LaMelo Ball's assists made the trip to Minnesota, and his turnovers came with them, almost doubled

Draft LaMelo Ball as an assists and threes guard in nine-category head-to-head, and plan your roster around his turnovers instead of fearing them. The reasons are below, along with the number that would change my mind.

Format: 9-category head-to-head, 12 teams. Sample: three Minnesota preseason games, 59 minutes, against 72 games and 2,016 minutes for Charlotte last season. Minutes assumption: 30 a night, written down below so you can see where it breaks.

The number that jumps out

Ball has 17 assists and 11 turnovers in 59 preseason minutes. Last season he had 514 assists and 202 turnovers in 2,016 minutes. Divide each by the minutes:

• Assists per minute: 0.255 last season, 0.288 this preseason
• Turnovers per minute: 0.100 last season, 0.186 this preseason
• Points per minute: 0.717 last season, 0.593 this preseason
• Threes per minute: 0.135 last season, 0.119 this preseason

The assists are up a little. The turnovers are up almost twice as much. The scoring is down, which makes sense next to Anthony Edwards: Edwards scored 59 points in 63 minutes across the same three games.

Which rate to believe

Use last season's rates as the base. 2,016 minutes is a real sample. 59 preseason minutes is three nights of learning new teammates. Use the preseason rates as the stress test, the version where the worst of October sticks.

At 30 minutes a night:

• Last season's rates: 21.5 points, 7.6 assists, 4.0 threes, 5.2 rebounds, 1.3 steals, 3.0 turnovers
• Preseason rates: 17.8 points, 8.6 assists, 3.6 threes, 5.6 rebounds, 0.5 steals, 5.6 turnovers

The range, because the minutes are a guess. Ball played 28.0 minutes a game last season.

• At 26 minutes: 6.6 assists and 2.6 turnovers on last season's rates, 7.5 and 4.8 on the preseason's
• At 32 minutes: 8.2 assists and 3.2 turnovers on last season's rates, 9.2 and 6.0 on the preseason's

In every version the assists stay. That is the category you are buying.

What the turnovers cost you

In nine-category head-to-head, turnovers are a category like any other. A guard who gives up three a night is normal for a lead ball-handler. A guard who gives up five or six can lose you the category almost alone.

So pair him. If you take Ball, lean toward low-turnover players for your next picks: bigs who score near the rim and wings who catch and shoot. Or go the other way and punt turnovers on purpose. If you give up the category, Ball's assists, threes and free-throw shooting (89.9% last season) all count and his worst number costs you nothing.

A worked example

Take a hypothetical guard with 0.10 turnovers per minute. At 30 minutes he gives up 3.0 a night. Raise the rate to 0.18, as Ball's has been this October, and he gives up 5.4. Same minutes, nearly twice the damage in one category. The rate is the whole story, which is why I am not changing his base projection on 59 minutes.

The card

30 minutes, last season's rates as the base, nine-category head-to-head: an assists, threes and free throws guard who needs low-turnover teammates. In points leagues that subtract turnovers, the October rate matters more, so take him a little later there. In roto, where one bad category is spread over a whole season, he is easier to fit.

When to redo the math

Check again after two weeks of games that count. If his turnovers per minute are still near 0.18, the move next to Edwards has changed his role, and the stress-test line is the real one. If they fall back toward 0.10, last season's base was right. Either way the assumption is written down, and you can see exactly when it breaks.