A question about counting assists in NBA history...

[SomeBunghole]

What year did the rules change? Do you have a source for this?

What rules? The scorekeepers have always had discretion when it came to recording stats, since most stats are at least partly subjective.

[ty 4191]

What year did the rules change? Do you have a source for this?

What rules? The scorekeepers have always had discretion when it came to recording stats, since most stats are at least partly subjective.

Did you see my post several posts up?

viewtopic.php?p=109267330#p109267330

They've been tracking assist % since 1964-1965. The overall leader, Oscar Robertson, for the first 10 years of tracking wouldn't even be in the top 20 in assist % the past 10 years!!!

You're telling me the rules and enforcement of said rules (re: what constitutes an assist) haven't changed?

[Lalouie]

assist counting imo is one of the hardest thins in basketball


lemme ask about a couple from the grey end. passer make a pas to a streaking mate > mate catches the ball > 2steps > dunk. assist, right?

passer makes a pass > mate who takes it from half court, a clear break, is that an assist? is it an assist if there's a trailing opponent who attempts a block of the layup?

is it as assist if the pass goes to a man under the basket and all he has to do is dunk,,,BUT HE FUMBLES the ball and he has to do a twisty layup to avoid the dunk. or maybe the passer is magic/bird and no one but a magic or bird could have made that pass to that layup????

an assist puts a player in position to score - that's my simple answer

the thing about the cousy example,,,,,they're using TODAY"S RULES on plays cousy made 60years ago. YOU CANNOT DO THAT. that's the dumbest thing ive ever heard. you can't govern one era by the rules of another era.

if that's the case, ALL crossovers are turnovers by yesterday's rules. there'd be over 100 TO's per game for carrying the ball

i'm pretty loose with the definition because mine is "would another passer have seen that play", so i give credit to the passer who saw the play

[SomeBunghole]

You're telling me the rules and enforcement of said rules (re: what constitutes an assist) haven't changed?

No, I'm saying that there weren't "rules" per se, in the sense that the league had a precise guide to every statistical category that they sent to scorekeepers, nor was there any mechanism to check if scorekeepers were following these rules.

Even the current NBA definition of assist is vague and open to interpretation.

"An assist is credited to the player tossing the last pass leading directly to a made field goal, but only if the player scoring the goal demonstrates an immediate reaction toward the basket after receiving the pass. Note also that an inbound pass can be credited as an assist if it leads directly to a field goal."

So yes, the interpretation of what an assist is has gotten much less strict in the past 50 years, but it had nothing to do with a rule change or enforcement(no one enforces this). It was a collective consensus of sorts because of the changing nature of the game. The NBA(well, including its predecessor the BAA) has been tracking assists since its very first season. In 1947, teams averaged between 4.5 and 8.2 assists. And yes, the league was low scoring but a league-wide average of 7 assists on 26 made field goals is still really low. It was 25 on 42 last season.

Now, you can look up what basketball looked like in 1947 on Youtube. The league-wide FG% was .279! There were so many offensive rebounds, leading to so many putbacks on which you obviously can't get an assist. There was no shot clock so you could take your sweet time setting up. There were a lot of set shots, a lot of strange running hooks, a lot of fakes after getting the ball in the post and then shooting...

As the game changed and evolved, so did the idea of an assist. But it's not something that came from the top down.

[Calvin Klein]

Assists are the most subjective of the main stats. And the NBA wants high stats numbers to sell their product "Look! A new record!! Triple Doubles!!!" etc...so you better believe statisticians try to get those assists numbers as high as they can.

[dhsilv2]

I've bitched about how overstated the assist is (especially if it's not scored the right way).

But I have another problem with the assist as a statistic; it's one thing to recognize a teammate being open for an easy basket and hitting him for a look you know he'll hit at a high percentage. It's a whole different story if all you do is have the ball the whole game and pass the ball to teammates 80 times hoping they shoot it every time.

I'm not saying that's totally how it breaks down, but as an offensive efficiency metric the assist is lacking. I think a better way to measure it would be: what percentage of passes after a teammate has taken a shot leads to an actual assist? That way you're better measuring whether a guy is making the right reads on a per-possession basis or if he's just giving it up to guys who like to shoot the ball a lot, playing in a really high-pace offense, etc.

So you'd have stats like:
FGA/pass into a shot
FG/pass into a shot
FG%/pass into a shot

ie Mike Conley passes it to Marc 5 times, Marc takes the shot 3 times and makes it twice.
So just to make it clearer:
3 Field Goal attempts/5 passes into a shot
2 FG/5 passes into shots
2FG/3FGA=.666FG%/pass into a shot

I think that would be a lot better at measuring the kinds of looks you actually create for teammates and how good you are at reading offensive situations. And I don't think it would be that hard to keep track of.

The other problem with the assist is that it also rewards guys who play in a system where people are more likely to take jumpers, because if you're dropping it off to guys down low, a lot of the time they're getting fouled and going to the line instead of scoring a basket. I don't know if it breaks down that way statistically, but that's what I suspect anyway.

I've always thought a shooting foul should count as an assist.

[Phreak50]

While todays assist numbers are inflated: they're just as inflated as Stocktons and Magics numbers. So Rondos features isn't less impressive than theirs, we'd have to go back longer to actually notice a difference. Cousy is a good example.

This is complete garbage.

The current era assist is a completely different thing to what Stockton and Magic had.

You can pass to a guy now who is completely stationary. He can jab step, pump fake, then drive, dribbling as long as he wants, then stop, fake out a defender and hit a shot. That is an assist today. Every day of the week.

It has never, ever been that bad.

If the guy catching the ball has to do any work, it shouldn't be an assist.

You should watch some of the disgraceful **** the Spurs scorers gave Wemby an assist for in his first bunch of games.

[WhateverBro]

While todays assist numbers are inflated: they're just as inflated as Stocktons and Magics numbers. So Rondos features isn't less impressive than theirs, we'd have to go back longer to actually notice a difference. Cousy is a good example.

This is complete garbage.

The current era assist is a completely different thing to what Stockton and Magic had.

You can pass to a guy now who is completely stationary. He can jab step, pump fake, then drive, dribbling as long as he wants, then stop, fake out a defender and hit a shot. That is an assist today. Every day of the week.

It has never, ever been that bad.

If the guy catching the ball has to do any work, it shouldn't be an assist.

You should watch some of the disgraceful **** the Spurs scorers gave Wemby an assist for in his first bunch of games.

I wrote that post 11 years ago.

[Hoppy1]

From NBA Video Rule Book:
An assist is credited to the player tossing the last pass leading directly to a made field goal, but only if the player scoring the goal demonstrates an immediate reaction toward the basket after receiving the pass.

[KokoKaizer]

While todays assist numbers are inflated: they're just as inflated as Stocktons and Magics numbers. So Rondos features isn't less impressive than theirs, we'd have to go back longer to actually notice a difference. Cousy is a good example.

This is complete garbage.

The current era assist is a completely different thing to what Stockton and Magic had.

You can pass to a guy now who is completely stationary. He can jab step, pump fake, then drive, dribbling as long as he wants, then stop, fake out a defender and hit a shot. That is an assist today. Every day of the week.

It has never, ever been that bad.

If the guy catching the ball has to do any work, it shouldn't be an assist.

You should watch some of the disgraceful **** the Spurs scorers gave Wemby an assist for in his first bunch of games.

I wrote that post 11 years ago.

And you're still here

[ty 4191]

I think the way to look at stats like this is:

Hi Doc,

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/9c546y/in_the_1968_nba_season_when_wilt_chamberlain_lead/

First hand testimonials re: the assist rules in the 60's.

(Clearly, far more stringent and restrictive/limiting of assists than the past 40 years.)

[og15]

What year did the rules change? Do you have a source for this?

What rules? The scorekeepers have always had discretion when it came to recording stats, since most stats are at least partly subjective.

Did you see my post several posts up?

viewtopic.php?p=109267330#p109267330

They've been tracking assist % since 1964-1965. The overall leader, Oscar Robertson, for the first 10 years of tracking wouldn't even be in the top 20 in assist % the past 10 years!!!

You're telling me the rules and enforcement of said rules (re: what constitutes an assist) haven't changed?

The lower FG% league wide, when we compare shot quality from when Oscar played to later seasons and now is also a factor. If Oscar threw similar quality passes now with the same assist rules as when he played, he would also get more apg simply because more of the shots would be made.

[og15]

I think the way to look at stats like this is:

Hi Doc,

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/9c546y/in_the_1968_nba_season_when_wilt_chamberlain_lead/

First hand testimonials re: the assist rules in the 60's.

(Clearly, far more stringent and restrictive/limiting of assists than the past 40 years.)

Are people are lot more lenient on Wilt with all these stat padding and basically selfish play stories that are there about him than they are on a guy like Westbrook grabbing free defensive rebounds for example? Westbrook’s situation isn’t hurting the team, but Wilt not wanting to pass to guys who wouldn’t shoot right away because of assists is all levels bad for a team atmosphere.

[DC_Melo]

Put it this way.

Bob Cousy won an assist title averaging 7apg in an era where teams scored well over 100ppg average.

The assist stat is ridicilous. I have seen guys get an assist after the person they passed to took three dribbles and did a spin move.

I think at the moment you are given an assist if you are the last person to pass to someone before they score. Even if they waste 20 seconds of the clock in an iso move.

Kinda of… although the player receiving the pass must make an immediate action towards the basket for it to count

https://videorulebook.nba.com/archive/assist-pass-leads-directly-to-made-field-goal-pass-drive-to-basket-and-lay-up/#:~:text=An%20assist%20is%20credited%20to%20the%20player%20tossing%20the%20last,directly%20to%20a%20field%20goal.

[pace31]

I think it has more to do with the quality of the scorekeepers and how much home cooking goes on than the era in history. John Stockton's assist per game average at home was much higher than on road games for example.

Edit: NM didn't see this was a few day old thread and already discussed this. There really hasn't been too much evidence of more home APG vs. road APG other than that teams just play better at home

[Doctor MJ]

I think the way to look at stats like this is:

Hi Doc,

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/9c546y/in_the_1968_nba_season_when_wilt_chamberlain_lead/

First hand testimonials re: the assist rules in the 60's.

(Clearly, far more stringent and restrictive/limiting of assists than the past 40 years.)

I still think there's a question of whether there was anything that could actually be called a "rule change" between then and now. I'm not denying its existence, but it just seems like scorekeepers get a lot of leeway on this stuff now, and the NBA's ability to actually double check stuff in the deep past was much worse.

Again not denying that the reality of assist-giving has changed, just think it might be more about front-line-creep than it is about executive policy.

[Hoop Hunter]

The player receiving a pass can make 1 dribble and it's still a assist. That's it as for as rules go.

Not sure when or if the rules have ever changed.

[Doctor MJ]

I think the way to look at stats like this is:

Hi Doc,

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/9c546y/in_the_1968_nba_season_when_wilt_chamberlain_lead/

First hand testimonials re: the assist rules in the 60's.

(Clearly, far more stringent and restrictive/limiting of assists than the past 40 years.)

Are people are lot more lenient on Wilt with all these stat padding and basically selfish play stories that are there about him than they are on a guy like Westbrook grabbing fee defensive rebounds for example? Westbrook’s situation isn’t hurting the team, but Wilt not wanting to pass to guys who wouldn’t shoot right away because of assists it all levels bad for a team atmosphere.

So, I'm glad you're addressing the actual content in what ty shared because it's a big, big deal imho.

Big picture I don't think there's likely to be a lot of overlap between the people who are critical of Westbrook for statpadding and the people who are in denial about Wilt's stat padding, but to the extent they are, they are a confused bunch.

For myself:

I've been both quite critical of Westbrook's general approach to his NBA style of play and quite aware of the lack of defensive rebounding impact that Westbrook's defensive rebounding had...but I've long tried to be clear that I'm not saying Westbrook was literally hurting those teams with the defensive rebounds. You generally want to get the ball in your primary playmaker's hands as soon as possible, so why not recognize that if he can actually be the first guy to touch the ball after the opponent's miss, it might be a good idea? Analytically the consequence is simply that the defensive rebounding impact of the team in question is further removed from who is getting the defensive rebounds.

I do actually think it's an interesting question of whether Westbrook actually statpadded as a goal - I think you can argue that there's a natural tendency for someone with high motor to want to get to the ball and have the ball as much as possible, and almost the entirety of the box score is simply about a guy watching the ball and noting who was touching the ball when a particular event took place, so a guy really can just "mess around and get a triple double".

But what's unquestionable that those who process basketball through a lens of "production" - as box score-based assessment is now termed - will naturally overrate such a player the same way they overrate guys who explicitly statpad.

Over to Wilt:

It's absolutely fascinating to understand how Wilt thought out there, and I think that the only way to evaluate Wilt properly is to understand that he had different goals out there than just helping his team win the game. Wilt's not alone in being like this, but Wilt is distinct in that:

a) he was peculiar and mercurial in what he was going for.
b) he really wasn't trying to hide what he was doing.

I tend to think Wilt saw himself as something of an athletic artist. He wanted to prove he could succeed in different ways. After being defined specifically as the greatest scorer ever, he wanted to show he could be the greatest passer ever. Later he wanted to demonstrate he could succeed by maxing out his efficiency while focusing on rebounding and defense. And of course as he did this, he played with more finesse than was required. Making a point to do something other than power-his way through all opponents, and making it a point to never foul out.

He did this while making himself be known as much as possible outside of basketball, and outside of sports entirely. As a "basketball star", he was much more focused on the "star" than the "basketball.

All of these statements can be interpreted as me "hating" Wilt because it plays into me ranking Wilt lower than most when we do lists of competitive basketball achievement, but I'm literally just saying that Wilt had goals bigger than a kid's game, and I think he thought of the situation as such. He didn't want to be "just a basketball player", and so now when folks like us rank players as "just basketball players", it hurts him.

But yeah, I think Wilt using the game like this did tend to hurt his teams some, and to the extent that publicly acknowledging this is criticizing Wilt, well, then all those statements are in effect criticisms.

Wrapping it up, I note that I'm much more liberal in applying the word "critical" in my attitude toward Westbrook than Wilt, and I think I should address that.

When I say I'm critical of how Westbrook has played his NBA career, what I mean is that I think Westbrook's primary goal has indeed been to help his team win as much as possible, but that he ended up getting defensive of criticisms of how he went about doing that and didn't evolve optimally for him to accomplish his goal.

In that sense, I don't have the same criticism of Wilt because I just think he had different goals.

Now, I am critical of Wilt in other ways that are mostly not basketball related, and I think I'll avoid getting into here and now, but if I were to criticize Wilt's approach to basketball in terms of how I perceive his goals:

I don't think Wilt understood how his competitive failures in the NBA would end up bothering him because of the way the basketball world continued to talk about him in the decades after his retirement, and how much his basketball identity would again swallow up the rest of him as time marched on.

I think he'd be happy that there continue to be people who choose to see Wilt as someone who could literally do pretty much anything in athletic domains and be the best at it. I think he wanted that. But I think he also clearly had those "rabbit ears" a bit like Kevin Durant - where he can't seem to stop himself from reading everything anyone wrote or said about him, and then obsessing about the negatives.

[Doctor MJ]

From NBA Video Rule Book:
An assist is credited to the player tossing the last pass leading directly to a made field goal, but only if the player scoring the goal demonstrates an immediate reaction toward the basket after receiving the pass.

I appreciate you sharing this, but it does make me ask:

Do they define "immediate reaction" or "reaction" in the video rule book?

I'd imagine they don't, and if they don't, then this presents significant wiggle room for the scorekeeper.

[Doctor MJ]

The player receiving a pass can make 1 dribble and it's still a assist. That's it as for as rules go.

Not sure when or if the rules have ever changed.

Well I think back in the day the norm was that the player couldn't take any dribbles.

I'll also say: I honestly don't necessarily have a problem with an assist being granted with the receiver take multiple dribbles, particularly in transition.

And so I think this is central to the problem here: Simple rules lead to results that either seem too restrictive or too permissive, which facilitates a scorekeeping culture that paints a bit outside the lines...which over time leads to exploitation.