Scheduled
Los Angeles Lakers at Utah Jazz
2026-27 · Regular season
The sloppiest start in years in numbers: 958 turnovers in 28 games, Luka Dončić’s career-high 11 and Dyson Daniels’ 12 steals
NBA teams are averaging 17.1 turnovers a game after 28 games, the most of any comparable start in four seasons and a rate no full season has reached since 1988-89. Luka Dončić leads with 17, Dyson Daniels has 12 steals, and the play-by-play says the cause is defense, not the whistle.
In this article
Luka Dončić committed 11 turnovers in the Lakers’ 125-117 win over the Clippers on Friday, the most of his career. His previous high was nine, which he had reached seven times. He was not the only one. After 28 games, the 2026-27 season has produced more turnovers per game than any comparable start of the last four seasons.
Here is what the first 28 box scores say about the giveaways, who is causing them and why the explanation looks more like defense than referees.
The numbers that stand out
- Teams have committed 958 turnovers in 28 games, 17.1 per team per game. The same 28-game stretch produced 15.4 in 2023-24, 15.3 in 2024-25 and 16.3 last season
- Steals are up too, to 9.4 per team per game from 8.6 at this point last season
- There have already been 14 team games with 20 or more turnovers. In the first 28 games of the last three seasons there were 5, 7 and 10
- The league’s assist-to-turnover ratio is 1.48, down from between 1.56 and 1.64 in the same stretch of the last three seasons
- Dončić leads the league with 17 turnovers in two games. Dyson Daniels leads it with 12 steals
A 1980s turnover rate
Turnovers usually come down as a season goes on, so the first week always looks sloppy. Last season the league averaged 16.3 turnovers per team in its first 28 games and finished the regular season at 14.5. In 2023-24 it went from 15.4 to 13.6.
This start is still out of line. No full NBA season has averaged 17.1 turnovers per team since 1988-89, when it was 17.2. The steals rate of 9.4 per team is the same as the full 1979-80 season, and no full season since then has been higher than 9.1. Points off turnovers are up as well, to 20.2 per team per game from 18.8 in the same stretch last season.
| First 28 games, per team | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | 2025-26 | 2026-27 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turnovers | 15.4 | 15.3 | 16.3 | 17.1 |
| Steals | 8.2 | 8.1 | 8.6 | 9.4 |
| Points off turnovers | 18.2 | 18.1 | 18.8 | 20.2 |
| Assist-to-turnover ratio | 1.59 | 1.64 | 1.56 | 1.48 |
| Team games with 20+ turnovers | 5 | 7 | 10 | 14 |
| Bad-pass and lost-ball turnovers (total) | 466 | 464 | 488 | 532 |
| Offensive-foul turnovers (total) | 161 | 123 | 170 | 156 |
Not the whistle, the hands
One possible explanation was the officiating. This season’s points of emphasis include off-arm push-offs by ball handlers and shoves by screeners, and both are called as offensive fouls, which count as turnovers. The play-by-play logs do not show that. There have been 156 offensive-foul turnovers in the first 28 games, fewer than the 170 in the same stretch last season.
The increase is in live-ball turnovers. Bad passes and lost balls are up from 488 to 532, an increase of 44. Steals are up from 483 to 525, an increase of 42. Total turnovers are up 45. Almost all of the extra turnovers this season have been steals, which suggests defenses are getting their hands on more passes and dribbles.
Dončić’s 17
Dončić had six turnovers in the opener against Golden State, a 127-105 Lakers win in which he scored 28. On Friday he had 11 in 37 minutes, with 23 points on 8-for-21 shooting, seven assists and no steals. The Lakers still won, and they are 2-0.
The Clippers had it worse in the same game. They committed 26 turnovers, Darius Garland had nine of them, and the two teams combined for 47, the most in any game this season. Austin Reaves has 10 turnovers in two games, so the Lakers’ starting backcourt has 27 of the team’s 39.
| Most turnovers, first two games | Team | Turnovers | Most in one game |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luka Dončić | LAL | 17 | 11 |
| Cade Cunningham | DET | 12 | 7 |
| Kyshawn George | WSH | 12 | 8 |
| Caleb Wilson | CHI | 12 | 9 |
| Darius Garland | LAC | 12 | 9 |
| Austin Reaves | LAL | 10 | 6 |
Daniels and the teams taking the ball
Daniels had five steals in Atlanta’s opening win in Orlando and seven more in Friday’s 128-81 win in Charlotte, the biggest win in Hawks history. That is 6.0 a game. The single-season record is 3.67, set by Alvin Robertson in 1985-86. Daniels averaged 3.0 in 2024-25, the highest average since Robertson’s 3.04 in 1990-91, and then 2.0 last season.
Video: Atlanta Hawks / X.
Toronto has forced the most turnovers, 50 in two games: 27 by Chicago in the 135-92 opener and 23 by Washington on Friday. The Raptors have committed only 28, a difference of 22, which is the best in the league. Atlanta is next at plus-17, with 47 forced and 30 committed.
At the other end, Charlotte has 48 turnovers in two games, the most of any team, followed by the Clippers with 44, Memphis with 42 and Chicago with 41. Memphis is the only team this season to commit 27 turnovers in a game and win. It did that on Friday in San Francisco, finishing a 17-0 run to beat the Warriors 111-108.
What comes next
Eight games on Saturday will start to show whether this holds. If the league’s turnover rate falls the way it did last season, it would still finish at about 15.3 a game, the highest full-season figure since 1999-00. The steals are the number to watch. Daniels would need to stay above 3.67 a game over a full season to beat Robertson’s record, and Toronto and Atlanta have shown how many points can come from forcing mistakes.
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