First, the Value of One. By that I mean, how many wins per season will a team add by adding just one point to the team's point differential. It turns out to be +2.6 wins. Here is a plot of point differential vs wins for the entire NBA for the past eight seasons. The plot shows it's basically linear. A linear regression comes out to
Season Wins = 41.00 + 2.64 x Point Differential Per Game
The moral is, if you can somehow add say +3 points to your team's point differential, you can take an average team (41-41) and turn them into a (49-33) team.
That leads me to Bonehead Plays. A Bonehead Play is a play that costs your team points, and you did it (the action not the result) on purpose.
Here is my list of top Bonehead Plays. I'm sure you can think of more. The first two are the most critical and easiest to avoid.
1. Fouling a 3 point shooter. Cost ~1.6 points. Quit trying to block the shot, quit running at the shooter out of control. Just get a hand up and contest rationally.
2. Fouling a 2 point jump-shooter. Cost ~0.6. Same idea. Jumping to try to block, or being overly aggressive on a jump shooter not only creates fouls, it takes you out of the play. Get a hand up and complete the play by boxing out and going for the rebound. You can do neither from the air.
3. Poor Shot selection. The difference between a Blazers' great shot and a poor shot is as much as 0.4 points. Here are the approx. value of various Blazer shots. 3 pointers (CJ 1.25, Dame 1.18, Dame "bomb" 1.12). At the rim (Dame 1.21, Turner 1.20, Aminu 1.19, CJ 1.18, Nurk 1.11, Napier 1.11). Mid-range i.e. 5+ feet (CJ 0.99, Napier 0.93, Damian 0.92, Turner 0.92, Nurk 0.84, Aminu 0.79). Stop choosing to take a sub-par shots with lots of shot clock.
4. High risk low reward passes. A turnover costs you about 1.2 points. Examples. (1) Dame fires a long pass to CJ which is nearly stolen. CJ catches the pass only to find that the defense was fully back, and he's going one on three. What was the point of that pass? (2) Nurk makes a risky pass to Aminu in the paint. The pass barely gets there. Chief finds himself amidst three defenders.
5. Reckless fouling in general. The cost of putting opponents in the penalty is hard to estimate. But we all know it's terrible (last game 3rd quarter vs Warriors it almost cost us the game). You get 4 free fouls per quarter. "Use" them sparingly playing aggressive defense, causing turnovers or stripping a player at the rim. Not on jump shooters. Not carelessly.
6. Passing up an open 3 pointer because it doesn't feel right. Take the damn shot. Even a mediocre 3-point shooter can hit 33% of his open 3's. That is actually a very good shot. Passing it up often leads to either a travel, stepping out of bounds, or a 3 second call on your big man who thought you were going to shoot and stayed in the paint to grab the rebound.
In my estimation, teams easily give up 5+ points per game on Bonehead Plays.
That's 13 games per year.
Season Wins = 41.00 + 2.64 x Point Differential Per Game

The moral is, if you can somehow add say +3 points to your team's point differential, you can take an average team (41-41) and turn them into a (49-33) team.
That leads me to Bonehead Plays. A Bonehead Play is a play that costs your team points, and you did it (the action not the result) on purpose.
Here is my list of top Bonehead Plays. I'm sure you can think of more. The first two are the most critical and easiest to avoid.
1. Fouling a 3 point shooter. Cost ~1.6 points. Quit trying to block the shot, quit running at the shooter out of control. Just get a hand up and contest rationally.
2. Fouling a 2 point jump-shooter. Cost ~0.6. Same idea. Jumping to try to block, or being overly aggressive on a jump shooter not only creates fouls, it takes you out of the play. Get a hand up and complete the play by boxing out and going for the rebound. You can do neither from the air.
3. Poor Shot selection. The difference between a Blazers' great shot and a poor shot is as much as 0.4 points. Here are the approx. value of various Blazer shots. 3 pointers (CJ 1.25, Dame 1.18, Dame "bomb" 1.12). At the rim (Dame 1.21, Turner 1.20, Aminu 1.19, CJ 1.18, Nurk 1.11, Napier 1.11). Mid-range i.e. 5+ feet (CJ 0.99, Napier 0.93, Damian 0.92, Turner 0.92, Nurk 0.84, Aminu 0.79). Stop choosing to take a sub-par shots with lots of shot clock.
4. High risk low reward passes. A turnover costs you about 1.2 points. Examples. (1) Dame fires a long pass to CJ which is nearly stolen. CJ catches the pass only to find that the defense was fully back, and he's going one on three. What was the point of that pass? (2) Nurk makes a risky pass to Aminu in the paint. The pass barely gets there. Chief finds himself amidst three defenders.
5. Reckless fouling in general. The cost of putting opponents in the penalty is hard to estimate. But we all know it's terrible (last game 3rd quarter vs Warriors it almost cost us the game). You get 4 free fouls per quarter. "Use" them sparingly playing aggressive defense, causing turnovers or stripping a player at the rim. Not on jump shooters. Not carelessly.
6. Passing up an open 3 pointer because it doesn't feel right. Take the damn shot. Even a mediocre 3-point shooter can hit 33% of his open 3's. That is actually a very good shot. Passing it up often leads to either a travel, stepping out of bounds, or a 3 second call on your big man who thought you were going to shoot and stayed in the paint to grab the rebound.
In my estimation, teams easily give up 5+ points per game on Bonehead Plays.
That's 13 games per year.