​Basketball is a game that’s constantly evolving. Elston Turner has seen it all and learned to just keep coaching.Back home in Knoxville, the 67-year-old Turner is a basketball legend and 2025 Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame inductee. He led Austin-East to the 1977 TSSAA Class 3A state championship before starring at Ole Miss, where he helped the Rebels reach their first NCAA Tournament in 1981. The Dallas Mavericks selected him 43rd overall in the second round of the 1981 NBA Draft.This is Turner’s 30th year as an NBA assistant, and this offseason brought him and the Minnesota Timberwolves plenty of change. Longtime lead assistant Micah Nori was hired as coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, while the roster turned over after trades sent Julius Randle and Naz Reid away in exchange for all-star guard LaMelo Ball.”You always expect the unexpected in terms of roster movement,” Turner told Knox News on July 29. “My job is to coach whoever’s in the uniform. We got shorter, so we’ll scramble more. If you have a disadvantage on one end, you should have an advantage on the other.”The time away from home doesn’t last forever, though. Turner has returned to Knoxville to host his annual youth basketball camp at Austin-East for nearly four decades. This year’s camp, with support from the Emerald Youth Foundation, began July 27 and runs through Aug. 1. Turner credits Emerald Youth Foundation for raising the camp’s quality over the years, saying there once weren’t enough basketballs for every camper, let alone lunches.”This is my neighborhood,” Turner said. “I walked and ran up and down these streets, like some of the kids are doing now.”He grew up in the Austin Homes area before starring at Vine Junior High and Austin-East. As a young player, Turner wanted access to professional mentors but never had it. The camp is his chance to change that.”I want to be available,” Turner said. “Something I didn’t have when I was growing up. To see the excitement in their eyes to find out I coach Anthony Edwards, that I played with Michael Jordan, that I was born and raised here, that’s a really good reason that I come back.”Turner played eight NBA seasons with Dallas, Denver and Chicago before finishing his career overseas and in the CBA. He won an Italian League title with Scavolini Pesaro in 1990.He broke into coaching with the Chicago Rockers in the CBA in 1994 before making the jump to the NBA two years later. Since then, he’s been on eight NBA staffs, coached three All-Star Games and came within one win of the NBA Finals twice.Four decades around the league have given Turner a front-row seat to the NBA’s constant change. He isn’t interested in debating whether the balance of power has shifted from West to East because experience has taught him that preseason favorites don’t matter by April.”The landscape around the NBA is competition,” Turner said. “There are some really good teams in the East, really good teams in the West. On paper, people think, ‘Oh, they’re gon