Welcome to the fifteenth installment of Weekly Yinteresting Thoughts (WYT). In these posts, I’ll be sharing some of my random thoughts, opinions, and questions about the NBA landscape as it pertains to fantasy basketball. Feel free to drop your comments and questions below! Let’s get started.
As we know in Fantasy Basketball, turnovers are closely correlated with the best players. But this isn’t always the case. Let’s take a look at who’s leading the league in turnovers this season.
Giannis Antetokounmpo (4.2 to/g)
Antetokounmpo’s struggles this season are well documented. He’s sitting at rank 133 this season in 9-cat, and flies up to 18th if you punt FT%, which is his worst category by far. For a guy whose ADP typically hovers between 2-4, calling his production thus far disappointing would be an understatement. For reference, Antetokounmpo finished 2nd last season in punt FT% builds, only behind Nikola Jokic. So what’s good with his turnovers this year? Antetokounmpo is only averaging 5.3 assists while coughing up the ball 4.2 times a game. That’s a 1.26 assist to turnover ratio and it’s not good. Luckily, the Bucks are the third ranked defense this season and are the third seed in the East.
Trae Young (4.1 to/g)
Young averages pretty much the same turnovers per game as Antetokounmpo, while providing almost double the assists. Young has never been a player who’s going to be uber-secure with the rock. He’s also having a tough year and failing to return value on his lofty Yahoo! ADP of 11. He’s sitting at 55 and the high turnovers with poor efficiency and lackluster defensive numbers are a big reason why. Dejounte Murray’s presence in Atlanta shouldn’t really be affecting his three point stroke too much, yet Young is still converting only 32% of his attempts from deep.
Luka Doncic (3.7 to/g)
Like Young, Doncic will never be a low turnover player as long as he exists in the Mavs’ current heliocentric system in which he commands a 38.2% usage rate, second highest in the league (with sample size of more than 10 games). And managers should be okay with this, since Doncic is ranked 12th overall and is having yet another first team All-NBA worthy season, probably his 4th out of the 5 years he’s been in the league thus far. Doncic is generating 8.6 assists per game, and has actually been okay with the turnovers this season. He’s averaging his second fewest since his rookie year.
James Harden (3.6 to/g)
Harden is another historically high turnover player. As he ages during his Philly tenure, he’s not asked to do as much scoring as he had been previously. This has resulted in an acceptable turnover rate this season simply because he’s providing a league-high 11 assists per game. It’s wonderful to watch Harden flex some of his versatility as a player, sacrificing some of his points so that he can become a full time facilitator. He’s a top playmaker in the league and should easily grab the assists crown this season.
Kevin Porter Jr. (3.6)
Porter is simply not a player who’s good enough to be turning over the ball this much. He’s generating 5.6 assists per game, slightly more than Giannis, but is only ranked 102 on the season. I’ll cut him some slack, though. This is his first time being ranked in the top 100, and making this type of jump on a dysfunctional Rockets team is impressive. He’s 22 and has got all the potential in the world. Cutting out those turnovers and improving both of his percentages would both be necessary to crack the top-50.
