Indiana Pacers: Team Awards 2019-2020

Defensive Player of the Year – Myles Turner

I’ll start with the elephant in the room, yes Myles Turner does usually get exposed by any center bigger than him in the paint, but you can’t use that one point to take away from his entire defensive game. Myles Turner was the anchor of the Indiana Pacers team that finished the season sixth in defensive rating.

Along with that Myles Turner averaged 2.1 blocks per game putting him among the top in the league at fourth overall, and in the short postseason that average went up to 4.0 blocks per game.

The part of Myles Turner’s defensive game that people tend to overlook is his perimeter defense from an almost seven-footer. Myles slimmed down and did yoga in the offseason to be able to fit alongside Domantas Sabonis and play the PF position on the defensive end.

Perimeter defense isn’t a stat but as someone that watched all of the Pacer games, it’s easy to see how impressive Myles Turner is at keeping up with many different positions outside of the ark and even when they drive at him. That’s something that two-time DPOY Rudy Gobert can’t even do on the level of Myles Turner.

Myles Turner never gets the credit he deserves for the All-Defensive team or DPOY voting, but what do you expect? It’s Indiana we are talking about here.

Defensive Player of the Year Runner-Up – Justin Holiday