Turnover Woes Could Derail Golden State Warriors' Big Plans
The Golden State Warriors can't stop coughing up the rock, and continued carelessness could cost them a shot at serious success.
First off, maybe it's not right to call what the Dubs are doing—turning the ball over at a league-worst rate—"careless." They know they're doing it (how could they not?), and head coach Steve Kerr has been harping on ball security since he took charge.
"We fling the ball around, and that's a problem," Kerr said before the Warriors' Oct. 6 preseason opener, per Diamond Leung of the San Jose Mercury News. "I thought coming into this season, probably the biggest change we could make as a team was making the easy play, making the simple play, taking care of the ball."
Golden State routinely spends practices drilling the fundamentals—passing, ball-handling, the absolute rudimentary, foundational aspects of offense—all in an effort to curb giveaways.
It hasn't worked.
"We're coming down and we're making some of the dumbest passes I've ever seen in my life, and we're still winning, so that's good," Kerr told Janny Hu of SFGate.com after the Dubs notched an impressive (if sloppy) road victory against the Houston Rockets on Nov. 8. "But if we want to get to where we want to be, we have to value the ball.
The very next night, the Warriors gave up the orange 27 times, and it put them exactly where they didn't want to be for the first time all year: the loss column. Kerr, upset but perhaps somewhat relieved he could now confront his team with the actual consequences of its gaffes, explained to reporters after the game: "This is a good team. We've got to get better with the ball."
Kerr's postgame turnover comments are taking on a broken-record quality, but that's partially because he hasn't had much else to complain about.
The Warriors' league-high 20.3 percent turnover rate is the lone glaringly negative stat in their early season profile. It does, however fit perfectly in line with the rest of their extreme numbers.
They rank first in pace, defensive rating and true shooting percentage, according to NBA.com.
Digest that for a second: Golden State plays faster than anyone and converts on its shots more efficiently than any other team—all while playing the best defense in the league. That's absurd, and the only thing more ridiculous is the fact that the Dubs rank just 15th in offensive efficiency, right smack in the middle of the pack.
It's not hard to see how the turnovers factor in here: The Warriors' only bad offensive possessions are the ones that end with a giveaway—not a shot. And there have been far, far too many of those this season.
"When GSW tempers their turnovers on offense, that team is going to be even scarier.
— Haralabos Voulgaris (@haralabob) November 10, 2014"
Stephen Curry, league-leading scorer and still-growing superstar, gets a lot of the blame. That comes with the territory as an elite talent, but it's also a statistical fact that Curry is the Warriors' highest-volume offender. He surrendered the ball 10 times against the Suns and now tops the league with 4.1 turnovers per game.
His hook passes are always dangerous, and Curry, as efficient as he is shooting the ball, doesn't take the same high-percentage approach to facilitation. It may be a symptom of his confidence, and it's worth noting that part of what makes Steph such a fearsome scorer is his loose, hyper-aggressive style.
Bottling him up by demanding a conservative approach might decrease turnovers, but it could also come at the cost of what makes Curry so special as a scorer.
At any rate, Curry knows he has to be better. His breakfast-pastry preferences (that's an apple turnover, of course), say it all:
Something else to consider: Curry isn't actually the problem. Golden State's turnover rate goes from bad to abysmal when Steph is on the bench, which creates a strange juxtaposition. The team's most turnover-prone player is vital to keeping giveaways under control:
Curry can be careless with the ball. But when he's not on the floor, the rest of the Warriors go into some kind of team-wide, ball-surrendering spasm.
So how do the Dubs fix this?
Waiting it out is probably the best option. Remember, the Warriors are implementing an all-new offense and don't have steady scoring presence David Lee (out with a bad hamstring for at least two more weeks) to anchor non-Curry units. Plus, they're integrating two key ball-handlers—Shaun Livingston and Leandro Barbosa—who are new to the team.
Given enough time, the team should jell, get healthy and clean things up.
A continued emphasis on fundamentals might help too, but this is a problem of personnel as much as anything else.
The oddly under-discussed truth about the Warriors is that they sometimes suffer from a lack of shooting. That sounds crazy to say about a team with Curry and Klay Thompson, not to mention the emerging stretch 4 prowess of Draymond Green.
But it's true.
Defenses pay no attention to Andrew Bogut outside the restricted area, Livingston can't shoot, Andre Iguodala has stopped looking at the rim and Brandon Rush (a good marksman throughout his career) has hardly played. And as defenses ignore the Warriors' weak links, it results in extra attention on the team's more dangerous scorers.
Passing lanes constrict, and defenders focus narrowly on denying possessions for shooters. Turnovers are bound to happen in those circumstances.
The Warriors could alleviate that issue by trading for a shooter or by giving Rush and Barbosa more minutes. Integrating Lee into a big second-unit role when he recovers from his hammy injury will be the biggest key of all. Lee doesn't defend, but he's a legitimate offensive hub who can score and pass.
His return (and willingness to accept a bench role behind Green) will be huge.
But the Dubs have to be careful not to get too drastic in their changes otherwise. After all, they're 5-1 to start the year and are playing exceedingly well overall.
Still, something has to happen, because turnovers are the one thing keeping the Warriors from profiling as full contenders. Of the last five title winners, none have turned the ball over during the regular season at a rate above 14.5 percent.
| 2014-15 Warriors | 20.3 |
| 2013-14 Spurs | 13.5 |
| 2012-13 Heat | 13.7 |
| 2011-12 Heat | 14.5 |
| 2010-11 Mavericks | 13.6 |
| 2009-10 Lakers | 12.4 |
At 20.3 percent, Golden State hardly fits into that group.
It's early, though, and that 20.3 percent figure can't possibly stay so high. No team has ever finished a full season above 19 percent, and we haven't seen anyone top 18 percent since the 1999-2000 Chicago Bulls, according to Basketball-Reference.com.
Even though the best prescription for fixing the Warriors' biggest problem amounts to "wait around, and then hope the numbers regress," there should be some urgency here. Golden State has something special; it's elite in a ton of key areas, and only turnovers are standing in the way of legitimate contention.
It's one thing to self-sabotage when you've got a 50-win ceiling and can't hope for more than a first-round playoff ouster. It's quite another when you look every inch a contender...except for one glaring, hopefully non-fatal flaw.
