{"id":826899,"date":"2015-02-23T08:45:04","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T16:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cowbellkingdom.com\/?p=37194"},"modified":"2015-02-23T08:45:04","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T16:45:04","slug":"george-karl-faces-challenge-curbing-turnovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesportsdaily.com\/news\/george-karl-faces-challenge-curbing-turnovers\/","title":{"rendered":"George Karl faces challenge curbing turnovers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Sacramento Kings are one of the most charitable groups in the league. Through 54 games, the team has given away more possessions than imaginable and they continue to do so under new head coach George Karl. Sacramento is\u00a0the third-worst club in the league at committing turnovers with 15.9 per contest, a situation Karl must address if he hopes to return the franchise\u00a0to relevancy.<\/p>\n
In a foreshadowing twist, the Kings began the year with a season-high 26-turnover effort in a loss to the Golden State Warriors on opening night. Over the course of the schedule, Sacramento has repeated the same mistakes again and again. Players have telegraphed passes when swinging the ball around the perimeter, and they\u2019ve stubbornly forced throws into shrinking windows. Nearly half the Kings\u2019 turnovers have been unforced too, often the result of overdribbling or drawing\u00a0offensive fouls.<\/p>\n
Star center DeMarcus Cousins leads the NBA with 4.5 turnovers a game. To be fair, he also tops all big men with a 34.0 usage percentage, but the big man has recurringly made head-scratching decisions. Among them, Cousins has shown a liking for personally bringing up the ball, resulting in a wild pass or two per night.<\/p>\n
Also making an appearance in the league\u2019s top 30 turnover machines are small forward Rudy Gay (2.6 per game) and point guard Darren Collison (2.5), ranked 25th and 29th respectively among qualified players. Gay has been a culprit of too many dribbles, while Collison has been guilty of forcing feeds. But to be clear, this has been a team-wide epidemic.<\/p>\n
\u201c<\/strong>Turnovers, basically, I tell them all the time, don\u2019t be Magic Johnson,\u201d Karl told the media after his first practice. \u201cJust be a good basketball player. And good basketball players don\u2019t make bad decisions. Make good, solid decisions, don\u2019t try to make the Magic Johnson pass, because that\u2019s when I think instead of throwing a pass that gets made 98 percent of the time, which it should be, we throw passes that have a 60\/40 ratio, and that\u2019s not even good for a quarterback in football.\u201d<\/p>\n As head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks from 1998 to 2003, Karl\u2019s teams finished in the NBA\u2019s top five in least\u00a0turnovers three times.\u00a0Yet his recent eight-and-a-half-year stint with the Denver Nuggets suggests he may not be able to remedy the situation.<\/p>\n Denver ranked 21st or worse in lost possessions seven times. In his last season with the team when he won Coach of the Year, Karl\u2019s club slid to 27th in the league in turnovers.<\/p>\n