After a wild week, the WNBA now heads into the Olympic break, giving us a month to think about how things are going to shake out down the stretch. The Eastern Conference has tightened up at the top, with a half-game separating Connecticut, Detroit and New York and the Shock without Cheryl Ford for the rest of the season. There’s a little separation after San Antonio and the Storm in the West, but Houston, Los Angeles, Minnesota and Sacramento all have either 12 or 13 losses fighting for two playoff spots.

How do things stand in terms of point differential? Here are the standings using expected full-season wins based on differential.

Team          ExpW    Team          ExpW------------------    ------------------San Antonio   19.6    Connecticut   21.5Seattle       19.5    Detroit       20.1Minnesota     19.2    New York      19.3Los Angeles   18.0    Indiana       17.6Houston       17.6    Chicago       15.2Phoenix       16.8    Washington    11.6Sacramento    16.7    Atlanta        5.3

The Minnesota Lynx continue to be the anomaly by differential. Their differential is virtually the same as the Storm’s and San Antonio’s, yet the Lynx are on the outside of the playoffs looking in. Sacramento’s seven-game winning streak did surprisingly little for the team’s differential, which remains worst in the West.

Connecticut looks strong in the East, though the Sun’s differential got an artificial boost with a 26-point win over Los Angeles on Thursday with Lisa Leslie, DeLisha Milton-Jones and Candace Parker all suspended. Something tells me that game goes a little differently with them active, though I still would have made the Sun the favorites. New York still lags a bit in terms of differential.

Alright, to the leaders in Offensive and Defensive Rating on a per-possession basis.

Team          ORating     Team          DRating---------------------     ---------------------Phoenix         107.4     Indiana          91.7Minnesota       103.3     Seattle          94.7Connecticut     101.9     San Antonio      95.1Detroit         101.9     Los Angeles      95.7New York        100.9     Connecticut      97.6Seattle          99.4     Detroit          97.7AVERAGE          98.7     Houston          97.8San Antonio      98.6     New York         98.4Chicago          98.3     Sacramento       98.4Sacramento       97.9     AVERAGE          98.7Los Angeles      97.8     Washington       99.0Houston          96.6     Chicago          99.6Atlanta          92.8     Minnesota       100.3Indiana          92.7     Atlanta         106.1Washington       91.5     Phoenix         108.1

For the most part, things have settled in here. A couple of notable changes: Sacramento has surged up the defensive rankings during the winning streak, while the Lynx have slipped down ahead of just Atlanta and Phoenix.

To the individual stats. Here are the leaders by Player Efficiency Rating, minimum 250 minutes.

Player              Tm   PER----------------------------Diana Taurasi      PHO  28.4Sancho Lyttle      HOU  27.2Lauren Jackson     SEA  27.1Lindsay Whalen     CON  27.0Candace Parker     LAS  25.7Sophia Young       SAS  25.2Candice Wiggins    MIN  24.6Janel McCarville   NYL  24.5Cappie Pondexter   PHO  23.3Candice Dupree     CHI  23.2

Not much movement at this point of the season. Lyttle topped out at 23 minutes last week, and she needs more time on the court.

We continue our look at a miscellaneous statistic each week. This week we’ll highlight turnover percentage, which is pretty simply the percentage of a player or team’s possessions that end in a turnover. I calculate this as TO/(FGA + (.44*FTA) + TO). Others will subtract offensive rebounds from the denominator, but I like the idea of a team’s possessions being divided into those that end in shots from the field, trips to the free-throw line and turnovers and having those three add up to 100 percent.

Here’s a look at how teams rate this season in terms of lowest turnover percentage (left) and highest opponent turnover percentage (right).

Team             TO%     Team             TO%--------------------     --------------------Phoenix         14.5     Sacramento      20.1Minnesota       15.0     Indiana         19.6Detroit         15.4     New York        19.3Connecticut     16.0     Washington      18.9Seattle         16.9     Detroit         18.9Chicago         17.5     Minnesota       18.3New York        18.0     Houston         18.3Sacramento      18.4     San Antonio     17.4San Antonio     18.7     Seattle         17.2Atlanta         18.9     Atlanta         16.9Houston         19.1     Chicago         16.5Los Angeles     19.2     Connecticut     16.0Indiana         19.5     Los Angeles     15.8Washington      21.0     Phoenix         15.2

Everyone thinks high-paced games mean lots of sloppy play and turnovers, but really that’s not the case for teams that shoot it before they have a chance to commit a turnover. San Antonio coughs it up more often than you would like for a contending team. In general, teams that really struggle with turnovers have issues at point guard.

For the most part, you have two different types of defenses – those that sit back and defend the shot and those that aggressively play for turnovers. The Storm, San Antonio and L.A. generally fit into the former group, while Sacramento and New York rely on turnovers. It’s possible to be successful either way. Of course, the strongest defenses combine both, and Indiana is the best example of that this season.

How about at the individual level. Here are the players that turn it over least often.

Player              Tm   TO%----------------------------Kelly Mazzante     PHO   7.5Seimone Augustus   MIN   8.5Raff. Masciadri    LAS   8.9Cheryl Ford        DET   8.9Katie Gearlds      SEA   9.4Alison Bales       ATL   9.5Lauren Jackson     SEA   9.6Jia Perkins        CHI   9.7Sophia Young       SAS  10.2Diana Taurasi      PHO  10.3

Again, Mazzante, Masciadri and Gearlds are examples of the “shoot it before you turn it over” philosophy. Many of the league’s top players are very surehanded given how much offense they’re creating. The outliers on this list are Ford and Bales.

Which players are most prone to turnovers?

Player              Tm   TO%----------------------------Nancy Lieberman    DET  66.7Kasha Terry        ATL  31.7Shannon Bobbitt    LAS  31.5Loree Moore        NYL  31.0Brooke Wyckoff     CHI  30.6Kristin Haynie     ATL  30.1A'Quon. Franklin   SAC  28.1Ruth Riley         SAS  27.7Kerri Gardin       CON  27.5Erica White        HOU  26.9Noelle Quinn       MIN  26.8

OK, Nancy Lieberman’s 11 minutes don’t really qualify her. Here you see a lot of point guards, which is not surprising. One adjustment many people make is to include assists with possessions used to account for the extra ballhandling done by point guards. I’m not a huge fan of doing so, but this explains wh it makes sense. That being said, I’m surprised how often Moore has turned it over. Her turnover rate was 23.9 percent a year ago, which is much more reasonable for a point

guard.

We’ll wrap things up by looking at the Storm’s turnover rates.

Player              Tm   TO%----------------------------Katie Gearlds      SEA   9.4Lauren Jackson     SEA   9.6Sheryl Swoopes     SEA  11.8Swin Cash          SEA  15.2Sue Bird           SEA  17.2Shyra Ely          SEA  20.0Tanisha Wright     SEA  21.3Yolanda Griffith   SEA  21.4Camille Little     SEA  22.0Ashley Robinson    SEA  30.4

Aside from Robinson, who rarely handles the ball on offense, the Storm doesn’t have anyone who has regular problems with turnovers. Little is another type of player hurt by this analysis – she can’t get any credit for setting screens, but can pick up offensive fouls that go in the books as turnovers.

A big part of Wright’s improvement this season has been slashing her turnover rate from 27.9 percent last season.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 11:03 pm and is filed under WNBA, stats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.