Ball control/turnover rate splits from last year

Celtics overall ball-control/turnover rate for the entire season - T-6th. Very good.

Celtics overall ball-control rate pre-All Star break - 11th.

Celtics overall ball-control post-All Star break - 3rd.


Celtics starters pre-All Star break - 18th in NBA in ball control/avoiding turnovers. That's below average.

Celtics starters post-All Star break - T-4th in NBA. Very good.

Celtics bench pre-All Star break - 6th in NBA among benches. Very good.

Celtics bench post-All Star break - T-2nd in NBA. Very, very good.

Celtics starters post-All Star break - T-4th in NBA. Very good.

http://stats.nba.com/league/team/#!/advanced/?Season=2014-15&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=TM_TOV_PCT&dir=-1&SeasonSegment=Post%20All-Star

All told, this team turned the ball over less than I would have thought. The Celtics starters pre-All Star break stand out as the only weak link.

rambone,

Could you please define "ball control"?

thanks,

bob

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Sorry. Low turnover rate.

rambone wrote:Sorry. Low turnover rate.

rambone,

assist-to-turnovers? possessions-to-turnovers? Just turnovers, with no adjustment for pace?


bob


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Is that turnovers per 100 possesions.

Dboss

dboss wrote:Is that turnovers per 100 possesions.

Dboss

Correct. Sorry for being so vague.

Celtics turned the ball over 16.3 times per 100 possessions with Rondo on the court, and 13.8 times per 100 with Rondo off the court. 2.5 turnovers per 100 worse with him on the court. In Dallas the Mavs had 2.3 more turnovers with Rondo on the court, almost the same.

Celtics had 2.0 more turnovers with Jeff Green on the court than off, but in Memphis there was no difference in turnovers with Green on or off the court.

That leaves me thinking Rondo was the main issue. 16.3 turnovers per 100, which we were with Rondo on the court, is the rate that the 4th worst team had for the season, the Kings.

Without Rondo on the court, for the whole season, the Celtics avoided turnovers at the equivalent of the 10th best team at avoiding turnovers.

And after the All Star break, the Celtics were T-4th in the league in ball control/avoiding turnovers.

rambone wrote:Celtics turned the ball over 16.3 times per 100 possessions with Rondo on the court, and 13.8 times per 100 with Rondo off the court. 2.5 turnovers per 100 worse with him on the court. In Dallas the Mavs had 2.3 more turnovers with Rondo on the court, almost the same.

Celtics had 2.0 more turnovers with Jeff Green on the court than off, but in Memphis there was no difference in turnovers with Green on or off the court.

That leaves me thinking Rondo was the main issue. 16.3 turnovers per 100, which we were with Rondo on the court, is the rate that the 4th worst team had for the season, the Kings.

Without Rondo on the court, for the whole season, the Celtics avoided turnovers at the equivalent of the 10th best team at avoiding turnovers.

And after the All Star break, the Celtics were T-4th in the league in ball control/avoiding turnovers.

Rambone,

Interesting find. The numbers and timing would certainly point to Rondo. He is a gifted passer, capable of dishing at some extreme angles and putting uncanny English on a bounce pass. Rondo can thread a needle with the best I've ever seen. If the target can't handle it, however, a pretty, spinning, between-the-legs, over your shoulder pass does no good. I suspect part of the problem as it pertains to Rondo is he would need to be on a team with a fairly stable lineup longer-term in order to make the most of his passing skills. In watching some of his games with the Mavs, as well as his new Celtics teammates, cutters often had no idea what gap passes were moving through. I think Rondo often assumed targets were in synch with him simply because he showed up. Stubborn flaw there.

Regards

I am curious as to the reason why we saw a spike in the number of turnovers for rondo. Part of my thinking is that some of it may be related to so many roster changes.

Another factor may be related to the type of passes that were attempted. While we did see an overall reduction in turnovers once Rondo was gone a lot of low risk side to side passes dominated the offense. Sam used to talk about that a lot. It would be interesting to look at some other related variables such as passes that led to post scoring. Also keep in mind that a turnover is NOT restricted to a bad pass. Your have offensive fouls, your have traveling and you have opponents defense that creates a turnover.

Turnovers per 100 possessions is not an isolated statistic.

dboss

Sadly, we lost our preeminent statistician on this board, and I'm loathe to insert myself into that position, but I have to point out that turnovers are only one of the stats we should be following here.  Suppose our assist and fg% dropped precipitously also?  What if Rondo was not only the author of many turnovers but also of many easy baskets?  This does not diminish the importance of keeping TOs low, we all know that's important, but sometimes you have to give something to get something and maybe what Rondo gave us with assists offset the turnovers he created.  Or not.

1.  assists-to-turnovers pre-split vs post-split.  A richer ratio might be worth it.

2.  possessions/game pre-split vs post-split.  More possessions might offset the lower fg%?

3.  fgas/game pre vs post.  How quickly did we get into our offense?

4.  points/game pre vs post.  The name of the game is putting the ball in the basket, one way or another.  


Rondo averaged 17.0 assists and 5.4 TOs per 100 possessions in his final partial year with Boston.  That's a 3.15 assist-to-turnover ratio.  For the year we averaged, as a team, 24.6 assists and 13.9 TOs/100 possessions for a 1.77 assist-to-turnover ratio (caveat: these team numbers are not pre vs post Rondo but for the whole season).  

What these numbers show is:

1.  how Rondo-centric our offense was when he was here.  He represented 17 out of 24 assists, .  

2.  how Rondo only represented 39% of the teams' turnovers while providing 71% of the assists.


What these numbers do not show is:

1.  What happened to our pace pre vs post.  Did we increase our possessions and/or fgas because we ran more without Rondo?  Did we decrease our possessions without Rondo because we our offense was less coherent without a clear floor general, so we took shots later in the shot clock or took worse shots because players weren't being set up as well as they were with Rondo?

2.  What happened to our total assists pre vs post Rondo.  Did Evan Turner etal fill the hole or did our assist totals drop?  Did we become more one-on-one with Turner and others trying to "do it all" or did everybody's assist totals edge up to replace Rondo?  Our efficiency might have improved, or not, but our total output might have dropped.


Rondo was an exciting player.  He was described as the hub of the wheel that made all the spokes turn faster, the straw that stirred the Celtics drink, etc.  He also was a ball hog who walked it up way too much and played matador defense more and more during his career.  There is more to this than just turnovers, as important as that stat is and as relevant a stat as that is to the traditional point guard position.  Brad has been preaching "pace and space".  How did the departure of a player who struggled shooting from outside and who walked the ball up undermine "pace and space"?  How did the departure of a player who could thread a needle with a pass affect the efficacy of players' cuts and help take advantage of "space".  You can run your butt off but if there isn't a ballhandler/passer on the floor that can/will get the ball to you in your sweet spot then you've just gotten a bunch of cardio and that's about it. Rondo was about as good as anybody in recent memory at delivering the package right to their sweet spots, without them losing rhythm or time by having to bend down or reach for it, right when they wanted it.


bob


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