Next Aldridge? Pacers’ Turner just wants to be himself

The imitation game does not interest Myles Turner.

For the Indiana Pacers center and former University of Texas standout, the goal is to be the best possible version of himself, not an augmented version of another player.

“I don’t model my game after anybody,” said Turner, who will play the host Spurs on Wednesday. “I’ve always been able to play my own game. Of course I’ve watched tape of other guys, but I really just focus on my own game.”

Though Turner has tried to avoid becoming a carbon copy of anyone else, his coach cannot help but notice an uncanny resemblance to another former lottery pick who spent his college days draped in burnt orange — Spurs forward LaMarcus Aldridge.

“It was almost like those guys were cloned,” said Pacers coach Nate McMillan, who was Aldridge’s coach in Portland from 2006 to 2012. “The one thing that I loved about LaMarcus was the fact that he worked extremely hard. He stayed in the gym after practice, he was early to practice, and he really worked on developing his game. Myles is exactly the same type of player. This kid loves to play.”

The parallels are easy to draw.

Both men are near 7-footers with sweet jumpers who honed their abilities on the Texas high school basketball circuit. By Year 2 of their NBA careers, it was already clear they were cut from a different cloth.

Pacers player development coach David McClure also worked with Aldridge in San Antonio, where he witnessed through Tim Duncan what an unabating love of the game looked like.

“The thing that you saw from Tim everyday, and I have mentioned it a few times to Myles and others if the situation fits, where he was in his 19th season and everyday we would be in there working with the rookies and he’s going just as hard,” said McClure, who spent two seasons in San Antonio working alongside player development gurus Chad Forcier and Chip Engelland.

McClure sees that same unbridled enthusiasm in Turner, who is still more than three weeks away from being able to legally imbibe alcohol.

“One of the best and most exciting parts about working with Myles is, he cares and he really loves the game,” McClure said. “Sometimes he’ll get you excited because it’s a true, just genuine innocence about the game. He pops up off the bench when he’s getting announced, he comes in and he’s got this young, uplifting spirit about him.”

Turner is in the midst of one of the most impressive age-20 seasons in NBA history and has slid comfortably into a secondary role behind Paul George for a Pacers team that is currently sixth in the East.

If Turner maintains his current averages of 15.5 points, 7.1 rebounds and 2.1 blocks, he would join Anthony Davis, Kevin Garnett, Chris Webber and Shaquille O’Neal as the only players to reach those numerical thresholds before turning 21.

He may wish to avoid comparisons, but company does not get much more desirable for a young big.

That Turner is already so proficient at so much can occasionally serve as a double-edged sword for the Pacers staff.

“Sometimes it’s hard for us to (remember) that he’s only 20 years old,” McClure said. “You expect so much out of him, you see all this talent, but sometimes you have to step back a little and think about how young he is. He still has so much left to tap into.”

While Aldridge came up alongside more traditional bigs such as Dwight Howard, Al Jefferson and Andrew Bogut, Turner is part of a new wave of emerging stars still years removed from their primes.

Young giants such as Turner, New Orleans’ Davis, Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid and New York’s Kristaps Porzingis have warped the league’s understanding of what a modern big man can do.

Like a chimera created from the DNA of multiple Hall of Famers, they are able to move with the fluidity of a guard, pull up from behind the arc and protect the paint.

Turner, who played on the sophomore team in this year’s Rising Stars Challenge, is aware of his many talented contemporaries. He also has more important things to emphasize than tracking what any of them might do on a given night.

“You can’t do that, can’t focus on other guys,” he said. “All you can do is focus on yourself, strive for yourself each day. I don’t really try to compare myself to anybody in the league. I just play my game and my game is good enough for me.”

nmoyle@express-news.net

Twitter: @NRmoyle