Texas freshman center Myles Turner has decided to enter the draft, as he announced in a YouTube video (hat tip to Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com). The 19-year-old is a lottery prospect, checking in 10th in Chad Ford’s ESPN.com rankings and 12th on Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress list.
The 6’11” Turner blocked an eye-popping 2.6 shots per contest this season, but he otherwise didn’t put up impressive numbers for the Longhorns, posting just 10.1 points and 6.5 rebounds in 22.2 minutes per game. Still, Ford and Jonathan Tjarks of RealGM pinned blame for Turner’s shortcomings on Texas coach Rick Barnes, who’s since been fired.
Turner helped the school to an 11th seed in the NCAA Tournament, but Turner had just two points to go along with 10 rebounds off the bench as Texas lost its first game of the tournament to Butler. The Texas native was No. 6 in the Recruiting Services Consensus Index coming out of high school last year, but his stock didn’t change much over the course of his lone college season, as Ford had him ninth prior to tipoff while Givony had him 16th. Turner will take a while to develop in the NBA and his odd style of running is an injury concern, but the rangy scorer has too much upside for lottery teams to ignore, writes Eddie Scarito of Hoops Rumors in our most recent Draft Prospect Power Rankings.