Get Up: “I really think Jalen Brunson is going to go down as one of the greatest Knicks, if not the greatest Knick ever.” —@RealJayWilliams pic.twitter.com/3yucBrB596
May 21, 2024 | 11:06 am EDT Update
Myles Turner on Pascal Siakam's free agency: We’re hoping that he signs back in Indiana
Myles Turner on Pascal Siakam’s future: He’s a free agent this summer. We’re hoping that he signs back in Indiana. He’s someone that we’d love to have who can really help us going forward. I think it was a great move for us to get him. Kevin Pritchard was very adamant about trying to add more length, and he was able to get it done with a special player. I’ve really enjoyed playing with him in the frontcourt together. He’s someone who’s also going to help my game. He commands so much attention that I’m able to get loose for my threes.
Myles Turner eyeing All-Defensive honors, humanitarian award, championship
Myles Turner on future goals individually and as a team player: Individually, you want to get that first All-Star birth. You want to finally get some All-Defensive recognition and be able to be the guy that gets these types of humanitarian awards for the work you do in the community and have stuff like that recognized. As far as a team goal, the goal is to win a championship. There’s no other way to put that. When we started talking about this at the beginning of the year, it was far-fetched to a lot of people to try to make this run to the Finals. Now, it seems more real.
Myles Turner on Tyrese Haliburton: He’s definitely helped transcend my career
Myles Turner on Tyrese Haliburton: He’s definitely helped transcend my career, to say the least. I think the biggest thing with Tyrese is that he wants to pass more than he wants to score. When you think of a point guard, you’d think that would be the epitome of that, but in a league where scoring is paramount, it’s a rarity when you have guys like Tyrese who embrace that role of coming in and being a creator but can also step up when you need him. I think the sky’s the limit for him. The past two or three years since he’s been here, his ascension has been incredible. He’s been able to really help a franchise that was at its lowest and take it to new heights. When it comes to the debate of the best point guards, obviously I’m biased, but if you really sit there and break down his game and look at the numbers, he’s leading a historical offense. We’re one of the best offenses in NBA history. We just set a crazy percentage shooting from the field in Game 7. He’s leading all of that, and it’s not by accident. I think Tyrese is very special. He’s someone who can create not only for himself but for others. It’s really helped bring out the best in me.
The back-to-back championship dream is over for Denver Nuggets players, fans, and coaches. But for their general manager, going back-to-back was never the biggest priority. “I just want dudes that we try to develop, and it’s sustainable,” Nuggets GM Calvin Booth told me last August. “If it costs us the chance to win a championship this year, so be it. It’s worth the investment. It’s more about winning three out of six, three out of seven, four out of eight than it is about trying to go back-to-back.”
This quote is from a feature published on opening night about the Nuggets’ hopes of building a dynasty. There was real optimism that Nikola Jokic could power the Nuggets to back-to-back titles, making them the first team to do it since the Warriors did it in 2017 and 2018. Denver was the clear favorite to win it all again, despite losing two key rotation players in Bruce Brown and Jeff Green to free agency. But only rookies and journeyman vets were added to plug in the gaps. With the new collective bargaining agreement presenting massive team-building challenges for teams that are well over the luxury tax, adding young players felt like a reasonable approach. But the Nuggets’ lack of depth was the one hole critics could poke in its case to run it back.
And ultimately, that’s what did the Nuggets in. Denver ran out of gas Sunday, blowing a 20-point lead in the second half at home in Game 7 and losing to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Only one bench player logged more than 10 minutes and the Nuggets had five players under the age of 25 ride the pine the entire game. This was a theme all season, not just in the playoffs. On multiple occasions throughout this campaign, Michael Malone, the fiery head coach of the Nuggets, lamented his team’s lack of steady depth.
Jokic’s comments had to sting for Booth and the Nuggets, especially when considering that ex-Nuggets GM Tim Connelly is the one who drafted Jokic, built the roster around him, then left for the Timberwolves to construct a title hopeful shaped to defeat his own creation. Maybe the Nuggets had to lose this season for Booth and Malone to get on the same track long term. But all season, Denver lacked organizational alignment, a worrisome reality for a franchise that just won its first title with a historic player who’s still in his prime and who this season won his third MVP in four years. Putting the blame solely on Booth would be an error, though. Booth also added Kentavious Caldwell-Pope the prior offseason, and his first rookie class of Braun and Peyton Watson proved to be fruitful. Braun made pivotal plays as a rookie on Denver’s way to a title, which carried over to this season. Watson didn’t play meaningful minutes as a rookie but flashed excellent two-way abilities this season before his lack of a reliable jumper led to his benching against the Timberwolves. The three rookies Booth drafted this year—wing Julian Strawther, guard Jalen Pickett, and forward Hunter Tyson—were all upperclassmen that he hoped would play during the season and then be ready for rotation minutes come the playoffs. Just like Braun last year. But for one reason or another, it didn’t happen.
Here’s what Booth told me over the summer in a quote that didn’t make my opening-night story, after I asked if Braun’s minutes increasing throughout the 2022-23 season was a template for the 2023-24 rookie class: “I think Malone will have to play them. Hunter and Julian, these guys can manufacture points on their own. And I like the balance between Jamal and Jalen, who has been basically Joker Lite wherever he’s been. What happens when Jalen goes out there with Jokic and the ball’s moving around with both of those guys? It’s going to be like San Antonio with Boris Diaw.” Things didn’t pan out as expected, though. Strawther shot only 29.7 percent from 3 in his 545 regular-season minutes. Pickett appeared in only 122 minutes, sharing the floor with Jokic for just 35 and with Murray for none. Tyson played only 48 minutes, even fewer than Nuggets players on two-way contracts, despite excelling in the G League. Instead, Malone played four of his five starters even more minutes than they did last season (only Murray didn’t, due to his injuries). Malone valued pursuing home-court advantage over managing minutes and distributing playing time to younger players, and it ended up not mattering in the end with Denver losing three home games to Minnesota.
May 21, 2024 | 10:12 am EDT Update
Myles Turner on trade talks over the years: You look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, 'Am I the problem?'
Myles Turner on surviving trade talks and speculation through the years: It’s pretty dope. A lot of people were expecting you to fold with that. When you start hearing those types of rumors year in and out, you start kind of getting insecure. You look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, “Am I the problem?” You’ve been hyped up your entire life, and when you get to this stage, everything’s under a microscope. When you start playing for these multi-million dollar organizations, any little thing that goes wrong, the blame is going to be on you. That’s where it got in my career. It’s a full circle serendipitous moment to finally get an opportunity to play and ball out on this stage, the biggest stage in basketball, while also seeing every single phase of Pacers basketball.
Myles Turner on Pacers as underdogs against Celtics: That’s life as an Indiana Pacer
Myles Turner on Pacers being heavy underdogs against the Celtics: That’s life as an Indiana Pacer. It was the same thing as the last series. If you look at every single poll on ESPN, everyone picked the Knicks to win. If you look at the series before that with the Bucks, it might’ve been 80 percent of the people picking Milwaukee to win. That’s something that, since I’ve been here, at least in my career, it’s been like that every single season. We don’t get TV games, and we’re not publicized like that. In the press, it’s never the Pacers won. It’s the Knicks lost. That’s regular stuff for us. We use it as fuel and as a chip on our shoulders. We definitely go in there, and it’s less pressure on us because if we’re the underdogs, we’re the uninvited guests. It’s up to us to go out there and prove everybody wrong. That’s the goal at the end of the day.
Myles Turner on being longest tenured Pacer: I had to endure those years where everyone was talking down, telling me things were my fault, and you’re a sh*tty player
What does this playoff trip mean for you as the longest-tenured Pacer? Myles Turner: Being an example. I stood tall throughout all this. I had to endure those years where everyone was talking down, telling me things were my fault, and you’re a sh*tty player. I had to sit there and live through that stuff. To sit here and say it was easy, it wasn’t. There were times when you couldn’t get on social media. It feels like when you show your face in public, you’re not received the same way. Living through that stuff wasn’t easy. To the regular fan, you get paid millions of dollars. You’ll be okay. Wipe away your tears with money. But at the end of the day, we’re all human beings. We all look for that outside validation at times. Not receiving that is something that definitely hurt, and I had to make myself look inward. That’s when you have to depend on your circle and the guys that are around you to keep you going. I rallied around my guys, and they really got me to where I’m at. I’m trying to be an example for young guys around the league to stay the course and stick it out. That’s something that means a great deal to me because I’m living proof that you can continue to do it.
