Evan Turner Balls Hard in BBVA Rising Stars Challenge

While Kenny Smith kept repeating "he needs to get in the Dunk Contest" about John Wall at the end of this "game", Evan Turner quietly had himself a game reminiscent of Future Evan Turner. I would know, I'm from the future. Kyrie Irving hit every shot in the world, Blake Griffin and Ricky Rubio tickled each other a few times, and Jeremy Lin talked about his body - but ET did his own version of Andre Iguodala and helped Team Chuck win over Team Shaq in the Rookie/Sophomore Game.

I was pretty surprised to find that Evan was starting for Chuck, alongside Kyrie Irving, Paul George (!), Derrick Williams, and DeMarcus Cousins. Turner made a few really nifty passes to Cousins, but my favorite was when he was posting up and went behind his head to Gordon Hayward who made the extra pass to Kyrie for the finish. Evan finished with THE MOST MINUTES IN THE GAME and a line of 16 points (on 8-9 shooting), 11 rebounds, and 7 assists. No free throws, natch.

Anybody think this will make a tangible difference the rest of the season? I don't. I think he'll be better in the second half, but it won't be because he got more "confidence" in this extremely exhibition game. It'll be because, well, he's a better player than he's been playing and the improvements he's shown since last year will be even more pronounced once a few jumpers start going in (as they did in this game) and Jrue Holiday keeps distributing. Having him handle the ball more (as Mr. Price pointed out on Twitter) instead of the Boss would do well towards giving him an actual role on the team instead of that awkward kid who rebounds a lot.