When Indiana Pacers big man Myles Turner stepped foot in the league, he instantly stumbled upon veterans who treated him with tough love. At first, Turner took it personally and assumed that these veterans were just trying to intimidate an up-and-coming player.

Eventually, the two-time block champion realized that it was a way for them to push Myles to be the best version of himself. Turner remembered one kind of encounter he had with Kevin Durant.

“I think I did some soft sh*t like a fadeaway or something like that, and he got to my face and was like, ‘The f*ck you doing, bruh?’” Turner said in his recent appearance on the “Knuckleheads podcast.”

Turner’s time with KD on Team USA

Myles said that his encounter with Durant happened during one Team USA session when they brought all the qualified players together. He admired KD’s demeanor and work ethic, which is why he paid close attention to him throughout camp. However, little did the big man know that KD was going to nitpick everything he did during Team USA camp.

“He said, ‘You could get to your moves every time. Get to your spot. Don’t waste your dribbles. Get to your spot.’ And he chewed me out for the entire camp, and I was like, why is he doing this? But then I realized why he was doing this because he saw something in me. So that was my first experience with him and why I’ve got a lot of respect for him,” Turner added.

Another vet who was hard on Myles

Besides KD, Turner also didn’t have a smooth first encounter with Monta Ellis when he joined the Pacers. Ellis was extremely hard on Myles about the little things on the court, and at one point, the center thought that the former’s beef with him was personal. However, there came a point when Turner realized that he needed that tough love in order to put him in his place.

“I used to take a lot of shit personal from him [Ellis] and go home and be like, ‘What is this and that?’ But then I realized that there was a reason why he taught me like this,” Turner added.

While Myles acknowledges that he still has a lot to achieve in order to prove himself, he believes that he wouldn’t have made it this far if it weren’t for the tough love that he experienced at the beginning of his career, especially from two people he didn’t expect to ever have an encounter with.