Only 1 turnover with CP3 playing. He was averaging 10 a game when CP3 was resting. This goes to show you that it's not Harden. As Mike D said, it's the roster The Roster force Harden to do everything, handle every possession, only play maker without CP3.
it’s 1 thing to criticize Harden, but it’s another thing entirely to actually believe that the biggest problem with this team so far has been his turnovers and this season is on him...stuff like that can’t even be taken seriously
Harden’s turnovers have been an issue but you have to been a dumb fan if you think Harden is this team’s biggest issue.
Harden may be averaging the most turnovers per game, but he is averaging the most points, 3rd in assists, 1st from steals in the league. In other words, he makes up for his turnovers.... and then some. And as I asked for before, how many points have we conceded from those turnovers? It's easy for him to get turnovers if he gets double teamed most possessions. If Harden had help this season, I guarantee you he wouldn't have close to that many turnovers.
Our opponents score 14.6 pts per game off of Harden's turnovers. That stat (Opponents Pts off of TO) is defined as any score following a turnover. It doesn't tell you whether the opponents score was directly because of the turnover (ex: steal and breakaway) or if it just happened on the next possession even if our defense was able to setup and defend. So that means if Harden turns the ball over, the other team walks it up the floor, take the shot clock down to the buzzer and score then it's the same as a steal and a fast break. Something like that is really no different than a missed shot but you can't differentiate between the two from the stat that the NBA publishes. It gives you a "worst case" but doesn't really tell you how many were really scored as a direct result of the turnover and how many just occurred on the following possession. For comparison, here's some other players "Opp Pts Off TO" numbers. Based on the number of touches Harden gets, I was surprised that his was this low. Booker 16.1, Ariza 15.1, Doncic 13.6, Beal 13.6, Simmons 13.5, Lebron 13.5, Klay Thompson 13.2, Butler 13.1, Wall 13.0, D. MItchell 12.9, Durant 12.4, Blake Griffin 11.6, Anthony Davis 11.5, CP3 11.4, Conley 11.4 Other Rockets ---------------------------------- Capela 11.9, Ennis 11.7, Tucker 11.4 , Gordon 10.6, Clark 6.3, Green 5.0
James Harden averaging bearly 10 turnovers per game while CP3 was gone is partially his fault. You just can't exonerate him of that.
Seeing as our average pt differential is -.5, even if 15% of those 14.6 pts are directly related to Harden's turnovers, that would still be a significant impact on the team record.
the biggest issue is health AND continuity. Towards the last 20 games or so we need to have our key guys playing together. I dont buy with this group that we could just turn it on. the concern is keep taking too many rest days at detriment of continuity. Its a dilemma we will face with a guy like cp3. Its a problem. You want them humming but you want them healthy. also we are lucky to have gordon. He is probably gone next year. This health situation was somewhat foreseen the question is can we create enough continuity (at least a solid 10-20 games), full health AND still get 8 or below in seeding? Moreray definitely thought ennis mcw were going to do something. We can win with this team as constructed it will require some element of the health gods shining down on us. Warriors can say the same about curry as you can see. Health is bigger factor than people give credit for. I would coulda but some of those yao ming/mcgrady teams were frigging awesome but reliant on metatarsal in a 7 foot 6 guy. Everything comes down to this little bone in this huge mfers foot. yup yup. And if we lose deshaun watson on a slick slide acl we can kiss that goodbye too. Ahh the world is so fragile and delicate. Respect that. We have been remarkably lucky with harden and injuries btw. That dude plays doesnt seem to miss much. That is an attribute. We need to sign a few durables next year too. Cp3 on the trainers table will be a theme as we go forward. He is damn good and when in there dishing dimes and doing his thing its worth all the landrys crab balls in the world.
Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not. Regardless of what our "average" point differential is, we haven't lost that many close games. The two overtime losses and and the first LAC loss are our only losses by 7 or less. In those close games, if Harden plays safer then how does it change his results? Does he score less points or get less assists because he's trying not to turn the ball over? He takes chances but they pay off most times and we get points from it. If he were to continue to do everything that worked and only reduce some of the things that didnt work, then your statement is true. The problem is that it doesn't work that way. If he plays more conservatively, then some of the risks that ended up paying off will go away too. Despite the risks he takes, he's successful over 85% of the time so I'd wager that those chances are benefitting us more than they are hurting us. If you want to focus on points off turnovers then theres plenty of guys on the Rockets that you can look at. We've got Capela, Ennis, Gordon and Tucker all allowing opponents 10+ points off turnovers per game. The difference is that they don't touch the ball nearly as frequently as Harden and they don't produce the huge number of points that Hardens scoring and assists do. Harden handles the ball a lot and he takes chances. Many of those chances pay off and some dont. He ends up generating more points for the team than anyone in the league. Cutting down turnovers is great to wish for but realize that you would likely see a reduction in overall output in order to accomplish that. That's a really long way of saying that Harden not taking chances would likely cost us more net points than it would save.
For TOV% they just list: Percentage of plays that end in a player or team's turnover. I think the are using actual possessions this year rather than a formula. For TO Ratio they have (TO * 100) / (POSS). They also have a new one I haven't seen: TO Frequency. The percentage of plays where a player or team commits a turnover, but it doesn't look updated for this year.
% of Plays is weird wording v Possessions. Is that just TO / POSS or something schpelcial? While TO Ratio is a TOs per 100 possessions thingie. If so, whateva NBA,,,, continues to annoy me the two sites can't agree on such basic "Four Factor" adv stats. Seems nba.com is doing this on purpose. fwiw: (Minor note: Capela's Likely Incentive for DREB% looks like its carved into the contract to use BBRef, so even league seems to favor BBRef for definition of "Likely" vs "Unlikely") Here's some quick thoughts on what "% of Plays that End in a Turnover" means. If by Plays they simply mean Possessions, then it's just TO / POSS vs BBRef ( TO / (Shots + Shooting Fouls) ). Should be able to verify this since it would match their TO Ratio number (divided by 100), and they post POSS numbers too, right? Affect of #1 versus BBRef is: POSS would add TOs but not extra shots/fouls in denominator By contrast, BBRef includes extra shots but not TOs in denominotor If by "Plays" they mean extra possessions too (rebounds), then the denominator would include turnovers and extra shots/fouls, maybe more thingies. BUT, if #4 means you are *only* adding TOs to the BBRef formula (TO / (TO + Shots + Shooting Fouls) ) then the number would have to be lower, not higher -- noting a rebound can only lead to another set of TO or Shot, Shooting Foul, right? anyhoot: annoys me they don't just publish the formula or duplicate BBRefs....like they are keeping proprietary. TOV% is a Four Factor dammit
Well they now say they don't use formulas, but true posession counts: @johnschuhmann News: @nbastats now features true possession counts (no more estimates) across the site: https://stats.nba.com/teams/advanced/?sort=NET_RATING&dir=-1&Season=2017-18&SeasonType=Regular%20Season …
I would tend to agree, as his RAPM (plus minus) so far has started slow. His RAPM has generally been worse when he's been more turnover prone.
That's great, but it immediately severs them from historical stats. I'm glad they do that, but they don't say "# of Possession per Turnover"; they say "# of Plays"....and it's reasonable for them to decide that TOV% isn't a possession based stat, but should address multiple-shot clocks per possession. I'm not advocating that or not, just saying that their use of the word "Play" is weird, as they don't actually define what a "Play" is, right?
