NBA mailbag: The stretch run could be full of Phoenix Suns turnovers -- a historic Chris Paul stat is to blame

How much might the Phoenix Suns miss Chris Paul's sure-handed play while he's sidelined by an avulsion fracture to his right thumb?

When CP3 arrived in the Valley of the Sun last season, one of the most predictable improvements was to Phoenix's turnover rate. Near league average in that category in 2019-20, the Suns jumped into the league's top five en route to the NBA Finals last season.

Through the All-Star break, Phoenix was turning the ball over on 11.4% of its possessions with Paul on the court according to NBA Advanced Stats. With him on the bench, that jumps to 15.7%. With that in mind, this week's mailbag digs into whether Paul has done more to prevent turnovers than any other NBA player historically.

Throughout the NBA season, I answer your questions about the latest, most interesting topics in basketball. You can tweet me directly at @kpelton, tweet your questions using the hashtag #peltonmailbag, or email them to peltonmailbag@gmail.com.

This week's mailbag also answers questions on the remaining buyout candidates on the market and what kind of players might be added to the list when the NBA picks a 100th anniversary team in 25 years.

"Last year the Suns made history for how well they took care of the ball. Is there a player in history that drove turnovers down more than Paul?"

-- @shalamarthagawd

First, it's worth noting that for our purposes NBA "history" starts in 1973-74, the first year the league tracked turnovers at the team level. It's possible Bob Cousy or Oscar Robertson was actually the best at this and we'd never know.

Since then, I attempted to answer the question by looking at team turnover rate relative to league average that season for all games in a player's career. That required a bit of a patchwork approach: season-long adjusted team turnover rate through 1984-85, estimated team turnover rate by game through 1995-96 and turnover rate by game since 1996-97 using actual possessions in the play-by-play era.

Among players with at least 1,000 career games, here are the leaders:

Although many of these names are fairly predictable, I'm not sure whether to buy the presence of so few point guards. When Ryan Davis uses play-by-play data to look at adjusted team turnover rate over five-year spans starting in 2010-11 on NBAshotcharts.com, most of the leaders are point guards, including three Paul spans in the top five.

Using my more simplistic method makes it more difficult to split credit, which we see from the three overlapping Dallas Mavericks All-Stars just ahead of Paul on the list. In the 356 games all three played for Dallas, the Mavericks' turnover rate was a remarkable 17% lower than league average. Splitting out games where those three players all played separately, it looks like Dirk Nowitzki (92% of league average by himself) drove more of the low-turnover play than Michael Finley (94%) or Steve Nash (95%). That would still put Nowitzki a tad ahead of Paul.

As for Alex English, we don't really think of him as a low-turnover player, but he was, considering the fast pace at which the Doug Moe-era Denver Nuggets played and his large role in the offense. The Nuggets posted the league's lowest turnover rate five consecutive seasons from 1985-86 through 1989-90. It's worth noting, however, that they dropped only to second in 1990-91 after English left to play his final season with the Mavericks.

Suppressing turnovers is a relatively subtle part of Michael Jordan's greatness, but it's worth noting what happened during his first retirement. The Bulls went from the league's lowest turnover rate in 1992-93 to below average in 1993-94 and 1994-95 then back to No. 1 in that category again in 1995-96 (and 1996-97).

Remarkably, none of Paul's teams have ever led the league in turnover rate. (Phoenix was fourth last year on a per-possession basis and in the same spot this season.) However, Paul's team impact has been considerable. When he was traded from New Orleans to the LA Clippers in 2011, the then-Hornets dropped from eighth to 29th in turnover rate, while the Clippers went from 30th to second.

Given we can compare the back half of Nowitzki's career directly to CP3's in terms of more advanced methodology and Paul comes out ahead, I'm comfortable concluding he's the best player on record in terms of reducing team turnovers.

"Which candidates left could still help contenders if they reach a buyout by the end of February?"

-- Alisha

With Goran Dragic with the Brooklyn Nets and Tristan Thompson with the Chicago Bulls, we're already running pretty low on names. It doesn't appear Gary Harris or Dennis Schroder will get buyouts from the Orlando Magic and Houston Rockets, respectively. There has been less reporting about Mike Muscala with the Oklahoma City Thunder, but they still hold a team option on Muscala's contract for next season.

That leaves Orlando's Robin Lopez as the main candidate worth watching. Despite the Magic starting young centers Mo Bamba and Wendell Carter Jr. together, Lopez has played in 27 games, spending extended stretches on the bench. When he has seen action, Lopez has remained the hook-shot machine and strong positional defender he was in previous stops. We know from as recently as last season that Lopez can be part of a playoff rotation at center.

The big question is whether any buyout destination would be attractive enough to keep Lopez away from the Magic Kingdom.

"There's a lot of talk that many who were left off the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team should make the top 100 in 2046-47 like Tracy McGrady, Dwight Howard, Nikola Jokic and Draymond Green. Then there are younger stars like Luka Doncic, Trae Young, Ja Morant, Jayson Tatum, etc. Will that leave enough room for all the kids in elementary school today who haven't been drafted yet?"

-- @JordanPushedOff

To understand who might join the current list of 76 when the NBA turns a century old in 25 years, it's probably worth looking at the ages of the newcomers to the anniversary team at the time the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History were named in 1996-97. Here's how they break down by groups:

Retired (1): Bob McAdoo

Bad news for fans of McGrady and Vince Carter: There isn't much precedent for the voting panel adding players whose careers were entirely complete as of the past selection. McAdoo was the only one this time around, and as a former MVP he was a more natural candidate than any retired player left off the top 75.

Late career (2): Dennis Rodman, Dominique Wilkins

Wilkins is the other candidate in which the 75th anniversary voting panel corrected course, given his final two NBA seasons didn't really add to his résumé. In Rodman's case, he was much closer to the end of his career than to the start but did add two more titles with the Bulls after the voting was conducted before the 1996-97 season. Howard is probably the best example of someone likely to follow this path.

Prime (2): Reggie Miller, Gary Payton

Although Miller and Payton were already Olympians in 1996, it's safe to say that their performance between 1996-97 and the end of their careers got them on the 75th list. Green, Jokic and Klay Thompson would all potentially fall into this group.