Turnovers vs. Shooting Percentage

Part of it, I’m sure, is that when a team is scoring at will, they can afford to be a little lax on defense. That is, the defense is better against the Wolves this year. Plus, Wes is shooting much worse ( lack of confidence and backspin). Ridnour is in a shooting slump. Rubio is taking Beasley’s place in the starting lineup. And maybe the Wolves are a little tighter knowing a playoff birth is possible.

Just throw it all against the wall to see if any of it might stick.

Agreed on Beas. See if he has a hot hand. Get him the hell out if not.

Right now, regardless of whether he can get into the paint or not, he seems to be doing way more harm than good, his 7 turnover, 1 assist game last not seems to be indication of that. He needs to pass way more than he does, he just can’t consistently finish over much bigger players the way he believes that he can.

jj we get it, you can get into the paint.

now PASS OUT OF THE DOUBLE. And stop with the layups vs 7-footers, everyone knows it will be blocked.

minus all the great off-the-ball stuff that Rubio does. He’s been significantly below average. Funny that people were actually eager for his return just a few weeks ago.

Right now, last year is looking like a slight outlier for Barea. He’s just not that good. (Like many of our players.)

It is when it’s the TWolves.

Darko: too little for 7’1".
Webster: seems to be trying medications.
Ellington: So Ellington does what he can do!
Tolliver: He may have been the perfect triangle Rhambus player.
Barea: He’s Jonny Flynn with more skill.
Wes: I hope he doesn’t ever, ever read this
Luke: least of the problems, but a problem
Miller: heh
Beasley: Why?

Pek: I want him on the floor almost always.
Love: He can’t do absolutely everything every game for two years running.
Ricky: Imagine the eventual assist numbers.

These are approximates (derived from http://www.thenbageek.com/teams/min?season=2011):

Name ~MP ~Wins ~WP48 Grade
Nikola Pekovic: 33 0.25 …….0.364 A+
Kevin Love: 39 0.22 …………0.271 A
Ricky Rubio: 39 0.08 ……….0.098 C+
Wesley Johnson: 21 0.03 …0.069 C
Derrick Williams: 20 0.01 ….0.024 C-
Darko Milicic: 4 “-0.03” …… “-0.360” I
Wayne Ellington: 9 “-0.04” .“-0.213” I
Michael Beasley: 26 “-0.06” “-0.111” D
Martell Webster: 23 “-0.06” “-0.125” D
Jose Barea: 25 “-0.23” …….“-0.442” F
Totals: 239mp 0.17wins 0.034 wp48 C-

Wow, I officially hate trying to format a post in a table format. Someone tell me there’s another way.

(or 3 actual NBA players, as I prefer)
played 32.5 (Pek), 39.5 (Love & Rubio) minutes. I can’t believe our bigs are actually putting in that many minutes, especially Love. That’s brutal.
But yes, Pek & Love should get more shots, the rest of the clowns not so much.
Of course, the other teams know this, so…

…but I would suggest that to obtain more meaning you have to break things down further than that particular high-level statistical analysis. When you look at correlation/causation, it stands to reason that hot shooting can overcome turnovers and you aren’t going to win many games when you shoot poorly (irrespective of turnovers).

Do we stop there or continue?

As expressed above, there is a difference in quality of shots – they aren’t all created equally. I’m not sure if there has been an attempt to quantify that here lately, it would be interesting to see. Wes Johnson pump-faking on a wide open three, then dribbling into traffic and bricking an off-balance jumper is a shot that practically carries a different probability of success than Kevin Love shooting a wide open three after a Rubio drive. Same goes for the pull-up 30-foot threes from Barea and Luke.

If the Wolves aren’t taking quality shots, then you have to look at the offense and coaching. Whether they aren’t taking quality shots or quality shots aren’t falling, you need to break that down by the personnel and either change rotations or make trades.

Now it may be that after you do all that, the quality of shots and shooters are good enough to overcome any TO%. I’ll still be disappointed when I see a turnover rather than a quality shot in those games.

When you are shooting poorly you cannot afford turnovers. When you are shooting well you can get away with them. Thus even if you are ice cold shooting, it would be wise to not throw the ball to your opponent.

JR Smith would fill an obvious need, would be the best we can get with what we can offer, and I think next to Rubio, with Love and Pek commanding attention, would get close to 20/game here. And he’s seemingly matured a lot in the past few years. Seemingly.

Granted, some of those China stories weren’t the best, but culture shock and whatnot, I’d give him a pass on that.

He’s got 30-foot range, lifetime 57% TS%, over 39% from three 4 of the past 5 years, 26 years old, can jump out of the gym, not as much of a chucker as he might seem (lifetime usg of 24%), and acceptable defense.

Say you don’t want him on the team because of personal biases, fine, to each his own. But “I’d rather watch what we currently have?”

No way.

That said, I’ll take his career number over Wes Johnson or Beasley any day. Can you explain Beasley’s regression since he got to MN? His stats are much much better in MIA.

When I watch the game, there’s always a guy in the defense that doesn’t box out that leads to easy points. And I don’t feel like any of our wings box out there guys consistently/

I also agree that the PGs are making too many of the plays. Rather would see the 2s and 3s trying to make passes instead of giving it back to our PGs even if they probably will struggle. Could see it freeing up some of the guys like Dwill and Wes from playing such specific and limited roles on the court.