Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we pose a question to a panel of ESPN fantasy basketball experts to gauge their thoughts on a hot topic.
Today's contributors are ESPN Fantasy's Joe Kaiser, Jim McCormick and Kyle Soppe, plus ESPN NBA analyst Jalen Rose.
Myles Turner has lived up to the hype as a shot-blocker this season, but he hasn't developed into an impact scorer. Do you think his scoring will rise into the upper-teens as the season progresses or will he stick in the 14-15 PPG range?
Jalen Rose: Myles plays an all-around game for a Pacers team that predicates itself on ball and player movement. While being a rugged defender who rebounds and block shots consistently, I believe as the season progresses his offensive load will increase and he will be scoring in the upper teens.
Jim McCormick: He's certainly lived up to the defensive hype with the league's best block rate at 7.1 percent. Turner is also enjoying his highest rebounding percentage of his young career, albeit a still pedestrian 14.5 percent. For some context, Domantas Sabonis has sustained an elite 19.3 percent rebounding rate this season. I just don't think Turner is, at least at this early stage of his career, capable of producing 20 and 10 in the classic big man sense.
For some insight into Turner's subpar scoring rate, we can turn to his inefficient shot distribution; he's taking 54.5 percent of his shots from at least 16 feet from the basket this season and, somewhat absurdly, nearly a third of his shots are 2-point field goals between 16 feet and the 3-point line, which is amongst the most inefficient spaces on the floor. For his career, Turner is taking just 28.8 percent of his shots from within three feet of the rim, while Sabonis, for example, is lofting 42.4 percent of his shots this season from that range.
Unless and until Turner changes his shot selection and develops some post-up skills, he's going to be isolated as a defensive specialist.
Kyle Soppe: Now is the time to send out an offer for Turner, before the scoring spike occurs. Sure, his usage rate and raw shooting numbers are similar to that of last season, but dig a bit deeper, and you'll be convinced that it is only a matter of time for this uber-talented 21-year-old.
As a 6-foot-11 center with nice touch, it shouldn't be a surprise that Turner entered this season shooting nearly 65 percent from inside of eight feet. The surprise comes in that he is shooting a mere 42.6 percent near the rim this season, a rate that I'm expecting to improve sooner than later. As that percentage bounces back, his quickly developing range should allow him to bump his scoring average to the 16-18 PPG range.
Add in the fact that Bojan Bogdanovic and Sabonis are overachieving this season and figure to give some usage back to Turner when they cool off ... yeah, Turner is set to take another big step forward this season, and I'd be looking to acquire him before his stock raises too much.
Joe Kaiser: At this point, six weeks into the NBA season, it is enough time to declare Turner one of the biggest disappointments of the first half of the season. His minutes are down. His scoring is down. His rebounding is right where it was last season. The only real advances to his game from a fantasy perspective are a rise in 3-point production and the 2.4 blocks per game.
It's difficult to expect the third-year big man to increase his scoring into the upper teens at any point this season as long as he's taking only 11.1 shots a game and getting to the free throw line just 2.8 trips per contest. Look for Turner to score around 15 PPG by the time the season is over while adding 7-8 rebounds and being one of the game's true elite shot-blockers. He's basically a better version of Serge Ibaka right now.
