Turnover distribution of this team vs. championship teams

So, what do you think our biggest contributor to a -4.2 pt drop in our Team Pt Differential is, then? I'm not blaming it on Harden, so quit protecting him.

sorry, it does work that way. A single indicator comprising a 30% drop in your Team Pt Differential is a significant number that coaches look at and talk about. "Guys, our fastbreak points are up a whopping 1.2pts from last year. We need to focus on this." And it is likely more than that, due to secondary break points not counting in the stat.

First you downplay the 1.2 pts differential from last year. Then I show how huge that pt differential actually is in terms of a very good indicator of success in total pt differential, so you scramble to downplay it even more,,,at some point you will just wash it away completely and bury it...right?

 

some good bball discussions in this thread. good read.

 

There are so many reasons this team is nowhere near a championship caliber team. TOV% by our scoring leader is just a microcosm of the overall ugly picture. But it doesn't matter at this point because we're not making the playoffs, so we won't even have to worry about championships this year.

 

I don't need to wash anything, because I don't think you understand what you are trying to argue.

Your premise is that we turn the ball over more, which leads to more points off turnovers, which leads to a 1.2 negative differential comparatively, which is significant. Therefore, duh, we need to cut down on the turnovers.

The team plays at a higher pace, thus scores more points, shoots more shots, shoots more free throws, and obviously, as a results, scores more. Because of that, we also turn the ball over more, for nothing more than the simple reason that there is more opportunity to the turn the ball over.

If you want to stick to your premise, in order for it to be correct, you would have to add the positive point differential from the added points scored. Hence why your premise is inaccurate.

And here is the real kicker...its a big shocker....wait for it....its going to blow your mind....the Rockets actually turn the ball over LESS this year than they did last year. CRAZY RIGHT?!

 

Exactly, of course the turnovers matter, I can't see how people are still in denial. They just want to defend Harden at all costs.

Even JB has mentioned it as an issue

They're a factor in all types of formulas for a reason - win shares and ORtg for example.

Harden is having one of his worst years by ORtg and various plus minus metrics, and part of that is his horrible turnovers as well as his regression on d.

He's still scoring a lot efficiently, but even his ts% is one of his personal worsts, and he's shooting more 3s and long 2s as a percentage of shots vs more at the rim last year.

People also say "well it's just x increase in turnovers." Um, it's a lot, like a 15% increase. Hardens increase in tov% separates quite a few teams.

 

He needs to cut his turnovers down for sure - you can't have the most turnovers in a single season - EVER - and not try to improve that aspect.

He is an amazing talent, but he does need to improve in that area.

DD

 

I hate this counterpoint that all of Harden's flaws are created by over-usage.

Either way, do you think Harden would accept being an off-ball player with anyone short of Kevin Durant?

His tendencies cause some complications as far as roster chemistry goes, in my opinion. I don't mean chemistry in terms of who likes each other, I mean chemistry in terms of how the pieces fit together.

 

This is not a "flaw" of Harden.

Percentage of teams turnovers is just simply stupid. There is no other way to put it. It has no value. There are numerous easy ways to cut down on Harden's percentage of team turnovers, and none of them are good or productive in any way. As noted above, the team turns the ball over less this year than they did last year.

What? Kevin Durant is an off the ball player. Why would you want Durant setting up plays. This makes no sense.

His tendencies have carried this team to every bit of success they have had over the past 4 years. We started having "chemistry" issues because our role players stopped being good.

 

All I want to know is when the "James Harden: Most Turnovers in NBA History" shirts come out.

 

You've got it completely upside down. We are not playing a faster pace, because our offense is better and chooses to. Our games have more possessions, because we are making the opponent faster and they are choosing a faster pace against us than last year, and our increase in opponent fastbreaks is one indicator of that.

btw: the pace of our games is 1 possession faster than last year.

Where do you see us willingly increasing the pace vs the opponents wanting it?

You actually said our offensive system is faster thus more easy buckets for the opponent. That's what you are saying. You make it sound like quicker pace is controlled by us, and that it's a net positive. It's not controlled by us, and it's not a good thing. It is not by JBB's design to have our pace go up by 1 possession this year.

Increased opponent fastbreaks is one thing helping cause the increased pace, not the other way around.

McHale and JBB did not go into preseason saying we need to get faster on offense.

Also, cheers for creating a silver lining by saying our 27th worst TOs/gm in the league is better than our 29th ranking last year. I'm glad you found a way to wash that away, and bury your head in the sand about it.

I'm not in here to say TOs is only to blame or Harden is to blame, so quit protecting Harden and making weird arguments that TOs are OK. Obviously, fastbreaks don't always result from TOs. Some times we just don't get back fast enough on misses. But TOs indeed contribute.

Saying TOs didn't hurt us last year is misguided

Trying to wash away our 27th ranking in turnovers by saying we were 29th last year and made it to the WCFs is missing a big obvious point. NBA teams will exploit weaknesses from year to year. They went to school on us by zoning Harden like WB, and having their primary defenders get in his grill more and swipe for the ball. They also are exploiting weaknesses in us not getting back. They appear to have increased the tempo on us, because our defense sucks unless perfectly set. Then even still, it's not that good.

We can't play the same way anymore. You can't keep pointing back to last year, saying that means we don't have a problem on offense.

The opponent is exploiting our carelessness by getting more aggressive against us, and an increase in tempo has swung hugely in their favor, instead of last year when it was in our favor.

 

You have gone off the deep end here and trying to counter arguments I never made.

First I never said or implied the pace was by design was due to a bad defense or a good offense. You asked SPECIFICALLY about the extra 1.2 points scored off additional turnovers. I simply pointed out that this is not an accurate measurement because of pace. We score somewhere in the 1.0 - 1.1 points per possession, so the extra 1.2 points scored against is offset by the extra points we score, which makes it mostly irrelevant.

Never said or did any of that. Again you specifically made a comparison to last year, I responded.

I have been speaking from a team standpoint, you keep saying I am defending Harden, I am simply looking at the effect of the turnovers from last year to this year, when suddendly they have become a big deal, and showing that they are in fact not all of a sudden a big deal.

Never made that point.

Again, I commend you for points you are making against whomever you are arguing against, but again, I was responding your position about the points off turnovers.

Offensively, we absolutely can. We get some better shooters / slashers and a guy who can carry some of the load offensively when Harden is on the bench, and we are fine.

Now defensively, where our actual problems are, now thats a whole different story.

 

Random. Show some correlation or something.

 

That's exactly what I was trying to say. The argument shouldn't be about Harden's TO's per se but about how the team is constructed. I don't think it is even debatable that Harden is too heavily used on offense. (Whoever should be blamed for that is another debate.)

Yet, there are also people who keep saying that taking the ball out of Harden's hand is a stupid idea. Some people only see things in black and white. If it's not 100%, it must be 0% to them.

 

Your math is bad.

First, the +1.2 pts off of TOs was a net vs last year. Not sure why you compare it to a PPP stat.
Second, our net ORtg is .8 from last year. Not 1-1.1.

But those are minor points. The big statistical flaw in your argument is your idea that a team's entire ORtg gain can offset a singular indicator of our regressions. You could do that to every component bad indicator, one at a time, and say our .8 increase in Ortg offsets each one and makes them irrelevant. Do you not see how that is bad math?

The opponents have made a -4.2 pt differential swing on us. Can you imagine a coach washing away each statistical component to that swing by comparing each to the .8 gain we have in ORtg? And an overall .8 gain in ORtg (or .008 per possession), is probably not a statistical variance you can put much in to...versus a 1.2 net in one singular component.

Bottomline: 30% of that -4.2 drop in pts differential is measurable in a net difference in pts off of turnovers. It isn't "irrelevant" like you say.

 

Also, don't the turnovers actually affect Drtg more?

 

Come on we are the 2nd worst in the league at turnovers - that is not winning basketball.

DD

 

While many agree, you are clumsily walking right into the counter argument from those who say we were 2nd in the league last year as well, so it's not the problem:

I explained the fallacy in that comparison to last year above.

 

My math is fine, you are completely misusing statistics.

This is fairly simple:

We play at a faster pace, therefore more up and down ball, as compared to last year.

The result is more opponent points off our turnovers to the effect of 1.2 pts per game.

The other result is one additional possession per game, which we, on average produce 1.1 points on.

Thus, the net effect, is nothing.

Here is what you are missing. The two are directly correlated because they are volume statistics directly related to pace. This is not some random pairing to offset one another.

False.

15-16 Ortg 107.8
14-15 Ortg 107.0

15-16 Ortg 108.6
14-15 Ortg 103.4

We had a modest increase in offensive efficiency (+.8) almost all due to pace and a huge decrease in defensive efficiency (-5.2), mostly due to our players just flat out being bad at defense (~4) and pts off turnovers due to pace (~1.2). The -1.2 and the .8 net each other, into something that is mostly irrelevant. The underlying defensive issues are the actual issues of this team, when compared to last year.

 

Harden 13-14 ortg: 120

Harden 14-15 Ortg: 118

Harden 15-16 ORtg: 114

The drop is primarily due to turnovers (and a little bit because of lower ts%) but nah they don't matter