Two seasons ago, the NCAA basketball landscape was in awe of then rising senior Anthony Davis, a wiry thin near 7 footer with an insane combination of offensive and defensive skill that could dominate the college game, and could one day become an NBA superstar.
Of course, the college game’s top recruiter John Calipari at Kentucky, eventually won out the recruiting battle for the #1 HS player in the nation, as Davis made an immediate impact for the Wildcats. He set numerous school, SEC, and NCAA records for shot-blocking, and along with fellow freshman Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, helped UK win their 8th National Championship, before becoming the #1 overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft.
While it sounds like a perfect movie script to the sequel of Shaquille O’Neal’s once cheesy, but iconic hoops film Blue Chips from 1994, the same scenario could be happening once again as college coaches around the country are drooling over securing the services of rapidly rising senior Myles Turner.
The Texas native stands a legit 6’11, with an impressive 7’2 wingspan, elite athleticism, and possesses perhaps the most complete skill set of an player in the 2014 recruiting class. He’s unique in that he can play both inside and outside, but his true elite level talent at this point is protecting the rim.
While many other recruiters are focusing on 2014’s #1 ranked player, 7 foot and 280lb center Jahlil Okafor, and where he will play his college ball, Turner will probably be the best pro prospect because of his mobility and athleticism from the center position.
He does have something of a nearly impossible and amazing story to go along with his recruiting, like when Anthony Davis once now famously grew 6-8 inches prior to his senior year, the still only 17 year old Turner reportedly has an unbelievable size 21 shoe(Shaq had a size 22), and grew 4 inches in height and went through 3 shoe sizes all in a few weeks as an underclassmen in HS. Amazing stuff.
In addition to Davis, many have compared Turner’s game to that of legendary NBA big man Jack Sikma, known as perhaps the best shooting center in league history, because of his ability to protect the rim and shoot from deep. Even though the 3 point line wasn’t yet invented until later in Sikma’s career, he was known as a defensive match-up nightmare because of his ability to draw out opposing centers to guard him on the perimeter. Sikma once helped lead the old Supersonics to the 1979 NBA Title.
The already 6’11 and 240lb Turner us a unanimous Top 10 prospect in the 2014 recruiting class and has narrowed his college choices to 8 schools, Kansas, Kentucky, Arizona, Duke, Louisville, Ohio State, Texas, and OK State. He’s good friends with recent SMU commit and fellow elite Texas recruit Emmanuel Mudiay, as the two may be part of a package deal heading to play for Larry Brown in the new Big East.
New – Myles Turner 2013 Summer Mixtape:
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen has also provided content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, Cleveland.com, CSN Philly.com, Buckets Magazine, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
