Q&A: Which Cavs Turnovers Lead to Points for the Opponent?

[camakazee]

Well, thanks to RCF's Richfield Kid, I decided to analyze points off of turnover by individual Cavalier. From now on, Numbers Don't will have a Q&A Wednesday, where we analyze a stat you want to know. To ask a question either email us at numbersdont@gmail.com or post your question in the RCF stat thread I started.

Make sure to check out the post on the site Here.

As per your request, I’ve analyzed the points off of turnovers against the Cavaliers and held each individual player accountable. As you mentioned, a turnover that results in a deadball situation (e.g. pass out of bounds, travel, offensive foul) can be just as harmful as a bad pass or lost ball that leads to a fastbreak bucket. Therefore, there will be no distinction in that regard, other than the categorization of the turnover.

However, any turnovers that are immediately followed by a timeout will be ignored, even if the opposing team scores coming out of the timeout, which would constitute points off of turnover by an NBA statistician’s standards. I feel these figures could be skewed, as a team is more likely to score coming out of a timeout anyway. Additionally, anytime a shot is blocked or missed off of a turnover, yet the team regains possession (e.g. offensive rebound), I will treat the first attempt as a miss and the chance for points off of turnover are dead. Furthermore, any turnovers that result in a foul will be ignored unless the foul occurred ten seconds or less after the turnover and resulted in free throws (so while I’ll use the phrase “turnovers that result in points for the opponent,” it could result in only one point if the player splits his free throws). Finally, I will defer from ESPN and use the 82games.com definition of crunch time or “clutch stats,” keeping an eye on turnovers in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime in a game in which neither team is ahead by more than five points.

After some quick research, through the first 34 games of the season (record: 26-8), the Cavaliers have had 462 individual turnovers. Please note that this stat excludes team turnovers, such as shot clock violations. Out of those 462 total turnovers, 192 of them have led to points off of the turnover for the other team (41.6%). Here is the distribution of those 192 turnovers that resulted in points on the other end.

Distribution of individual turnovers that lead to point(s) for the other team.
So what does this mean? Well, it comes as no surprise that both LeBron James and Mo Williams lead the pack with 26% and 19%, respectively. This is no surprise considering that both players account for a great deal of Cleveland’s ballhandling, which is also why they lead in the team in total turnovers. However, players like Hickson should not account for 10% of the turnovers that lead to points for the opponent, since he is rarely called upon to create his own shot and seldom has the ball on the offensive end.

Furthermore, in order to make sense of these percentages, it’s important to look at a player’s turnovers that lead to points compared to their total turnovers so far on the season.

Player Total To’s To’s that lead to points Points off of To’s % of To’s that result in points allowed
LeBron James 125 51 104 40.8%
Mo Williams 89 36 76 40.4%
Shaquille O’Neal 53 25 55 47.2%
J.J. Hickson 36 19 39 52.8%
Delonte West 35 13 24 37.1%
Anthony Parker 32 10 23 31.3%
Zydrunas Ilgauskas 30 13 26 43.3%
Anderson Varejao 24 10 20 41.7%
Daniel Gibson 15 5 10 33.3%
Jamario Moon 11 5 10 45.5%
Darnell Jackson 8 4 8 50.0%
Coby Karl 4 1 2 25.0%

With these measures you realize that only 40.8% of LeBron James’ turnovers lead to points on the other end (remember, this is below the team average of 41.6% highlighted above). Since he dominates the ball for the majority of the game, he obviously leads the team in turnovers with 122. Therefore, it would only make sense that he would also lead the team in turnovers that lead to opponent’s points with 51.

However, the most startling conclusion from this table is the fact that Cleveland’s starting bigs have a habit of committing turnovers that give the other team points. Most of the time these are deadball turnovers. For instance, 48% of Shaq’s 25 turnovers that lead to points scored are turnovers that always stop the clock (offensive fouls, travels, three seconds, and offensive goaltending). Furthermore, out of the remaining 52% (bad passes and lost balls), some of them were lost out of bounds, also stopping the clock. This tells me that the majority of Shaq’s turnovers stop the clock, yet 47.2% of his turnovers lead to points on the other end. Usually the sure points come from in-play turnovers, which kick starts the opponent into a fast break, but in this case it appears that Cleveland’s opponents are taking advantage of Shaquille O’Neal’s sluggishness, quickly inbounding the ball and attacking after he turns it over.

The same could be said for Hickson, who leads in the Cavaliers in turnovers that result in points percentage, with 52.8% of his turnovers giving the opponent points on the other end. With these high percentages from the Cavaliers’ starting bigs, it’s quite clear that other teams are benefiting from when the two turn it over, swiftly attacking a defense that has yet to set without big men in help position.

Dubious Leaders.

When looking at the 192 turnovers that lead to points, 74 of them led to either a layup or a dunk (38.5%), but this doesn’t necessarily mean that those buckets are scored in transition as some of the turnovers are turnovers that result in a deadball. LeBron has led this category with 24 turnovers that lead to a layup/dunk, which accounts for 32.4% of the team’s turnovers that lead to a layup or a dunk. Additionally, this means that when you look at his total turnovers that lead to at least a point, 47.1% of those 51 turnovers result in either a layup or dunk for the opponent, which is significantly larger than the team average of 38.5% mentioned above.

Despite accounting for only 7.8% of the team’s total turnovers and 9.9% of the team’s turnovers that lead to points, J.J. Hickson has somehow managed to lead the team in lost balls that lead to points with 10. It’s not a runaway victory, as LeBron has 9 lost balls that lead to points, but LeBron also controls the ball far more than Hickson and has over three times as many total turnovers. Someone needs to tell J.J. to hold onto the ball when it’s passed to him.

Finally, while the Cavaliers had 192 turnovers that led to at least one point for the opposing team, only three of those 192 turnovers (1.6%) came in “clutch time” (the last five minutes of the 4th quarter and/or overtime, when neither team is ahead by more than five points). Part of this is common sense, since the Cavaliers have only played in a handful of games that were that close at the end of the game. However, another part of it is a testament to Cleveland’s ability to take care of the ball in games that are still close. For instance, in a back-and-forth fourth quarter tonight versus Atlanta, the Cavaliers did not commit a single clutch time turnover that led to points for Atlanta. In fact, they didn’t even commit a clutch time turnover at all, and also had zero turnovers for the entire fourth quarter. Their last turnover in tonight’s game came with 9:09 left in the third quarter by LeBron James, and it didn’t lead to any points for Atlanta.

Ultimately, there are a few important conclusions to draw from these simple numbers. First, if the Cavaliers are going to turn over the ball and their opponent scores as a result, it is more likely to be a turnover from one of their starting big men (i.e. Hickson or O’Neal). Similarly, when Hickson turns the ball over and the other team scores, it is likely to be on a fumbled or lost ball (see 5:01 of tonight’s 1st quarter). Lastly, the Cavaliers are not only unlikely to turn the ball over and allow their opponent to score in the last five minutes of a close game, they’re typically unlikely to turn the ball over at all during the crunchtime play of the fourth quarter.

Edit: You'll have to check out the post to see the organized table that explains the stat much better than the pie chart: http://www.numbersdont.com/?p=534