Stars of Magic Past: Jeff Turner

Our next star of Magic past just recently left the Magic organization even though he quit playing a long time ago. He certainly isn’t a lesser known name, although many may not remember his face. He was part of the Magic organization for 16 years and after his retirement became their radio announcer before the 1995-’96 season.

Jeff Turner was a very good student and therefore chose to play his college basketball for Vanderbilt University after graduating Brandon High School in Florida. He was originally born in the north in Bangor, Maine. He played all four years after Vanderbilt, twice being named to the SEC All Academic team, which is quite the feat. He played for the Commodores from 1980-’84.

Turner contributed immediately once arriving at Vandy. He played in 28 games as a freshman and played 20.9 minutes per game. He scored just 3.6 points per game, grabbed three rebounds a game and dished out 1.3 assists per game. He played 28.6 mpg during his sophomore season upping his averages to 9.3 ppg, 5.4 rpg and .9 apg. In his junior season, he played in 33 games, playing 30.5 mpg. He scored 13.2 ppg, grabbed 5.5 rpg and had .9 apg. In his senior season, he really shined. He averaged 32.9 mpg playing in 29 games. He upped his field goal percentage to .533% and his free throw percentage to .843%. He averaged 16.8 ppg, 7.3 rpg, and 1.8 apg.

Turner also played for the United States National team in the 1982 FIBA World Championship where he won the silver medal, losing to the Soviet Union. His team avenged this loss two years later when Team USA won the gold in the 1984 Olympics. Turner’s Olympic team was coached by the legendary Bobby Knight.

After this, Turner was drafted with the 17th pick in the 1984 NBA Draft by the New Jersey Nets. He spent three years with the Nets, occasionally starting. He had pretty solid numbers, especially during his rookie season. He started 36 of the 72 games he played in, scoring 5.8 ppg, grabbing three boards per game and passing for 1.5 apg. He was never able to match his statistics from his rookie season while playing for the Nets. Only July 11, 1989, Turner signed with the Orlando Magic as an unrestricted Free Agent and played for Orlando’s innugural team.

Turner played in 60 games for the first Magic team and started 15 games. He averaged 5.1 ppg, 3.8 rpg, .9 apg. These were Turner’s best numbers since his rookie season. Turner became a started on the Magic’s second squad and played pretty well. He had 43 starts in 71 games and averaged a career-high 8.1 ppg as well as a career-high 23.1 mpg. He had a career-high 28 points in a win against the Golden State Warriors. He

also posted his best rebounding numbers, grabbing 5.1 rpg. Turner continued to put up decent numbers as a part-time starter the next season. He started 42 games and averaged 7.1 ppg and 3.3 rpg. During the ’92-’93 season, when Center Shaquille O’Neal was a rookie, Turner put up similar numbers. He started 20 of 75 games, scoring seven points per game and grabbing 3.4 rpg. Turner became a full-time starter again in the ’93-’94 season. He started 51 of 68 games, scoring 6.6 ppg and grabbing 4 rpg. Turner even had a 22-point, 10-rebound performance against the Milwaukee Bucks on April 5.

After the season, the Magic signed three-time World Champion Power Forward Horace Grant as an unrestricted Free Agent and Turner lost his job as Orlando’s starting Power Forward. He played in just 49 games, starting five. His minutes slipped to just 11.8 per game. He scored 4.1 ppg, 2 rpg, and 8 apg. He also appeared in 18 playoff games, playing 9.9 mpg. He averaged 2.7 ppg, 1.4 rpg, and .6 apg. Turner came back for one more run in the 1995-96 season in an attempt to win a championship. He played 14.8 mpg, three more minutes per game then in the prior season, but his scoring average dropped to 3.6 ppg.

Turner retired and joined David Steele as the color man on the Magic radio network. He worked with Steele for three years before Steele became Orlando’s television announcer, replacing Chip Caray, who left to take the place of his legendary grandfather, Harry Caray, as the announcer for the Chicago Cubs. Chip then joined his late father, Skip, as a play by play man for the Atlanta Braves and currently is the play by play man for baseball on TBS.

Dennis Neuman replaced David Steele and is still the play by play man for the Magic radio network today. Starting the 2002-03 season, Turner began only announcing Magic home games because and Will Perdue began announcing road games. After three seasons of this, Turner left the gig for good being replaced by former Magic interim Head Coach Richie Adubato, who worked home games for two seasons. He now does the color commentary for every Magic radio broadcast.

You can see the press release from the Magic concerning Turner’s leaving here.

"“For 16 years, Jeff has represented our organization with true class as a player, broadcaster and in the community. We wish him well in his new endeavor and are pleased that he will remain a part of the Central Florida community, serving as a positive influence on local students,” said Magic CEO Bob Vander Weide."

Turner still works for Lake Highland Prep in Orlando as the Executive Assistant to the President for Leadership Development.

Turner ran into some trouble when a man from Somerville , Massachusetts claimed that he was Jeff Turner and that he worked for the Seattle Sonics (now Oklahoma City Thunder) on Craigslist in order to pick up women on the website.

"For months, a Boston-area woman thought she was dating a Sonics front-office employee and former NBA player named Jeff Turner[.] She thought she had scored a figurative slam-dunk in the Internet dating game.But when the man she was falling for suddenly left his Somerville, Mass., home and stayed away for three weeks, the woman became suspicious. A Google search helped her discover that this man was not Jeff Turner, but a habitual impostor who had been posing as a Sonics employee for the past several months.But wait, it gets weirder. Not only was Craven lying to his online girlfriend, he was also lying to the Somerville News, which ran a story about the Somerville boy done good on April 9, only to find that they’d been bamboozled worse than the Herald."

Luckily, this never hurt Jeff Turner. It only hurt the women who bought into Craven’s lie and Craven’s family themselves.

Turner has a family himself. He is happily married to his wife, Dee Dee and has two daughters named Aline Gipson who is 10 and Emma Darnell who is 7.

(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger. Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)