PG assist numbers inflated? Interesting read here (long)

[og15]

I actually noticed some weird assists in the game myself, but also in many other games. Sometimes I count assists and there are actually times where all of a guys assists were directly leading to a basket, but sometimes the guy would get more than I had considered assists.

But there were some plays where the passer lead the guy to the basket even though they had to take dribbles to finish which is an assist, they didn't have to beat anyone, and then others where I was thinking to myself, how is that an assist? All it was was maybe passing the guy the ball in the right position.

This is not a single thing though, I've seen it all around the league, which is why I don't care much because every player is getting it, whether they are good or not, and whether they are a PG or not. It's not a star thing like someone suggested, it is everyone. I've seen Jose Calderon on the Raptors get some assists in games where he passed to Bosh and Bosh really made the move. I've seen Brevin Knight get some assists like that too. Some scorekeepers are better than others I suppose, but even in the same arena you will see them give an assists for something one time, and not another.

[18 Parkerville]

the same thing happens with Jose calderon in Toronto. inflated assists passing to bosh, who runs an iso (taking several dribbles)

[RobertGlory]

this brings something else to mind

game 5, mavs at the hornets, paul had 9 rebounds and needed 1 for the triple double

we're up 97-94 and dallas needed one more stop and we had the ball

peja missed the three but tyson chandler tapped the ball back out to paul. pass to peja, foul, two free throws, 99-94, mavs season over.

i was at the game and thought tyson got credit for the rebound there.

the mavs took one more garbage shot down 5 as time expired and paul grabbed the rebound. i thought THAT was the triple double.

you can inflate rebounds like that too. tyson made it happen, he should have gotten credit

[wigglestrue]

the same thing happens with Jose calderon in Toronto. inflated assists passing to bosh, who runs an iso (taking several dribbles)

That kind of thing will help your AST/TO ratio, too, I imagine. Since he's getting the assist whenever it's there but Bosh gets all the turnovers because he's the one doing the dribbling?

[Devin 1L]

Here's a relevant article from last year on Basketball Prospectus: Link

This one is regarding Acie Law at A&M, but centered around the same topic.

[mr_sunshine]

CP3 is the best PG in the league, no questions asked. If he gets a few BS assists here and there, so be it. It makes up for the times where he kicks it out to a wide open Peja or Mo-pete or someone else who bricks a 3. It's all relative.

[Devin 1L]

CP3 is the best PG in the league, no questions asked. If he gets a few BS assists here and there, so be it. It makes up for the times where he kicks it out to a wide open Peja or Mo-pete or someone else who bricks a 3. It's all relative.

Because players on other teams don't miss threes when they receive a pass from their point guard?

That's ridiculous.

Besides, Peja's one of the best shooters in the league, perhaps we should take an assist or two away from Paul since he has it too easy.

[Teen Girl Squad]

I went ahead and edited the title to more acurately reflect the converstion in here.

[PimpORL]

I agree completely with the OP. Nice that someone else other than me notices it.

[FlashFlood]

I know Bird believes that assist numbers are inflated in today's game. I remember watching his interview and he clearly states that to him, an assist occurs when the pass leads directly to the score. No dribbling, no isolation play, a pass and the shot is on it's way up shortly afterwards.

IMO clearly the definition of assists has changed, and in relation to the 80s and maybe the 90s game, they are indeed inflated. The question IMO is the proper definition of assists. Because it looks like it might mean 'the pass directly previous to two points is an assist.' Again, there is a judgment call to be made here, such as whether the bucket occurs instantly after the reception of the pass, or whether it took the man 14 seconds, 7 dribbles and liberal use of his backside for the power dunk.

Conclusion? Yeah, the assists in today's game are inflated.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Like every for stat, you need to know the numbers and watch the games to understand where it comes, how the offence is built, how much credit a player deserves for it.
There are players who have a higher % of what I'd call BS assists, when they don't really create opportunities for the offence but jus give the ball to the scorer (Billups would be the first name in my mind) or others who actually create a lot of the offence themselves (Nash last year was maybe the biggest example I remember).

Paul imo creates a lot of opportunities, Williams has a higher % of empty assists, if you ask me, Nash is probably the greater creator.
LeBron creates a lot, on % I think more than anyone.

[G35]

I was surprised when I found out a pass to a jumpshot counted as an assist. Personally that is the weakest interpretation of an assist imo. The shooter may do all the work. Take for example Rip Hamilton; he is the one who has to read the defense and run off of screens and has put in the time to work on his mid range jumpshot but anybody can pass it to him for a wide open 15 ft shot and they get an assist? Weak.

I agree that assists should lead directly to a basket. Layups and dunks. That's an assist. That would show who is getting their guys easy baskets and making them better.

That's why I don't see the comparison between Paul and Lebron. Switch Peja and Wally. Ben Wallace and West. See if Paul's assist go up or down......

[NO-KG-AI]

I was surprised when I found out a pass to a jumpshot counted as an assist. Personally that is the weakest interpretation of an assist imo. The shooter may do all the work. Take for example Rip Hamilton; he is the one who has to read the defense and run off of screens and has put in the time to work on his mid range jumpshot but anybody can pass it to him for a wide open 15 ft shot and they get an assist? Weak.

I agree that assists should lead directly to a basket. Layups and dunks. That's an assist. That would show who is getting their guys easy baskets and making them better.

That's why I don't see the comparison between Paul and Lebron. Switch Peja and Wally. Ben Wallace and West. See if Paul's assist go up or down......

You think LeBron would average more? Chris had 7.8 as a rookie, on a team that won 17 games the year before. LeBron's high is 7.2, in 4 more minutes, and 6 more minutes per game.

I do agree with the rest of your post though.

I don't get why this guy singled Chris out in his article though, especially since there isn't much difference between his home and road games.

[Bgil]

Like every for stat, you need to know the numbers and watch the games to understand where it comes, how the offence is built, how much credit a player deserves for it.
There are players who have a higher % of what I'd call BS assists, when they don't really create opportunities for the offence but jus give the ball to the scorer (Billups would be the first name in my mind) or others who actually create a lot of the offence themselves (Nash last year was maybe the biggest example I remember).

Paul imo creates a lot of opportunities, Williams has a higher % of empty assists, if you ask me, Nash is probably the greater creator.
LeBron creates a lot, on % I think more than anyone.

Paul has a ton of those BS assists too. Unlike Deron, Paul doesn't have to share distributing duties with his point forward.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Take for example Rip Hamilton; he is the one who has to read the defense and run off of screens and has put in the time to work on his mid range jumpshot but anybody can pass it to him for a wide open 15 ft shot and they get an assist? Weak.

It's not like this is the only scenario, Paul could beat his man, the defence collapses and he finds an open Peterson in the corner.
Or Nash can find Amare for J from the elbow.

[penbeast0]

IMO clearly the definition of assists has changed, and in relation to the 80s and maybe the 90s game, they are indeed inflated. . .

Conclusion? Yeah, the assists in today's game are inflated.

Actually the rule change came well before 1980 and the 80s/90s are the era where assist inflation is more commonly charged. Oscar Robertson is right that assists in his era were more rigorously awarded because the rule was that if you dribbled after a pass, no matter now clearly the pass led to a basket, it was NOT an assist. They changed it to passes leading directly to a basket allowing dribbles (like a "continuation" shooting foul"). That said, Oscar's numbers are even more impressive although he played with some very good catch and shoot jumpshooters (Adrian Smith, Jerry Lucas), a skill that was used more in his era. And pace was higher.

[Rasheeed!!!]

Take for example Rip Hamilton; he is the one who has to read the defense and run off of screens and has put in the time to work on his mid range jumpshot but anybody can pass it to him for a wide open 15 ft shot and they get an assist? Weak.

Having watched Hamilton over the last 5 yrs I can tell you that not just anyone can get him the ball. It takes a skilled passer to get the ball to the right spot and the only players that can do that are Prince & Billups. I've watched various other guys fail at this even though it looks easy....usually he won't get the ball in his sweet spot or it will be too far away from the basket to have the same effectiveness.

[Alyosha12]

Calderons careerer high in assists in 3 years of euroleague was 6, in his last season his highest number was 5 in almost 30mins of play per game.

Now sure may be the pace was slower, may be not, may be the FG% was higher may be not im to lazy to check.

But i sure as hell know, he is almost the same player he was when he left for the NBA with a better J and that doesn't help him with his assist numbers.

So it is clear to me that the definition of an assist in the NBA is much much more liberal then in europe, where as the dictation of the rule is almost the same.

So it is easy to see that NBA score keepers really don't follow the dictation of the rule to the extent the Euroleague scorekeepers do.

But in any case i think the Assist stat is more or less crap, as a PG or any other player for that matter, playing on a crappy team, and a PG playing on a very good high fg% team, with the same skill to create for others would have a very different APg average.

So that is why when i judge a PG i don't judge him by his assist numbers but rather by how good of a floor general he is and a leader, how many TOs he has and how many ill-advised shots he takes, and how much he dominates the ball.

[cwas2882]

I think that in some cases an assist isn't awarded in the spirit of an "assist" Take for an example a PG driving the lane and causing three defenders to collapse, he passes out to the baseline and they swing one more pass immediately to the wing for a three. The baseline guy gets the assist, where I believe in "the spirit," the assist should go to the PG.

[Lakers_4_Life]

If you watch a game in one of the top European leagues like Euroleague, Spanish League, Greek League, ULEB Cup - you will see that the assists for the NBA are extremely liberal. LITERALLY you can see a guy dish 15 assists and only get credited with 5 there in the box score. LITERALLY. You watch a game and what would be something like 15 assists for Paul or Nash in the NBA is 5 for a guy like Pablo Prigioni, Theo Papaloukas, Pepe Sanches, Vasilis Spanoulis, etc.

It's the same if you watch a FIBA national team competition. It's funny seeing someone like Paul or Nash get like 3-5 assists in a FIBA international tournament in a game. I think honestly Oscra is right. Assists have become way to easy to get these days in the NBA. It's one thing when Paul or Nash sets up West or Amare and obviously when they spoon feed them, but some these assists.........it's like when you see Rafer Alston in a box score "7 assists" but you just watched the game and there were ZERO I mean ZERO actual assists. He just post fed Yao 7 times, who then made a one on one post move and got a basket........Alston gets 7 "assists".

It's actually ridiculous because he literally did NOTHING to get that assist but it appears he somehow created some offense for his team INFLATING his stats and performance. It the on the other hand has people saying "look Yao only scored when assisted look at 82games.com" and stupid nonsense like that, when the guy is literally doing everything on his own.

I've been thinking this for awhile now thinking back that you know a lot of these assists Paul is getting look nothing like say assists Magic or Stockton would get, YET he is getting similar numbers.