by CoachC » Wed Mar 11, 2020 2:08 pm
As far as cutting down turnovers, the obvious answer is to recruit better ball-handlers, but I know that's not what you're asking.
For Pace I like to find a good trade-off number somewhere between the teams current Athleticism and Ball-handling numbers. If my key guys current Athleticism averages around 6, but their ball-handling only averages around 4, I'll set pace at 5. With younger teams I find I have to adjust it up and down frequently in games, with more experienced teams not as much. If most of your turnovers are forced (i.e. steals) you should try running a faster pace. If most of your turnovers are un-forced, you should adjust to a slower pace, until you find the number that produces a number of turnovers you can live with. It tends to work pretty well. My current team is only averaging 7.9 to/g. I HATE turnovers!
One dilemna that always rares it's ugly head, especially with younger teams, is when one of your best scorers is also committing a high number of turnovers. Sometimes you simply have to give more minutes to a better ball-handler who may not be as much of a scoring threat. This is one area, along with defense, where I think the +/- stat can be really helpful for looking at the guys you are giving a lot of minutes to.
The actual sets you are running makes a difference too. Some sets just inherently require better ball-handlers with more experience to run successfully. Motion and Shuffle especially have always seemed like turnover magnets to me, so I tend to avoid installing them in my new system.