Funny thing: Felton was the only Blazer with a net positive (+1). And his replacement, Jamal Crawford, had the worst score of any player (-26!). So we can't really blame Felton for this one. But his confidence does seem to be broken. Somebody needs to give him a serious pep talk. Can we get Martell's sports psychologist? I mean, we whine about Felton's turnovers, but here are the turnover leaders for the past ten games: Code: Turnovers (High) Player Team TOs westbrook,russel Okl 5.60 williams,deron NJN 4.00 wall,john Was 3.90 lin,jeremy NYK 3.89 rondo,rajon Bos 3.83 james,lebron Mia 3.80 nash,steve Pho 3.75 evans,tyreke Sac 3.50 durant,kevin Okl 3.50 bryant,kobe LAL 3.50 Pretty good company to be in. And, bad as Felton is, EVERYBODY ELSE WE HAVE to play that position is worse. When can we re-sign Patty, again? I can't see him getting down, at least...
Because you are looking at ONE stat in isolation to determine how well a player is producing. In order to get a better picture, you need to also look at how many points, assists, rebounds, steals, etc. those other guys are contributing, plus how well they are shooting the ball. To say that Felton is as good as LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant because they also turn the ball over a lot ignores their other positive contributions. Felton sucks because he turns the ball over a lot and also sucks at everything else. Those other guys turn the ball over a lot, but also rack up tons of points and assists in the process. Did I really need to explain that to you, or were you just being facetious. BNM
Before I begin, may I say that I find your (BNM) posts among the most insightful on here, so I'm not knocking you in general. Actually I wasn't. Nowhere did I talk about "how well X is producing". I was in fact saying that pointing to turnovers ALONE is mistaken. So we're in agreement. Um... duh. ...would be totally insane. So I'm glad I didn't. To return to my complaint: saying "this stat is meaningless" is, if not meaningless, then obviously false. No stat is meaningless (unless it's perhaps gibflergles/minute). What you mean to say is something like "this stat is not a good indicator of ____" But every stat is a good indicator of SOMETHING, so you have to say WHAT THAT ___ is. If it's "how fabulous that player is", well no single stat does that, not even PER or whatever invented stat is flavor of the month.
OK, after rereading your post, it does look like you were being facetious. However, it did make me look at a few of Felton's stats. In the case of TOs, what you really want to look at is TOV%. Right now, Felton is at 20.0, the worst of his mostly non-illustrious career. Most of those other guys are in the low to mid teens. However, Steve Nash, who has always been rather high risk/high reward when it comes to taking care of the ball currently has a TOV% of 24.4. In isolation, that appears to be a horrendous rate of tuning the ball over. That is, until you also look at his AST%. I almost fell out of my chair (like only a stat geek can) when I saw Nash's current AST% is 58.3! I didn't recall ever seeing an AST% that high. So, I looked it up and the all-time record for AST% is 57.48 by John Stockton. In fact, Stockton (7 times), Nash (3 times) and Chris Paul (twice) are the only players to ever have an AST% > 50.0. So, Steve Nash, playing with a bunch of scrubs is on pace to break the single season record for AST%. By comparison, Felton's AST% = 30.5. Man I wish we had Steve Nash (and a healthy LaMarcus Aldridge) right now. Nash would make Aldridge, Batum, Wallace and Matthews all so much better. He would get them so many easy baskets. Aldridge would be even more dominant and Nash would really help Batum blossom (finally). BNM
Why do people say something is meaningless as if that means anything? Why does meaninglessness mean anything? If nothingness exists, is nothing something?
