Built to Lose - Deleted Scenes - V
Wednesday nights at Evan Turner's house, and redemption for Michael Carter-Williams.
Welcome, folks. My name is Jake Fischer. I’m a former Sports Illustrated NBA reporter and current Bleacher Report contributor. If you’re here, you probably know my first book, ‘Built to Lose: How the NBA’s Tanking Era Changed the League Forever’, will be out May 4. It covers Hinkie’s Sixers, the post-Big Three Celtics, old Kobe’s Lakers, some crazy Kings drama, plus so much more. And if you subscribe to this newsletter, you’ll receive a 30% off discount code for pre-ordering a copy.
Like I mentioned in the first, second, third and fourth installments, there’s a good bit of new information I learned reporting this book that didn’t fit between its two covers. Below is the fifth post of this bi-weekly newsletter you’re presently reading, where I’m sharing some of the scenes and anecdotes that didn’t make the final cut.
I.
Yes, I’ll admit it: I grew up a Philadelphia 76ers fan. But I think the objectivity required for being an honest reporter just kind of saps the fandom from you. It’s a natural side effect to covering the NBA at large. That local passion doesn’t just go away, though. I believe it bleeds entirely into your support in other sports. (Trading Carson Wentz was ab-so-lute-ly necessary.)
So when you take a bus from New York to Philly for Sixers-Warriors in January 2020, solely to talk to D’Angelo Russell in the postgame locker room for your first book, you can’t help rooting for underdog Golden State to pull off an improbable victory. Or at least for Russell—please, Lord—to play well. Not many people want to talk about work, mere minutes after a bad day at said work, when they’re already in their underwear and just need to take a shower in silence.
All that being said, I’d be lying if I wrote how I found no nostalgic joy talking to members of the 2011-12 76ers for this project. That team was different. The group I’d grown up cherishing reached a thrilling Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semi finals during May of my senior year of high school. Those are deep-rooted heartstrings that eventually got pulled. I interviewed over 300 people for ‘Built to Lose,’ but sitting down with Thaddeus Young in his hotel lobby, or sharing two hours with Spencer Hawes on the phone, meant a little bit more than most.
Evan Turner may have been the obscure highlight. He’s an endearing recurring character of the NBA’s modern tanking era for precisely the reason I loved cheering for him as a teenager. Turner’s game was wonky and unconventional, but entertainingly effective. The same goes for his personality. Ask any beat writer who covered a team of Turner’s, and a knowing smile will surely stretch across that reporter’s face.
“ET’s my guy,” says Jared Sullinger, a fellow Ohio State product. “The one thing about ET, everybody has a different personality. Sometimes personalities don’t really mesh well. That happens.”
For that, Turner’s personal arc in this book may be more compelling than any. He lived the entire 2013-14 season on eggshells, wondering at any moment if his team’s new general manager would trade him to a far off city. After nine months living through that uncertainty, as the trade deadline finally neared that February, Turner was subject to endless outsider speculation. He dropped an f-bomb on camera. His character was questioned, his value on the trade market constantly debated in a public forum.
Philadelphia ultimately shipped Turner to Indiana, only for the former No. 2 pick to flame out quite quickly with the Pacers. When he reached what was once expected to be a lucrative free agency, his options were jarringly limited, and Turner’s best path forward seemed to be joining another rebuilding team in the Boston Celtics—who’s 2013-14 effort was just as tanky as Hinkie’s.
But Boston’s situation was far different for Turner. The Celtics’ head coach, the second-year wunderkind Brad Stevens, came from Butler University. And Turner’s coach at Ohio State, Thad Matta, preceded Stevens on the Bulldogs’ sideline before leaving to take over the Buckeyes.
“It was so easy for Brad to just call up Thad Matta and say, ‘Hey, how do I get through to Evan Turner?’” Sullinger says. Stevens thus put the ball back in Turner’s hands, finally, truly, freeing him of an awkward dance and identity struggle alongside both Andre Iguodala and Jrue Holiday his first few years in Philadelphia.
“Evan Turner’s not a small forward. He’s not a shooting guard. He’s really a point guard,” Sullinger explains. “And what Brad did was he took the success [Evan] had in college and put it in the pros. He played Evan Turner at point guard. I thought that was the change in ET because he finally got to play the position that ultimately he is. I think that’s what made him find the love for the game.”
“He had reached rock bottom playing in Indiana,” adds Jae Crowder, a Celtics wing. “And he said Boston, he felt like his career had been rejuvenated. He was having fun with the game of basketball and we fed off his good energy.”
Turner ran the Celtics’ second unit and schooled youngsters like Marcus Smart in post-practice games of one-on-one. “He was really, really helpful in our progression and our development,” Smart says. “Just telling us little tricks, SparkNotes here and there to get you through everything.”
Perhaps the best anecdote that didn’t make ‘Built to Lose’ was a weekly tradition that Turner began organizing for those 2014-15 Celtics. “We used to have ET Wednesdays,” Crowder says. Whenever Boston was in town, and wasn’t scheduled for a game, teammate after teammate would flock to Turner’s house in Cambridge. They’d typically watch the nationally broadcast ESPN game and later a UFC bout. A private chef would serve a customized menu. In the living room, a barber set up shop, where the Celtics played Madden while awaiting their seat in the chair. “That was all our place of getting a haircut,” Sullinger says.
It seems Turner would front the entire bill. His home became exactly that to several other players. “I went to Evan’s for Thanksgiving,” says then-Boston forward Kelly Olynyk. His teammates were drawn to the veteran’s charisma and unique charm, a key ingredient to fueling the Celtics’ unexpected playoff run that spring. “Just the stuff Evan says you’re like, ‘How’d you come up with this?’” Olynyk recalls. “He’s so smart and so quick-witted. He honestly could be a stand-up comedian. He’s really, really comedically funny. He has great delivery. Great timing…
“He’s also a great person,” Olynyk adds, “really cares about you, will really take care of you.”
Those Wednesday evenings were also where Turner started opening his heart as wide as his front door. Part of that veteran leadership included sharing his own vulnerabilities. He presented himself almost as a cautionary tale, how the business of basketball can sap the joy of a sport from even a former No. 2 pick in the NBA draft.
“We were just talking one night, he started saying how much fun he was having with us, how much fun he was having this season and he talked about the previous year and how it bad it was for him,” Crowder says. “And now he’s back to himself.”
After two bounce-back seasons, the revitalized Turner left Boston for Portland.
The Trail Blazers paid him $70 million dollars over four years.
II.
Before those Boston days, it was Michael Carter-Williams who benefitted most from his time around Turner. Even with trade rumors hanging over that entire 2013-14 Sixers team, Turner managed to provide a steady hand in guiding MCW through his inaugural NBA campaign. By the time Sam Hinkie at last sent Turner to Indiana that February, the premise of losing Turner stung the rookie point guard in his gut. “It was tough when it did finally happen,” Carter-Williams says.
One year later, as Turner hosted his Celtics teammates for those Wednesday night hang outs, the 2015 trade deadline served Carter-Williams another sour helping. As we cover in ‘Built to Lose,’ the reigning Rookie of the Year was abruptly moved to Milwaukee, only days after the team’s business operations sent out materials for ‘15-16 season tickets, advertising MCW as a crucial building block in Philadelphia.
“I didn't know what to expect,” Carter-Williams says. “You have to pick up and go. I didn’t know anyone. It was my first time being traded.”
The environment in Milwaukee wasn’t exactly welcoming, either. Jabari Parker had suffered a season-ending injury, but he’d already helped establish a brutally-competitive dynamic among the Bucks’ own young pieces. There was also this rapidly-improving youngster by the name of Giannis Antetokounmpo, who felt he was growing into the Bucks’ true No. 1 option—not Parker. Of course the Duke product, who’d posted historic scoring numbers during his lone season with the Blue Devils, believed he projected as Milwaukee’s alpha dog.
“That’s the mindset that I have every time that I’m on the court,” Parker says. “We just always went hard at each other.”
Kris Middleton, himself later blooming into an All-Star, relished that situation as well. “It’s competitive. It’s a dog-eat-dog business, world, whatever you want to call it,” Middleton says. “Every day in practice, we were showing who’s better, who’s earning these minutes. Once the games come, we made each other better.”
Now enter Carter-Williams, who Bucks management and head coach Jason Kidd were touting as Milwaukee’s floor general of the future. They went one step further billing Carter-Williams as the heir apparent to Kidd, a Hall of Fame point guard himself. “He definitely—we talked and [Kidd] expressed what he saw in me and what we were going for,” Carter-Williams says.
Those are lofty standards for any 23-year-old to grapple with. And then Milwaukee’s crowd loudly reminded Carter-Williams he was quite far from reaching Kidd’s caliber. Many Bucks fans argued he wasn’t even close to the player that Milwaukee had traded for him, Brandon Knight, a ball handler from Kentucky who was amid an All-Star caliber campaign that ‘14-15 season, before being rerouted to Phoenix.
“Everybody was taking shots at him, and probably at me too,” says the Bucks’ general manager John Hammond. “‘Why would you make that trade when Brandon was playing so well! Oh, now look at Michael! He’s not fitting...’”
Carter-Williams’ production dropped across the board. His already-shaky shooting stroke connected on a measly 14.3% of threes with the Bucks that season.
But Milwaukee did regroup and make the playoffs. And Carter-Williams effectively bothered a former MVP in Bulls guard Derrick Rose during that the first round series. On offense, “Jason would put Michael down in the post against him,” Hammond says, where Carter-Williams could overpower the smaller Rose. “I thought that Michael had a very good series,” Hammond says.
Carter-Williams never did become a franchise centerpiece. After Milwaukee, he spent time in Chicago, Charlotte and Houston, before settling in Orlando the past three seasons as a reserve guard and defensive stalwart. Outside shooting has continued to cap his ceiling, but that 2015 postseason previewed what’s become a strong NBA career, one that’s grossed over $16 million so far, and a role in the world’s most competitive league that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
MCW is often cited by Sam Hinkie’s naysayers as a reason why Philadelphia’s fabled ‘Process’ failed. Carter-Williams wasn’t the second coming of Jason Kidd, either. But the draft and scouting basketball prospects is always an inexact science, often casting youngsters in roles they aren’t meant for. When you look back, most players, most humans, fall short of their “best-case scenario.” It’s certainly not a crime to settle for being a 10-year NBA veteran.
Last season, I found Carter-Williams in the Magic’s visiting locker room one night at Madison Square Garden. The fan in me, it was hard hiding my happiness MCW had finally landed in the perfect situation.
‘Built to Lose: How the NBA’s Tanking Era Changed the League Forever,” arrives on May 4.
You can subscribe to this newsletter and receive a 30% off discount code.