But even if acquiring Deron Williams improves the Nets, there are problems that he does not solve, including the fact that starting center Brook Lopez (12.5%) collects defensive rebounds at nearly the same rate as Sasha Vujacic (11.8%). Point guards do not usually impact rebounding, though, so Deron may not help much there. There is another area, though, where point guards do make a difference: turnovers. The league leaders in steals, for example, are point (or combo) guards. Rondo, Paul, Monta Ellis, Mike Conley, and Westbrook fill out the NBA's top-5 leaderboard in steals per game. Will getting Deron Williams help them get turnovers and steals?
The short answer is 'no', but that does not differ from how the Nets performed before the trade. With Devin Harris, New Jersey was a terrible team at forcing turnovers. They garnered 700 turnovers from the opposition in 57 games, for a league-worst average of 12.3 per game. After the trade, they have not done any better. Below is a log of the New Jersey games since the Deron Williams trade, including data on turnovers forced in each game and the opponent's average number of turnovers per game this season.
In eleven games since the trade (Deron appeared in eight of them, missing GSW, LAC, and WAS), the Nets have forced, on average, 10.5 turnovers per game from their opponents. In all eleven games, opponents turned the ball over fewer times against the New Jersey than they would against an average opponent, including two games where the Raptors cut their turnovers in half.*
We can adjust for pace using the statistic defensive turnover percentage (DTOV%), which provides an estimate of the fraction of possessions on which a team forced a turnover from their opponent. For comparison sake, note that this season's league average for DTOV% currently stands at 13.5%, and that the league leaders, Memphis and Portland, check in with 15.6% -- they force a turnover on nearly 1 out of 6 possessions.
The Nets check in with a league-low turnover rate of 11.7%, including a rate of 9.9% since the trade. Dating back to the advent of the three-point line (1979-80), only seven teams have managed to force turnovers at a lower rate than the 11.7% of this year's New Jersey squad. Two of those seven teams made the playoffs, but they were exceptional shooting teams that made of 49% or more of their field goal attempts.** The lowest of the seven forced turnovers at a rate of 10.8% -- substantially better than the 9.9% of this new version of the Nets with Deron.
Deron Williams is a terrific point guard and he has sparked the offense, averaging 13.1 assists per game with the Nets. If New Jersey is going to be successful while forcing few turnovers, then they will need his direction in running an ultra-efficient offense. Another option would be for the Nets to add a shut-down defender on the wing, preferably someone from the Andre Iguodala mold.
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*One of the Toronto games went into triple overtime, so the Nets only forced 7 turnovers in 63 minutes.
** The Nets are hitting 44% of their field goals in 2010-11.
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