Former NBA player Evan Turner believes the Philadelphia 76ers mishandled his development after selecting him with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2010 NBA Draft.
Turner entered the league with high expectations after an outstanding college career at Ohio State, where he earned national player of the year honors and was named a consensus first-team All-American.
Despite his accomplishments, Turner initially played a reserve role in Philadelphia and did not become a full-time starter until his third NBA season.
Looking back, he questioned why the Sixers used such a high draft pick on him without immediately giving him a larger role.
“As a number two pick, I walked in I say bro, ‘Why would I be playing, and I love my guys at that depth, I don’t understand what we talking about. Why am I coming off the bench behind for a 28-win team, and y’all telling me I gotta play behind a dude that played here six years and he showed you what he was.’ This is worth my future and development. Y’all wasted a lottery pick.”
Turner felt that Philadelphia should have prioritized his development rather than requiring him to earn playing time behind established players on the roster.
He also criticized the team’s approach to building its offense, arguing that the organization should have created a system designed to maximize his abilities as one of its most important young players.
“I literally thought like, ‘How do we not have a system built around me if y’all were waiting for me?’ When I was sitting there, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m doing too many blue-collar things to be a superstar.’ And not like in a bad way. I just thought you get a system set up. When John Wall came in, Gil [Arenas] was elite, and they made him move over positions.”
