Give something away day: The worst turnovers in NBA history

When you consider how fast-paced basketball is, you’d imagine that turnovers would be constant. Yet, surprisingly that’s not the case. That’s not to say that when they do occur, they aren’t extremely costly. Let’s take a look at some of the more memorable ones.

Turnovers in the NBA are as funny as they are bad

Whether we’re talking about Steph Curry or James Harden, Draymond Green or LeBron James, even the late great Kobe Bryant himself. The point is, star players or roster rotators they’ve all committed turnovers at some terrible times. What’s worse is that as you will see below, many of those moments weren’t simply bad luck or judgment but rather showboating gone wrong. As the saying goes, ‘What you look for is often what you get.’ With no further ado, let’s take a look at some of the greatest turnovers the NBA has had to offer.

Then we’ve got these gems from King James himself:

Never to be outdone, Russell Westbrook gave us a good look at whatever he was looking at, which seemed to be nothing:

When the turnover is a good thing

Now, we know what you’re thinking: How can a turnover be good? Well, that’s exactly what the Golden State Warriors’ Draymond showed us back in 2021 during a game against the Indiana Pacers. With 2 seconds left on the clock and the Warriors up by two points, it was Green who was tasked with the responsibility of inbounding the ball. Rather than look for a teammate, Green chose to inbound the ball to the opposing team, knowing that there were no timeouts left and they were on the opposite side of the court. The result? The Pacers caught the ball, but immediately understood the ploy and so the Warriors got their 102-100 win. See for yourself below: