Yes he's our best ball handler and player. The problem is he's worse than last year and if he plays like this we can't really build around him as the #1 guy. If he goes back to last year then yes
turning the ball over 12.8 times per 100 possessions doesnt mean turning it over 12.8% of the team's possessions. turning the ball over for 12.8% of the team's possessions literally would mean turning it over 12.8 times per game, given that an nba team has about 100 poss. a game. the simple fact is no one plays 100 possessions per game. again this is the reason i dont like the "per 48 minute" or "per 100 poss" stats. in our case, that stats simple says "IF harden/rondo played 100 possessions, harden/rondo would MATHEMATICALLY turn the ball over 12.8/14.4 times, respectively. and that doesnt tell a lot perspective. rondo and harden do play similar amount of minutes per game. and i ASSUME they have and control the ball with similar amount of total time.
How is it you cannot grasp this? Have you ever taken an algebra class? 100 possessions is just an equalizer, so you have a benchmark, to compare each other on equal footing. The % is simply a measurement of how often a player turns the ball over. Player A has the ball for 25 possessions and turns it over twice. Player B has the ball for 50 possessions and turns it over four times. In that situation, they both turn the ball over 8% of the time, or 8 times per 100 possessions. This form of math is here to counter the idiot logic that might try and say that Player B turns the ball over more than Player A, because after all, 4 is very clearly more than 2. In this situation, the statistic very clearly illustrates that if you had a hypothetical game where Rondo and Harden were both granted 100 possessions, on average, that Rondo would turn the ball over 14.4 times and Harden 12.8. The actual number of possessions that occur in a game is irrelevant because the number would adjust according to the actual number of possessions. Hence, why it is factually correct to say that Rondo is more turnover prone than Harden.
ok. Player A has the ball for 25 possessions and turns it over twice. Player B has the ball for 50 possessions and turns it over four times. MATHEMATICALLY they're the same. and so is 500 possessions with forty turnovers. but in real games, they're not the same. that's the part you're missing. still maintaining rondo is more turnover-prone than harden, eh?
You're not getting this. Regardless off the number of possessions that you use, Harden turns the ball over 12.8% of the time, which is exactly what I said. Do you understand that Harden and Rondo play a different number of possessions per game? Harden has a better turnover rate but he's playing more possessions so his total number of turnovers is higher than Rondo. You have to factor in the number of possession or your numbers are worthless. Every possession increases your opportunity to commit a turnover. You have to account for them.
In the scenario you descibed, both guys tournament the ball over at the same rate, one guy is just playing twice the posessions. If all you want to do is look at per game averages without regard to volumes then you'll see all kinds of crazy leaders. The simplest explanation that I can give you is this: Every possession Rondo plays, he is more likely to turn the ball over than Harden is. So, yes he is more turnover prone.
I am not missing anything. If Harden has 50 possessions in a game and Rondo has 40 possessions per game, (or whatever the actual number is), then yes Harden will have more raw turnovers. But what you can't seem to grasp is that someone else on the Kings will have to absorb those other 10 possessions and will turn the ball over as well, which is why the raw % matter.
rondo is a pure pg. harden a hybrid guard. shouldnt we factor that in as well? #'s, esp. if it's just one single stat, usually dont tell the story in perspective.
a bball game is not just pure math. that's the part you're missing. moreyball looks terrific on paper and in math. look at the reality, it's quite different, because there are other things involved. and, that last play of last night's game,,, was it a turnover by harden, or not?
He said a 2pt differential. It's 1pt per lost possession, and 1pt going the other way. So, yes, I absolutely agree that our TOs is costing us 16.1 pt/gm, and a 32.2 net, based on league ave of 1pt/possession. And I'm willing to bet it is even higher than that. I fully agree with basketballholic on this. Of course, the opponent has TOs, too. So, they would have the same drop in production per TO. aelliott, There is a reason coaches like JVG, Thibs and Pops preach so heavily to protect the ball. JVG and Thibs go out of their way to play methodical, set offenses. And the reason they often mention is that it protects the ball. A turnover in any sport is very costly. I don't consider this debatable. No need to argue against this as a way to protect Harden.
No one made the argument bball is just pure math. No one made any points about Moreyball. No one is disputing the last play was a turnover. This conversation was just asking if you understood that Rondo is more turnover prone than Harden. That answer seems to be no.
Bottomline. A turnover is bad. Doesn't matter who commits it. Doesn't matter how you slice and dice to sugar coat it. A turnover is a turnover which is bad. That is why one of the most common lines you hear from coaches around the league and Morey himself is "we have to cut down on the turnovers"
sigh,,, that last play can be recorded as a turnover by harden, but i dont think it's undisputable. was just using it as an example. but, not surprisingly, you miss the point. "rondo is more t/o prone", "you dont understand... so i won the debate..." if that has to be the case, then i'd give it a rest...
Iverson would already have broken this record had he played all 82 games in the 04/05 season. He only managed 75.
Considering the minutes played, usage rate, and our team's pace I'm not surprised at all. I wish he could cut down on some of the dumb turnovers, but it is what it is. Turnovers are inherently bad, but are almost inevitable for players who dominate the ball. Steve Nash led the league in turnovers twice and was consistently top five in the category. If you look at the top ten players in turnovers this season, you'd think it was the all-NBA teams. James Harden just happens to be in the rare position of having to create on every possession for our team.
Correct. Correct. What people here need to realize about this team is Morey has constructed it with players like Brewer, Bev, and Ariza around Harden because Harden is a high turnover player and we need high steals players around Harden to offset his turnovers by stealing the ball back. You need to understand the dynamic here to see how Harden being our primary facilitator is limiting us. We have to play guys that steal the ball because if we didn't play them our turnover differential would be a huge deficit. Instead of being a mediocre 35-36, we'd be closer to 30-41 or maybe even worse. The limiting factor with these guys is they simply do not spread the floor well enough on the offensive end. And consequently defenses can key on Harden, turn him over even more frequently, and live with our mediocre shooters/shooters around Harden. The ideal sf for us with Harden as the primary playmaker would be a guy with Arizas defensive skill set and the offensive skill set of guys like Korver, McDermott, Dunleavy, etc. How many of those type players are in the NBA? After you count all those guys up, how many are available to be signed in free agency or be traded for? I'm basically describing a max or close to max player. Next you go to the point. Same thing. Gotta have another guy that can catch and fire at a highly efficient rate and get a pile of steals and effectively water down the efficiency of the opposing point. Many of you guys think that's Bev. But it isn't. Bev cannot water down opposing points and he has to have a ton of space to be efficient with his 3-ball because he has a slow release. To continue on......one of the SF or point around Harden needs to have a good handle do he can drive and finish or dish when the opponent is playing tight on the perimeter and choking out Harden with the double. One of the other two perimeter guys has to be a playmaker. And remember both guys have to be high steals guys to offset Hardens turnover pile. In other words they gotta be gamblers like Bev and Brewer. And that in turn puts more pressure on you interior bigs because they have to deal with multiple players coming at them after the majority of the games fail not to mention when Harden ganders off defensively constantly gambling himself and letting his man disappear on him as he ball watches. Frankly this is why the Dwight haters piss me off. Because they don't understand how important his defense is and how much of a handicap he is working under here because our system OVER FEATURES Harden. Dwight is right about that. And he's not being selfish about it. We will not win a championship until we change our system to incorporate other playmakers. And we wont win a championship as long as Harden is the primary playmaker and he turns the ball over like he does now. Our system has pigeon-holed us. And I place a lot of the blame for that on Harden because he won't accept moving off the ball and make way for a primary playmaker that is both a better creator and ball-handler than Harden, that would make a multiple option offense while lowering our turnover count significantly while allowing Harden to do what he is best st, which is score the ball a ton. Harden has to change his game for us to win a championship. As far as Durant goes, if you think adding Durant fixes all our problems, you are sadly mistaken. Durant is another high turnover player. The reason went the Thunder are never going to win a championship as currently constructed is because they are fatally flawed with two high turnover guys dominating the basketball. They're both great individual players. But they're not great enough. Because they give up the ball too much. If we sign Durant without making any more changes and we become the Thunder. Both Harden and Westbrook are sitting guards. They're not true playmaking distributors. Both players need to move over and accept a true point guard to be able to go to the next level.
