too many tough baseline turnarounds, but he can score over smaller defenders, and if opponents send help, he picks out open cutters.

Turner has worked his butt off to become a solid defender, and his ability to guard all three perimeter positions -- including big wings like Anthony -- gives Boston a handy versatility. The Celtics can hide Thomas in the most convenient spot, and everyone else can find their most comfortable matchup; Turner eats the leftovers. In transition, players can pick up the closest opponent without fretting about matchups.

Being pretty good at lots of skills is a skill in itself. It makes you a chameleon. When key players get hurt, teams don't have ready-made replacements who can mimic what those players do. You need guys who can fake it just enough, and Turner can fake it in lots of roles.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Ed Davis, C, Portland Trail Blazers: Before he signed a nice long-term deal in Portland, it seemed like Davis was doomed to wander the NBA landscape, shoot 60 percent, pluck offensive rebounds, provide some rim protection, be "too skinny," and wait for someone to figure out he was pretty damn good.

Oh, hey: Davis is shooting 61 percent, and he's third in the whole stinking league in offensive rebounding rate, behind only Andre Drummond and Enes Kanter's mustache. He screens for Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, waits for his man to help on their drives, and jets into the void to tip in their missed bunnies.

About 31 percent of his scoring chances come via putbacks, the highest such share among all players, per Synergy Sports. He skirts around slower big men who box him out, or just reaches a long arm over their heads to flick at the ball. He's a dangerous, gliding finisher on the pick-and-roll.

He's a mooch, basically, in part because he can't shoot. The Blazers have minimized that weakness by pairing Davis with Meyers Leonard, who chills around the 3-point arc, and Davis in turn has streamlined Leonard's addled thought process on defense. Blazers coach Terry Stotts started the season with Davis defending centers and Leonard on power forwards -- an intuitive division of labor. But Leonard struggles to keep up in open space, and about a month ago, Stotts flip-flopped assignments, thinking it might be simpler for Leonard to bang with low-post brutes.

Davis embraced the adjustment, even though he has to chase shooters who operate way outside his comfort zone. That required rewiring his brain to override his big man instincts, and Davis will sometimes catch himself straying from gunners to patrol the rim. "He's getting better at it," Stotts says. "And it has made things easier for Meyers. The more you are around Ed, the more you appreciate him."

When he guards centers, Davis looks comfortable in Portland's conservative drop-back scheme; the happy feet that plagued him elsewhere have calmed. He's bothering post behemoths with fronts and other long-armed tactics, and generally playing the best defense of his career.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

I thought it was interesting to look back at this because Turner is going to fill help the team out a lot and "too skinny" Ed Davis ain't too skinny anymore. He bulked up this off season.