The article isn't saying Harden is perfect. He's saying the high amount of TOs is just due to the high load Harden has, if you look at it in context both him and Westbrick are average at turnovers. Of course Harden does boneheaded/Lazy plays which he can improve upon. But since he is a superior playmaker and ball handler to begin with, even if you take his bonehead/lazy errors then he is still average. Harden can definitely improve his play but you're if you say his turnovers are a weakness or in Holic's case would prevent Harden from winning a ring.
Its just some people being dumbasses, if you analyze it with how much Harden handles the ball the Rox should be top in turnovers if Harden really is rurning the ball too much. They're not though, clearly whats happening is the TOs of the rest of the team is being absorbed by Harden since he's the one doing the playmaking and the rest stand in the corner and shoot 3s. I'm glad this article exists because some people can't wrap their heads around this simple concept.
It's incompatible to say that Harden doesn't have a turnover problem and then also admit that he has boneheaded turnovers as often as he does. He could be better. It's that simple. He has stretches where he is either crazy or careless with the ball and it leads to high turnover numbers. It's not from normal turnovers that happen to every player that handles the ball, it's from him doing bad things. Throwing full court lobs that defenders just move to pick off. Trying to skip a pass between a defenders legs to a rolling big man that can't reach the pass. Behind the back blind passes to covered three point shooters. I agree that BBallholic's position that the turnovers eliminate the possibility of the Rockets doing damage in the playoffs is probably wrong, but that doesn't mean Harden doesn't have a turnover problem. If you say he doesn't have a problem it means those turnovers are acceptable.
I saw that too. If that's true, he needs to stop it. He should pass where the ball should go, not where certain players are. TBH, this debate is getting less meaningful. The critics: Harden turns the ball over too much. The apologists: That's because of usage. The critics: He can still be better. The apologists: We are having a great offense. Where's the problem. I can imagine the Warriors fans arguing: If Curry stopped jacking up those 3pt shots about 10 feet behind the arc, he's be shooting .450 rather than .400. Is it true that Curry should shoot less of those crazy shots? Maybe. Is it a problem for the Warriors? Maybe. Can he improve his 3pt shooting from .400? Sure.
That's fair, but I would like someone to empirically show me that it's definitely worse to force those passes than not. Those risky passes could very well be worth it overall if he converts enough of them right? Perhaps the Rockets offense is good in part due to those risky passes being converted more often than not? I'm not saying this is the case, but it could be. Lots of great offenses over the years have had high turnover rates. Turnovers could just be the cost of doing business.
When you play the number of minutes Harden does and shoulder the load that he does, it's impossible for him to be 100%, 100% of the time. Whenever he makes bone headed turnovers, I usually attribute it to him being tired or him thinking too many steps ahead. Usually the latter.
Having AST/TOV ratio of 1.95 is not the same as shooting 40% from the three. One is mediocre, the other is really good. Honestly, to say that Harden is a great passer is only telling half the story. Yes, he throws good passes when the opportunity is there, but he also forces it too much and doesn't know when to calm down with those risky passes. Ultimately, Harden's decision making needs to improve. He can't always be 'ON' mode all the time; there are 'OFF' switch buttons too. I doubt this is true. I don't have the stats, but the conversion ratio of those risky passes does not seem very high from watching the games. It used to work early in the season, but teams have adjusted and they are more adept at reading Harden's passing lanes now.
lol and as much as pictures of carrot head are now starting to bring very dark humor giggles to me I should report the yankster for soiling the Garm with material that sh be in the D and D forum where monkeys fling poo.
I don't mind the turnovers, it is his lazy reaction to them - he doesn't even try to get back....that right there is poor leadership. Own your turnovers and bust your hump back to clean up your mess. DD
http://bkref.com/tiny/xV2KJ Since the 1979-80 (3-point era) season, 83 teams have posted a Team Offensive Rating of 111.6 or better. Only 12 of those 83 teams (14.5%) won a title. Of those 12 teams that won a title, none of them had a player that averaged over 4.1 turnovers a game either in the regular season or the playoffs. There have been 37 champions in the 3-point era. 12 of them posted a Team Offensive Rating of 111.6 or better. 25 of them posted a Team Offensive Rating below 111.6. There has been 17 teams with a Team Offensive Rating of 114 or better. 6 of those 17 (35%) won a title. None of them had a player averaging over 4.1 turnovers a game. It is obvious that our teams thought process is that if we hit enough threes with the extra point that we will be able to offset all Hardens turnovers which basically cost us 2.3 points each. I truly hope it works. However in today's NBA where so many teams are embracing analytics to the same degree we are, including the Warriors, Spurs, Cavs, and Grizzlies, who all also excel at defending the 3-point line, it will be the most extreme of outliers if we are able to win a ring with Harden turning the ball over a half dozen times a game while we pile up 50+ three point FGA's every game. I have no evidence to convince me it will work. (But no team has ever shot this many threes.) I do have evidence that suggests to me we are headed for a melt down in the playoffs. (I hope not.) Of course, Harden is a great player and he might magically be able to get his turnovers way down in the playoffs. I guess you never say never. It's just a fact that very, very few playmakers, even championship team playmakers, actually lower their turnover count in the playoffs. At the very least we're going counter to the percentages. We're depending on variance (taking high risk) and luck to get us there.....which is counterintuitive to analytics somewhat. You are right. This is a great offensive scoring team and they are fun to watch. For me, the most fun basketball I ever watched was the 1994 and 1995 playoffs and Finals. Those two championship teams had offensive ratings of 105.9 and 109.7 respectively. I've never had more fun watching basketball. For me, that was more fun than watching Bird and Magic battle all the way through the 80's in my teenage years when I would lay on the floor in my parents den and shoot my rolled up tube socks up through the ceiling fan and into the trash can during the commercial breaks of those great Finals matchups. Because it was my team actually playing in the Finals against another great team and every possession was so critical. I simple couldn't afford to miss a single possession. Most of the time championships come down to just a handful of possessions. A stop here or there. A turnover here or there. A sensational offensive play here and there. When championships don't come down to a handful of possessions it is because one of the teams is simply overmatched and cannot compete on a possession by possession basis. They can't make adjustments. They cannot counter the adjustments made by their opponent. All the rest of the championships come down to a handful of possessions. And turnovers become critical in that setting.
THIS is why I dislike analytics... as Don Henley sang "I can get you any results you want - what's it worth to you?" There may be some worthwhile info, but I got to the first example: "BALL-HANDLING TURNOVERS With ball-handling, just looking at turnovers per touch doesn’t reveal much because, as we’ve said, all touches aren’t created equally. Some players put the ball on the floor a lot more than others, thereby increasing the chance that there will be a turnover. That’s not a negative, though. They put the ball on the floor more because they have developed that skill and doing so enables other players to get those catch-and-shoots. So, rather than touches as a comparison, it makes more sense to look at total dribbles–an actual measure of ball-handling..." Sooooooo basically, let's redefine the parameters to get us a number we like... So a guy that dribbles the ball upcourt uncontested (lets say taking 20 dribbles as he slowly meanders up court) and then falls over and turns over the ball is better than a big who gets thrown the ball in the post, dribbles once and has it stripped from him... junk science - end of story....
What you described and what the article described are very rudimentary forms of analytics. Real analytics go much deeper. As many posters have pointed out, what the article "analyzed" was too simplistic to determine whether turnover is a real problem with Harden. The most obvious thing to say about Harden's turnovers is that it should be understandable for a player who handles the ball so much and is relying on so much to create the offense to have high number of turnovers. However, some of Harden's turnovers are unnecessary and therefore should be corrected. One does not need analytics to make those observations.
