NBA: Top 7 Worst Dribblers in the League
Dribbling is one of the foremost thing one learns in basketball; go to any training camp and they’ll start from the fundamentals of basketball, the first being how to dribble. They start with teaching you how to do a crossover dribble, or how to do the in and out dribble etc. However, the coach stops you from emphasizing on yourself after you reach a certain level, and tries to mould the player into becoming a team player. That is when everything goes wrong for certain players, as they forget the basics, basics like how to dribble.
Experts say that 99% of the players who can’t dribble are centres. With that statement being said, it begs the question: who is the worst all-time dribbler statistically in the NBA, are they really the centres?
Here are the 7 top worst dribblers who play at the centre position and their ball turnovers ratios:
Yao Ming might be one of the most dominating players in the NBA because of his sheer size, standing at 7 feet 6 inches, but he is one of the worst dribblers in the NBA. Experts say it’s a fact that great centres have a high percentage of ball turnovers, although some may argue that it is also because they have the ball in their hands most of the time. Due to a lot of polls in the recent years, Yao has been one of the top ranked worst ball dribblers, according to several top sports websites. His average in the 2008-09 season was 4.4 turnovers per game.
Dwight Howard might be the superman of basketball, but his ball dribbling is one of the worst in the NBA, with a high percentage of 4.6 in 2009-2010 regular season and a 0.53 assist/turnover ratio. Why are the greatest of centres the worst ball dribblers? it’s simply due to the fact that while their size is good enough for the scaring the opponent, the bigger they are the harder it is for them to keep a good balance, let alone handle something which is not even a part of their body. Although Howard has improved his post game remarkably, critics say all he needs is to do is start from the fundamentals of dribbling in basketball.
Los Angeles Clippers contain two of the worst dibblers in the NBA, Chris Kaman and DeAndre Jordan. Chris has a percentage of 4.1 turnovers with .54 assist/turnovers per regular season. Chris has become one of the league’s top centres, but his ball handling keeps getting worse. Experts say that while the player each year improves his game sense and ability to score, he needs to leave some room for ball handling improvement and keep it as his top priority.
On the other hand, DeAndre Jordan is a new player to the league; he was just drafted two years ago by the Clippers. Since then, he has had comparatively low turnover average compared to the NBA veterans. However, he still averaged a 3.2 turnover in the 2009-2010 regular season. Critics say if the young player really wants to build his dynasty as a centre, he needs to work on his ball dribble, or he’ll be just another centre who came, scored a few, and then retired.
Hamed Haddadi, an Iranian native who came to the Memphis Grizzlies in 2002, although has a previous record of playing basketball for his hometown has still not managed to learn how to dribble the ball properly. His average of ball turnovers was at 4.3 and a 0.50 assist/turnover ratio in a regular season, under just 6 minutes of play he got in the 2009-10 season.
Shaquille O Neal? Yes! He is one of the worst dribblers in the NBA; his high scoring percentage of 30 points per game might overshadow his ability (or lack thereof) to dribble, but it does not change the fact that he has an astounding number of ball turnover percentages: in the 2009-2010 regular season, he averaged 4.1 turnovers with a 0.76 assist/turnover ratio. In 2007 and 2009, Shaquille was also ranked as the No. 1 worst dribbler by Sports Illustrated magazine.
Amar’e Stoudemire is not detested as much as LeBron James, but is still hated because he departed from his former team The Phoenix Suns leaving Steve Nash all alone, joining the New York Knicks. Experts say if you want to know how incompetent Amar’e is with the ball, you should simply ask the Suns’ fans. He might be inspiring to watch taking high leaps, but at times even Stoudemire is found scratching his head thinking how he lost control of the ball.
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