Player The blessed howl's moving Castle of Stephon Javonte

[MannyIG]

He has better than a 2:1 assist to turnover ratio my dude.

lol thats not a good mark for a PG. I want my PGs to be at least 3:1

EDIT: To be clear I think Castle's turnover improvement is good and I hope it continues, but I would never dream of flexing a 2:1 A:TO ratio as a good thing for a guard.

 

[spurraider21]

lol thats not a good mark for a PG. I want my PGs to be at least 3:1

EDIT: To be clear I think Castle's turnover improvement is good and I hope it continues, but I would never dream of flexing a 2:1 A:TO ratio as a good thing for a guard.

Very few point guards are hitting 3:1

 

[spurs3223]

Castle's overall TOV stats are not bad at all... I think what people are really saying when we mention is turnovers is that many of them are just lazy and completely avoidable, which makes them all the more frustrating - they are just preventable free possession's we're giving up...

With that said, it seems like they've been greatly reduced from the first half of the season

Agreed.. there are still some boneheaded plays that feel egregious and it's tough to put them out of your mind when they happen.

But he's already doing so many things so well it's impossible to imagine this team's success without his contributions. And I'm really hoping he can step it up even more and play a bit of small forward down the road to facilitate Fox/Harper/Castle lineups (provided the shooting continues to improve). Honestly, he's my favorite player on the team. I never get tired of watching him put effort into defense. (And to think, I had him and Reed as my 1a and 1b prospects.... smh... dodged a bullet there, even if Reed may wind up a good player.)

 

[scott]

This mirrors my general impression of things. Castle's improvement has coincided with a subtle shift in role (I provided some data previously on his reduced Time of Possession and seconds per possession the other day).

Anyone who wants to make the argument that his time as lead PG was well spent and helped him thrive in this adapted role... I won't argue with that one bit.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2033251400889532826

 

[spurs3223]

These are all the players in the NBA with at least 30 games played and 25 minutes per game with an AST/TO ratio over 3, including a few players who are approaching the magic number as well. Paints a different picture of what our expectations should be, eh?

 

[scott]

Steph's sitting at a 2.21 AST/TOV ratio right now, up from 1.88 last year... but if we look at his monthly splits, we can see the improvement this month( which is even a bit clouded by 6 TOV against CHA)

Oct (5 games) - 1.00 (exactly 27/27)
Nov (8 games) - 2.84
Dec (11 games) - 1.79
January (15 games) - 2.46
February (10 games) - 2.18
March (8 games) - 3.42

 

[MannyIG]

This mirrors my general impression of things. Castle's improvement has coincided with a subtle shift in role (I provided some data previously on his reduced Time of Possession and seconds per possession the other day).

Anyone who wants to make the argument that his time as lead PG was well spent and helped him thrive in this adapted role... I won't argue with that one bit.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2033251400889532826

That’s really good analysis

 

[MannyIG]

View attachment 1252

These are all the players in the NBA with at least 30 games played and 25 minutes per game with an AST/TO ratio over 3, including a few players who are approaching the magic number as well. Paints a different picture of what our expectations should be, eh?

As in we shouldn’t expect that? It’s a high mark but I don’t think I agree with you if that’s your point. I think it’s perfectly fine that Steph isn’t there yet, but certainly I want him reasonably close to that asap and I think it’s a much better mark than a ratio of 2

 

[spurs3223]

As in we shouldn’t expect that? It’s a high mark but I don’t think I agree with you if that’s your point. I think it’s perfectly fine that Steph isn’t there yet, but certainly I want him reasonably close to that asap and I think it’s a much better mark than a ratio of 2

Your earlier comments made it seem to me like you believe the bar to be 3/1, below which playmakers aren't really getting it done to your satisfaction. But that also rules out most of the playmakers in the league, including all-NBA talents. Just wanted to give a visual to show how high a bar that actually is. I think Steph can be highly effective even if he never reaches it, so I'm chill with it being in the 2.5+ range. Like Scott mentioned earlier, I think it's the nature of some of the turnovers that leave a bad taste in the mouth (which also shows potential for improvement.)

 

[MannyIG]

Your earlier comments made it seem to me like you believe the bar to be 3/1, below which playmakers aren't really getting it done to your satisfaction. But that also rules out most of the playmakers in the league, including all-NBA talents. Just wanted to give a visual to show how high a bar that actually is. I think Steph can be highly effective even if he never reaches it, so I'm chill with it being in the 2.5+ range. Like Scott mentioned earlier, I think it's the nature of some of the turnovers that leave a bad taste in the mouth (which also shows potential for improvement.)

I mean I think its fine he's below it because he's a 2nd year player, but my response was to someone upholding a 2:1 ratio as if it was great, which it is not, which is why I mentioned 3:1. I mean there are plenty of not great players on that list. Do love to see Tre Jones on it though.

 

[spursfanfromafar]

Agreed.. there are still some boneheaded plays that feel egregious and it's tough to put them out of your mind when they happen.

Out of curiosity I plugged those ESPN game logs into an LLM and asked for rolling 10 game trends...and it's clear he's improving across all metrics (assist/turnover ratio, turnovers per minute, etc.)

• rolling-10 AST/TOV = sum(AST last 10 games) ÷ sum(TOV last 10 games)
• rolling-10 TOV/min = sum(TOV last 10 games) ÷ sum(MIN last 10 games)
• rolling-10 AST/min = sum(AST last 10 games) ÷ sum(MIN last 10 games)
Instead of listing every game window, the table shows the rolling metrics at regular points across the season (each value represents the window ending at that game).

Game window end	AST/TOV	TOV/min	AST/min
Game 10	1.58	0.135	0.214
Game 15	1.71	0.131	0.224
Game 20	1.86	0.126	0.234
Game 25	1.98	0.122	0.240
Game 30	2.07	0.118	0.244
Game 35	2.19	0.112	0.246
Game 40	2.34	0.104	0.248
Game 45	2.55	0.095	0.250
Game 50	2.67	0.089	0.251
Game 55 (current window)	2.83	0.083	0.252

The recent trend may be unsustainable, as he's having a fantastic March overall, with assists up and turnovers way down. So although it would be nice to see him maintain this into the playoffs, realistically I suspect he's gonna be up and down for awhile longer.

But he's already doing so many things so well it's impossible to imagine this team's success without his contributions. And I'm really hoping he can step it up even more and play a bit of small forward down the road to facilitate Fox/Harper/Castle lineups (provided the shooting continues to improve). Honestly, he's my favorite player on the team. I never get tired of watching him put effort into defense. (And to think, I had him and Reed as my 1a and 1b prospects.... smh... dodged a bullet there, even if Reed may wind up a good player.)

Outstanding work. Thanks. This is very useful. Shows improvement by Castle significantly.

 

[spurs3223]

Outstanding work. Thanks. This is very useful. Shows improvement by Castle significantly.

I just took another look at this, lined it up with the game logs, and it is *NOT* outstanding work. It's AI slop. I should know better than to trust an oftentimes confidently incorrect LLM to do math. Apologies! My first time using one for basketball analysis. I'll remove the post.

That said, the trend *is* real. Steph was awful at taking care of the ball at the beginning of the season, then hit a reasonable plateau (for a second year guard) in the middle, and has been even better more recently. I believe these numbers are more accurate, but I think I'm gonna avoid this kind of analysis in the future without better tools, as fact checking these guys takes too much time:

 

[Raven_]

he has shown a leadership growth, actually telling teammates what he wants them to do mid-play at times. Very nice to see.

 

[MannyIG]

I just took another look at this, lined it up with the game logs, and it is *NOT* outstanding work. It's AI slop. I should know better than to trust an oftentimes confidently incorrect LLM to do math. Apologies! My first time using one for basketball analysis. I'll remove the post.

That said, the trend *is* real. Steph was awful at taking care of the ball at the beginning of the season, then hit a reasonable plateau (for a second year guard) in the middle, and has been even better more recently. I believe these numbers are more accurate, but I think I'm gonna avoid this kind of analysis in the future without better tools, as fact checking these guys takes too much time:
View attachment 1254

Yeah I didn't want to say anything when you posted it but I would not trust an LLM for any type of an analysis although they are good for generating the code that you can use for an analysis yourself if you even have a casual familiarity with python etc.

 

[bozhemoi]

lol thats not a good mark for a PG. I want my PGs to be at least 3:1

EDIT: To be clear I think Castle's turnover improvement is good and I hope it continues, but I would never dream of flexing a 2:1 A:TO ratio as a good thing for a guard.

2:1 is a very good mark for a point guard.

 

[Exstatic]

2:1 is a very good mark for a point guard.

To me 2:1 is acceptable, but not in the realm of very good.

 

[LeBowen]

Yeah, it's good, but not elite.
Still, most of his turnovers are down to his handle that still needs some work, rather than him attempting bad passes.

 

[BSfromTX]

Fox, Wemby, and Harper missed a lot of games early in the season. I think Castle was having to do more then

 

[Hyrup]

View attachment 1252

These are all the players in the NBA with at least 30 games played and 25 minutes per game with an AST/TO ratio over 3, including a few players who are approaching the magic number as well. Paints a different picture of what our expectations should be, eh?

And of this list, SGA, Murray, and Brunson are the only guys with a >25% usage rate like Castle. I'd assume generally it's easier to maintain a high AST/TO when you have less usage but maybe I'm wrong.

 

[BatManu20]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2033771057958502848

 

[BatManu20]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2033752227509375440

 

[timtonymanu]

Best player on the floor against the Clippers tonight.

 

[bozhemoi]

People complaining about this guy and it's his second year.

 

[spursistan]

It's wild how good and far ahead of the curve Castle is compared to our projections..He is only 21 and you know how crazy early in development that is for a guard in the NBA..

 

[wEmBoY]

This guy almost injured wemby. Hope wemby play tomorrow.

Castle has the potential to be an an allstar caliber player if he make a huge leap next season.