Given his physical tools and impressive highlight reel, Myles Turner obviously has the rim protection to replace Brook Lopez. But if he can’t switch on ball screens to overcome the flaws Lopez had, then this whole thing might fall apart for the Milwaukee Bucks.
It’s no secret that switching (or the lack thereof) always, without fail, has killed Milwaukee the last few seasons. Former tactician Adrian Griffin’s early attempts to modernize the defense with Lopez playing up on ball screens backfired spectacularly, and the Bucks quickly retreated to a conservative drop once Doc Rivers took over. It's why the team, with the All-World talents of Lopez and Antetokounmpo, still benefited from defensive answers like Jericho Sims.
But now that Turner’s in the fold, with him widely seen as a more “modern” big in the era of positionless basketball, the temptation to switch will no doubt come roaring back.
And given what Turner has shown throughout his career, that's a tall task.
It's on Turner to transform the Bucks into a defensive powerhouse
The problem, as this writer sees it, is that Turner’s supposed mobility and switchability are more a matter of reputation and perception than reality.
Turner's reputation around the association makes sense since his physical tools and archetype are closer to those of Bam Adebayo than, say, Zach Edey and Walker Kessler. So it was a plausible inference that a 6-foot-11, 250-pound center with a 7-foot-4 wingspan who can stretch the floor, shoot the three, and play power forward should have been switchable, right?
So the eye test might say yes, but anyone paying attention knows that the advanced stats say no.
According to NBA.com/stats, Turner gave up 0.97 points per possession when defending isolations, good for just the 38th percentile among bigs league-wide. He also didn’t defend enough pick-and-roll ball-handlers to even qualify for tracking on NBA.com/stats, suggesting he generally wasn't used as a primary switch defender in Indy.
That’s not nothing. If Turner was really a piece that gave them positional versatility on the defensive side of the ball, shouldn't the Pacers have used him like it in the regular season?
Matchup data on NBA.com/stats reinforces the concern. Guards shot 45 percent when Turner was the closest defender. Forwards shot 47.1 percent. Those aren't terrible numbers, but they're also not what you'd expect from a supposed Swiss army knife on the defensive end.
Adding to the mountain of evidence is that Crafted NBA rated his defensive versatility at just 0.7 with a matchup difficulty score of 47.6, both of which resemble the numbers of traditional drop-coverage bigs who mostly played a low-switch role on the defensive end.
Just to be clear: none of this means Turner isn’t a good defender. He is. When he’s on the floor, opposing offenses score 3.4 fewer points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning the Glass. That ranks in the 79th percentile among bigs and lines up with his reputation as an elite drop anchor who blocks shots without fouling.
But being a great drop defender didn’t save Lopez from being scapegoated last year. And if Milwaukee’s scheme shifts again, Turner may be forced into matchups that don’t actually play to his strengths.
The questions are many. Can Turner deter shots at the rim when he's not blocking them? Can he switch onto smaller players on the perimeter when Kevin Porter Jr. and Gary Trent Jr. are screened off by opposing bigs?
This season, Turner would go on to have dominant defensive matchups in the playoffs (like Chet Holmgren shooting 11-of-38) only to give up 10-of-14 when more wily players like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander were the ones going at him.
There's no scenario in which Turner isn't a defensive upgrade for these Milwaukee Bucks in theory. But for that to translate, the Bucks either have to resist miscasting him as a switch-everything big, or Turner has to prove he really can be one.
Because this time, the Bucks don’t have Brook Lopez as a fallback and a scapegoat.