28 replies to this topic

[bibigon]

Obviously turnovers account for as many points as any other category. However, most of the top players also turn the ball over a ton, simply by virtue of having the ball in their hands a lot. Consider an all-star team with LeBron, Durant, Chris Paul, Kevin Love, etc... That team would finish with a 1 in turnovers by a huge margin. Good players turn the ball over. It's the price you pay for excellence in the other categories.

It seems to me that the teams that do best in turnovers would be the teams with s---y squads, or the teams that have stopped paying attention and are running Brandon Rush and Kawhi Leonard out there every day right now. The teams at the top, the ones that have drafted and traded well meanwhile, are doing it in spite of a poor ranking in turnovers.

Am I wrong? Should turnovers count in player assessments if you're trying to actually win the league? Are the teams winning your league doing it with an excellent rating in turnovers?

[ejack37]

I usually do because I like PGs and they almost always have the ball in their hands.

Edited by ejack37, 30 November 2012 - 01:28 PM.

[Tarheels_2433]

This is the root debate for 8 category vs. 9 category leagues.

Your observation (which I'm sure many share) about elite players having high turnovers definitely makes sense.  However, I think this common idea that punting turnovers is the way to go for building an elite H2H squad is a fallacy.  I'm not saying draft with the intentions of finding low TO guys at the sacrifice of better contributors.  However, since everyone seems to ignore this category, simply avoiding some of the higher TO players throughout the draft will lead to easy victories in this category on a weekly basis.  

Everyone should approach the TO category with the same analysis they would with others, because it's just that, one of the nine categories.  Of course if your team is built around "small ball" with the intentions of winning assists, TOs will certainly be punted.  Since I think TO's is a category that can easily be won,  it factors into my opinion that a "big team" build for H2H is always the better (and my favorite) strategy (but that's an entirely different discussion).

[patentboy23]

Far from the truth.  Using studs like CP3 and Al Jefferson you can pull a low TO championship caliber team.  I did it last yr with a core of Paul, Jefferson, and Wade as my big 3 and won TOs almost every week, landing the 2nd seed. It's a plus to be TO conscious but not necessary.  I just go Best player for  the first several rounds and don't consider the TOs unless it's one of my 1st rounder's core strengths.

bibigon, on 30 November 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

Obviously turnovers account for as many points as any other category. However, most of the top players also turn the ball over a ton, simply by virtue of having the ball in their hands a lot. Consider an all-star team with LeBron, Durant, Chris Paul, Kevin Love, etc... That team would finish with a 1 in turnovers by a huge margin. Good players turn the ball over. It's the price you pay for excellence in the other categories.

It seems to me that the teams that do best in turnovers would be the teams with s---y squads, or the teams that have stopped paying attention and are running Brandon Rush and Kawhi Leonard out there every day right now. The teams at the top, the ones that have drafted and traded well meanwhile, are doing it in spite of a poor ranking in turnovers.

Am I wrong? Should turnovers count in player assessments if you're trying to actually win the league? Are the teams winning your league doing it with an excellent rating in turnovers?

Edited by patentboy23, 30 November 2012 - 01:41 PM.

[bibigon]

Sorry, I should have been clear I was talking about roto.

I'm in a particularly strange league that also has a $65M salary cap (we use actual NBA player salaries), so even fitting two guys like Chris Paul and Al Jefferson under the cap is close to impossible. But in general, right now the team in the first place is last place in turnovers. The team in 2nd is in 15th place, etc... That's what's led me to wonder whether it's folly to even worry about the category.

I traded Monta Ellis for Gallinari in this league the other day, largely on the basis of similar production, but way fewer turnovers. However in retrospect, I'm wondering whether it's worth bothering with.

[Now_I_Know]

ive punted turnovers every year since i started playing, and i've never placed lower than 2nd. definitely the way to go.

[Now_I_Know]

bibigon, on 30 November 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

Sorry, I should have been clear I was talking about roto.

I'm in a particularly strange league that also has a $65M salary cap (we use actual NBA player salaries), so even fitting two guys like Chris Paul and Al Jefferson under the cap is close to impossible. But in general, right now the team in the first place is last place in turnovers. The team in 2nd is in 15th place, etc... That's what's led me to wonder whether it's folly to even worry about the category.

I traded Monta Ellis for Gallinari in this league the other day, largely on the basis of similar production, but way fewer turnovers. However in retrospect, I'm wondering whether it's worth bothering with.

yea, i dont think that was a good trade

[TMC]

to's can't be completely punted, unless your draft turns out that way.   A mediocre player with high TO becomes a bad player.  Just got to treat it like a category.  Just like ft% with Dwight.... gotta make a decision on team draft/makeup

we do have great players... like cp3.... it also depends on position.  and intermixing players.

you can't just put all low to players on one team.

however, you also don't want a center with too much high to's....  etc etc

Edited by TMC, 30 November 2012 - 03:03 PM.

[Thats Ridiculous]

TO is definitely one of the toughest categories to control, because if you try to cater too much to it, you end up sacrificing 2 or 3 other categories.

[mjk356]

You can win a league either way.  I'll hit you guys with a little "cool story bro".  I've played in a redraft roto league with some buddies for five years.  Last time I won it in 09-10, I had a low TO team.  I think I had Jefferson, Billups, Horford, and Camby as my top 4 picks that year.  I always thought Billups and Camby in their primes were two great guys to target if you didn't want to punt TOs.  Camby would carry BLKs and boards, and get you tons of steals for a big man.  Billups would carry 3s and FT%, and not turn it over much for a PG.  You have to go with that strategy early if you don't want to finish near the bottom in TOs.

This year, I'm in first in the league right now and my team turns it over at a ridiculous pace.  I have Harden, Holiday, Jennings, Z-Bo, Mayo, and Asik, all who are averaging 2.5 TOs or more.  There's no set prescription for punting TOs or not, but it's fun to see if you can win a league in both modes.

Edited by mjk356, 30 November 2012 - 04:15 PM.

[darkyume]

bibigon, on 30 November 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

Obviously turnovers account for as many points as any other category. Howeandver, most of the top players also turn the ball over a ton, simply by virtue of having the ball in their hands a lot. Consider an all-star team with LeBron, Durant, Chris Paul, Kevin Love, etc... That team would finish with a 1 in turnovers by a huge margin. Good players turn the ball over. It's the price you pay for excellence in the other categories.

It seems to me that the teams that do best in turnovers would be the teams with s---y squads, or the teams that have stopped paying attention and are running Brandon Rush and Kawhi Leonard out there every day right now. The teams at the top, the ones that have drafted and traded well meanwhile, are doing it in spite of a poor ranking in turnovers.

Am I wrong? Should turnovers count in player assessments if you're trying to actually win the league? Are the teams winning your league doing it with an excellent rating in turnovers?

If you are at least turnover-conscious, you'll probably at least do better in TOs than the other owners who don't care for them.

Edited by darkyume, 30 November 2012 - 04:34 PM.

[bibigon]

darkyume, on 30 November 2012 - 04:34 PM, said:

If you are at least turnover-conscious, you'll probably at least do better in TOs than the other owners who don't care for them.

Well this is what I'm wondering. If I get a heist of a deal and trade say, George Hill for Jrue Holiday, then I'm going to do worse in turnovers, even though the deal is a win for me. As you move on up the list of the highest ranked players, you're going to find more and more turnovers.

[inspiron22]

Correct. So you shouldn't outright punt but rather be aware of it. If you aren't, on weeks when you have 35 games to your opps 45 games, it sucks to lose 0-9 including turnovers

[FouLLine]

In 12 teams or less in 9-cat it's near impossible to win a competitive league with punting any single category.

You would basically have to get 12's or 11's in all categories elsewhere in a 12 man league and even then chances are you still won't win the league.  Honestly in a 10 man league you'd have to get super lucky.

[markdash]

Turnovers is one of the few categories you can punt and still win the league, because of its direct relationship with assists. That is, the more assists a team generates, the more turnovers as well. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but the correlation is there.

In general, it's difficult to score more than 18 points combined between assists and turnovers for this very reason. As a result, if you were to get a 12 in assists and a 1 in turnovers, you wouldn't be far off from the maximum possible score and therefore would still be competitive in the league.

The problem with just punting turnovers outright is that if your team is also weak in assists you will have an almost impossible mountain to climb to be tops in the league. Scoring a 6 in assists and a 2 in turnovers, for example, will put you at a significant disadvantage to a turnover-conscious team (i.e. one that had a 7 in assists and a 7 in turnovers).

All this being said, if you happen to hit the exacta in your draft and all your sleepers pay off, etc., then you will almost certainly end up with a high TO team. Your strength in assists and the other categories should more than make up for it.

[crazy47larry]

Another aspect is that a lot of people share this viewpoint in most leagues. If a majority of your league punts TOs then you are at an inherent disadvantage by following suit. Then there is the subtlety of exploiting the player ranker itself. Ryan Anderson is the perfect example of this. His TOs are epically low hence his ranking is absurdly high. We can all agree the he is not trully as valuable as his top 10 ranking says it is but it certainly helps facilitate a trade or even to have the perception of having a great player. My main point on this subject though is that I don't like to manage my team around negative categories. It seems backwards.

After all this my main team is pretty TO conscious. I don't adjust my rankings or draft differently, I just pick the best available player, but thats just the way it came through in the end.

[BareaFan]

Thats Ridiculous, on 30 November 2012 - 03:47 PM, said:

TO is definitely one of the toughest categories to control, because if you try to cater too much to it, you end up sacrificing 2 or 3 other categories.

Truth. TO's fluctuate and varies too much weekly.

Instead of punting TO, you should always punt FG%. I'm doing it myself and it has the most success.

[Dynasty999]

Turnovers should pretty much never be punted, in fact they are imo the worst category to punt unless you are playing in a really expert league since even good fantasy players underrate them. But what is important is that since they are the most often punted category they are also the easiest to win.

The category that should be punted the most are assists and its not even close except to the owner who drafts Howard and is forced to punt ft%. Not only are guards who get a ton of assists insanely reached for and overrated but like one of the posters above said they are in direct correlation to turnovers. In other words its easy to win turnovers and lose assists and then dominate every other category except steals since most pgs who get a lot of assists get a lot of steals as well.

But in reality you shouldnt punt anything as its easy enough to draft a team who is really good at everything. You don't want people who just get low turnovers, you want people who get low turnovers for their production. Guys like Cp3, Al Jeff, Al Horford, Ibaka, Ryan Anderson, Tyson Chandler, KG etc

Edited by Dynasty999, 01 December 2012 - 10:32 AM.

[henry1jg]

In my h2h 9-cat league, I've won the TO once in two years. Lol

[terribleswedes]

This isn't about the general principle, but a specific situation:

I play in a regular league and then join random public leagues each year. I've noticed in the random public leagues eventually a number of players just give up and ignore their teams and don't set lineups. It's not the coolest thing for them to do, for sure, but what that usually means is that five points are off the board right away from those five teams who aren't setting their lineups and are therefore not turning the ball over at all. In leagues like that, I simply ignore TOs on draft day; I don't go out of my way to draft high-TO players, I just draft the players I want or need for the categories I care about more. I know that my best competitors are only going to get a couple more points than me off TOs even if they try superhard to control TOs.