By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Turnovers are a part of any NBA game. It’s like strikeouts in a baseball game or having the punt the ball in football. They will happen. But how often they happen can make or break a season.

Only once this season have the Atlanta Hawks committed less than 10 turnovers in a game and they lost that game anyway.

On the other end of the spectrum, they have over 15 games with at least 20 turnovers, far and away the worst in the league. Some teams have a one or two players responsible for high turnover rates, but for the Hawks, it’s pretty much everyone. And they aren’t bad, they are historically awful.

All things in balance, since the Hawks have an excellent shot profile and they don’t take very many mid-range shots, those shots lead to an increased turnover rate, and defenses are adept at stopping Atlanta’s offense in that situation. It’s not entirely to blame for the awful turnover rate, but it’s a big area of concern.

The issue is that a team chocked full of rookies and other young players are being tasked with taking almost exclusively three points or layups. Trae Young and Kevin Huerter just don’t have the experience to handle the ball with regularity and prevent turnovers. Veteran players like Kent Bazemore, who isn’t a ball handler by trade, are out of their element when asked to do so.

Jeremy Lin turns the ball over nearly twenty percent of the time. Taurean Prince, Dewayne Dedmon and Alex Len all turn the ball over more than 15% of the time. Young and Huerter have growing to do, but the fact that the team’s seasoned players are having career-worst seasons is inexcusable.

The coaching staff has, somewhat inexplicably, not found the time to be concerned about the turnovers.

Granted, the correlation between turnovers and team success has lessened in the past decade and a half, but Coach Pierce is not working on fixing the problem. Instead, he has made it clear that he’d rather his team throw the ball around and grow without strict oversight. It’s understandable for the youth, but those veterans are being allowed free reign to turn the ball over with impunity.

The call is probably right. Trae Young will learn by doing, and he will stumble and he will turn the ball over; but he’s also a talent the likes of which haven’t been seen in Atlanta in a long time.

He’s an incredible passer and with each turnover he will figure out what not to do, and before we all blink, he’ll be one of the best in the league at making plays.

Ditto for Huerter and Jason Collins, who turn the ball over more than anyone would like but need to be given the freedom to explore what they can do with the ball in their hands and hone those skills, rather than be typecast into certain roles this early in their career.

The veterans on the team shouldn’t have that same luxury, but it’s certainly understandable if Pierce feels that he can’t chew out a veteran for the same turnover a rookie is making without losing a bit of credibility with the older guys.

Atlanta’s turnover problem is massive and is holding them back from making the next step (even amid improved overall play) in terms of offensive output, but there’s a method to Pierce’s madness.

The long-term development of players like Young, Huerter, and Collins will have speed bumps along the way; it’s just an unfortunate coincidence that the rest of the team seems to have followed suit in this specific area.