Literature? What od you mean by 'literature', exactly? You mean statistics that can be interpreted 300 different ways by 300 different people?
Lol @ 'literature'. Pls link me the academic journals of the NBA world. TIA.
You are aware that there are a large number of academic papers that are published yearly regarding the NBA and data analysis right? All you have to do is just look at the Sloan Sports Conference for any given year and you'll find a dozen plus. Several more are published in economics journals at various universities.
For example: here's a 30-minute presentation and accompanying research paper on "experience and winning" in the NBA that concludes (among other things) that there isn't a strong statistical relationship between individual player experience and actual playoff wins (again, a counterintuitive conclusion).
https://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=6125
You'll excuse me if I'm having problems taking you seriously if your contention is that no literature on basketball analysis exists. That's a position that is simply counter to reality.
As an example of someone who's a known statistics-oriented writer on this subject you can look at, for example, this article by John Hollinger from about four years ago.
https://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=Predictions-090107
Writing about Russell Westbrook, OJ Mayo and Derrick Rose he says:
Westbrook also is the youngest of the three, the best defender and the only one who had to change positions upon arriving in the NBA. All of which suggests he's only scratching the surface of his potential -- as does the fact that he has a higher turnover ratio than the other two, which, in a paradoxical twist of logic, is actually a good thing for a rookie. Historically, those with high turnover rates have had much higher rates of improvement in subsequent seasons.
One can confirm this prediction looking backwards by examining Mayo vs. Westbrook's improvement from the rookie year (we'll leave Rose aside for the moment given that the primary story of his career to date involves injury which is a factor that can't be ignored in his case, although it should be noted his career TOV% is essentially identical to his rookie TOV%).
Mayo hasn't substantially improved from his rookie season and his TO% remains essentially identical. (13.8% vs 13.4% for his career, with higher numbers in more recent seasons).
Westbrook is substantially better today than he was as a rookie and his TO% has declined in each full season he's been in the league (rookie year is 17.6% vs. career number of 15.4% and most recent season of 13.2%).
This isn't some crazy thing I just made up, although of course some portion of jazzfanz will always believe anything counterintuitive is.
Think of it like this: good decision making is something that can be taught, unlike height, speed, strength, or freakish leaping ability. Players with those natural gifts can cut down on TOs simply by learning how to play better. Players that come in already making near optimal decisions have already exhausted much of the easier improvement resources that are available to them. Hence, they are closer to the ceiling than the player that has not yet exhausted those resources.
