Not all of Hardens TOs are on him you are correct on that. But let's be honest a good portion of them are just Harden being lazy. The full court passes that never work, the bounces passes thru traffic that often get picked and getting his pocket picked happens often. All he has to do is cut down on those and he's golden.
Thats true, but its also a nitpicky fault that I dont think it will prevent us from winning a ring in the future. Its like priority number 100 way below Harden's defense and tendency to iso hero ball. Holic worrying about it like somebody with HIV, Herpes and BO worrying about his pimple and thinking thats whats preventing him from getting laid.
Team turnovers are all that matters. Harden needs to stay above 2-1 and we will be highly successful.
Because it's the regular season and these are single games. That's different from drilling down on a single opponent for ten days to a couple weeks. You know that. Why are you posting such questions?
So when drilling down on an opponent the only stat that matters is turnovers? Are assists relevant at all? Morey says we need to be a top 10 offense and defense to be contenders. If we get there, I don't think it matters if we are at the bottom in turnovers.
I never said turnovers were the only thing that mattered. You keep attempting to stretch what I'm saying into something I'm not. Stop it. That only shows weakness in your own argument. The problem with your logic is you don't think Harden turnovers matter......I know they do. That's the scope of the discussion here.
If you don't think Harden's turnovers are all that matter, why crusade from thread to thread acting like Harden's turnovers are all that matter? We know Harden needs to/should attempt to cut his turnovers down. This is well established and agreed to by everybody. The Rockets average about 17 turnovers per game. Harden accounts for about 6 of those. You never bring up the other 11. Don't they all matter?
They all matter. But his are the easiest to fix and the most troublesome because he doesn't offset them with steals and generating defensive turnovers. It's not a crusade. This thread is about Hardens turnovers. I'm commenting about them here because it's what the thread is about. Why are a bunch of you crusading here acting like his turnovers don't matter?
Harden's 3rd on the team in steals and 2nd in rebounds. And obviously our best offensive player. He does plenty of "offsetting".
Ok...so you have now confirmed that you do, in fact, believe Harden's turnovers are all that matter. Fair enough.
Our team turnover rate is pretty damn close to the "real" contenders this year and is at a lower rate than a fairly recent champion.
Of course turnovers matter. James Harden is at 5.5 turnovers a game, Steve Nash in his prime was at 3.5 turnovers a game. James Harden is averaging 12 assists a game, Steve Nash averaged 11 assists a game in his prime. James Harden averages almost 2 steals/blocks a game, Steve Nash in his prime averaged 1 steal/blocks a game. So you are getting 2 more turnovers a game from Harden and 1 more assist and one more steal/block. So the difference from a +/- turnover perspective is negligible between Harden and Nash. Harden is getting 1 more turnover and almost 4 more assists than a year ago.......... that is an excellent trade off. Teams always want to cut down on turnovers, but it isn't the end all/be all. The difference in turnovers between the Warriors and Rockets? 1 a game. 6 of the 7 teams this year, that are best at protecting the ball? .....Mavericks, Pistons, Hornets, Celtics, Magic, Pelicans. The one playoff team in that mix is the Raptors.
Nash never won a title. Compare Harden to magic Johnson, LeBron, Steph. Look at their turnovers and net turnovers when they won championships. Start here. http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=single&type=per_game&per_minute_base=36&per_poss_base=100&season_start=1&season_end=-1&lg_id=NBA&age_min=0&age_max=99&is_playoffs=N&height_min=0&height_max=99&birth_country_is=Y&as_comp=gt&pos_is_g=Y&pos_is_gf=Y&pos_is_f=Y&pos_is_fg=Y&pos_is_fc=Y&pos_is_c=Y&pos_is_cf=Y&forceos_is=1&c1stat=tov_per_g&c1comp=gt&c1val=4&c6mult=1.0&order_by=tov_per_g Now this is just a start. You'll have to look at a ton of other data to put this in perspective and quantify it in context of the team, season, and league. This is simply a list of players who averaged over 4 turnovers a game during the regular season. No other applied criteria. (And there is a whole set of applied criteria that contextualize a player in any given season.) This is just pure turnover count. Did any of these guys win championships while averaging over 4 turnovers a game during the regular season? Just start there. Simple question. Then we can start adding criteria. I'll even let you add the criteria that would justify a player averaging over 5 turnovers a game winning a championship. Develop it based on 36 years of championship teams in the three-point era.
Here's the problem with that. It will cost him 3-4 assists a game to do that. I agree with you he should do it. But he hits those plays and gets an assist about 50% of the time. For Harden to lower his turnover count down to 4 a game his assist count is going to drop to about 8 a game. He should do that. And he should be happy at 8 assists per game because that's about his max as a playmaker in this system if he is going to be accountable for his turnovers. Harden is not Nash. He cannot make the plays Nash made while taking care of the basketball like Nash took care if it.
Nash was a two time NBA MVP and one Robert Horry cheap shot away from winning a championship. Nook made a fair comparison there, man. You can't keep moving the goal posts Bb, this isn't looking good for you right now man.
I was not old enough to see Magic play live. Lebron and Steph are just different players than Harden. Not every great basketball player has to have the same skill set and there is no definition what makes a basketball player great. Had Harden not left OKC, they would have already won 2 or 3 rings already, and you will be saying everybody should be playing like Harden. Yes, the unforced TOs at the end game situations by him make a coach livid and he got away with it probably because he is Harden. We think and know he cares about winning and is smart enough to adapt and learn, and you think otherwise. You think Harden is in the likes of Melo, Baron Davis, AI that will never win a championship, and we think otherwise. I have seen all of the above play, a lot, I know Harden is different.
LOL. You're kidding right? Ok, let's play it your way. Let's give Nash the championship in 07,'pretend like he didn't get dinged. So, first of all Nash averaged 3.8 turnovers per game during the regular season. Harden is turning the ball over currently 45% more than Nash was. Secondly, Nash's A/TO rate during the regular season was over 3. Harden is currently at 2.14. That's over 30% short. Next is net turnovers. Formula =[Turnovers-steals-offensive fouls drawn (extra defensive turnovers, nbaminer.com) - 1/2 offensive rebounds (it takes 2 offensive rebounds to somewhat equate 1 turnover)]/games played Harden is currently at 3.4 net turnovers. Nash was at 2 net turnovers in 07. Oh...Harden was the more efficient scorer you say? Well Nash's efg was .615. Harden is currently at .525. TS was .65 for Nash. Harden currently sits at .61. There's a whole host of other criteria here that debunks the Harden/Nash comparison. And by the way I don't for one second agree that PHX would have won the championship if Horry hadn't clipped Nash. Phoenix won that game. They could have won game 6. They were at full strength. But they didn't. Know why? Yep you guessed it (or not). Too many turnovers.
