Causes of the Lack of Assists

[aaron_gray]

Twelve games into the season, the Lakers rank 27th in the league in assists per game at just below 19 every match. Kobe currently leads the team in assists at a paltry 4 per game. The team's nominal point guards, Russell and Huertas, both average around 3 assists a game, (though Huertas's number jumps to 8.4 if we looked at per 36). Assists are often cited as an indicator of the healthiness of an offense and its impact extends beyond that. A culture of selflessness (not just Chris Paul/Rondo padding their assist numbers) boosts morale and energy. The impact of a high number of assists can be seen in their offense rating, ranked out of the 30 teams in the league:

Assists per game in 2015 top 5 teams with offensive rating ranking:
1. Golden State Warriors (1st)
2. Atlanta Hawks (9th)
3. San Antonio Spurs (7th)
4. Boston Celtics (10th)
5. Cleveland Cavaliers (3rd)

Assists per game in 2015 bottom 5 teams with offensive rating ranking:
30. Detroit Pistons (27th)
29. Utah Jazz (19th)
28. Toronto Raptors (6th)
27. Los Angeles Lakers (24th)
26. Philadelphia Not Actually Trying-ers (30th)

The Raptors would appear to be an obvious outlier here, but just after the not trying ers rests the Phoenix Suns at 25th and the Portland Trail Blazers at 24th. The Suns rank 8th in offensive rating and the Blazers 11th. All 3 teams have a combination of guards that can create their own offense at an elite level, and that talent can power the offensive to above average to good levels in the league.

The Lakers unfortunately do not have that luxury, which is why the lack of assists is worth discussing. One might argue that the Lakers actually have more talent than the Celtics do right now, yet the disparity in assists and the resulting disparity in offensive fire power illustrates the impact of sharing the rock on a team's offense.

So what are the causes of this dearth in the stat that gets point guards paid? Below, I've outlined what I consider to be the 2 primary culprits:


Lack of offensive threats and penetration

Being a threat to do something on the offensive end of the floor ensures that players won't simply abandon you to ruin the play. Dribble penetration forces defensive rotations and leads to mismatches, offensive rebounds, open lanes for cutting and many other goodies. The presence of both ensures that passes can be completed to a player in position to score. Right now, I would barely consider Bass, Nance and Huertas to be offensive threats. Meanwhile, Russell has scared many of his supporters with his tendency to settle for a jumper. The drive and dish is a core skill of today's floor generals, and the inability to penetrate can seriously undermine one's ability to create for his teammates. Your typical point guard will average 8 drives a game if he is big and can finish at the rim. Some of the smaller point guards that have gotten by with floaters still average about 6. Russell currently averages 1.8, but the problem doesn't just end with him. Nick Young and Metta both average under 1 drive a game while Kobe averages around 2. Lou, Clarkson and Randle are the only real players that can drive, which seriously compromises the whole idea of the drive and kick game. Of those 3, only Lou Will has shown the willingness to pass out of the drives, passing to a teammate on 36% of his drives and average 0.7 assists on drives per game.

Mirjalovic close your eyes

Julius Randle currently leads in the league in isolation frequency. When he's shot it, he's actually been Harden-esque in terms of efficiency (though that comment doesn't hold as much weight this year). However, the damage he does to the ball movement and offensive efficiency is most evident when he chooses not to. Too many times, Randle has caught the ball at the top of the arc and stared down the defensive player as if he was about to isolate. The other 4 players just stop moving and watch him. He will make a jab step, decide against iso-ing and pass out to the nearest wing player. By then, the offense has ground to a halt. Randle needs to be integrated into the offense in different ways, not just as a last gasp option. He can easily apply his isolation/bully ball skillset in a pick and roll situation where he can catch the defender moving. Another way to integrate him would be to clear out one side of the floor for him to operate with something going on on the weak side in case his isolation is well defended.

The same can be said for Lou. At times, he has made something out of nothing by jumping and drawing touch fouls from defenders. When he doesn't get the call though, he makes a jumping pass to a teammate who is forced to do something on an essentially dead play. Unless Lou's skill set is integrated within the offense rather than just allowing him to try and carry the team, things aren't going to end well when the refs swallow their whistles.


What do you guys think is causing the lack of assists? What would be the best way to fix the issue?

[Marionettetc]

The problem with just looking at surface level stats like this and then making an observation is that statistics alone don't tell the whole story. I'm not making fun of you aaron_gray - I actually think you provided good insight as to the "why", but I feel these are the issues with your conclusion :

1) You look at the per team averages for assists, then come to the conclusion that there has to be something "wrong"
2) The difference between the Lakers (19 apg), and every other team in the league besides the top 8 (I'm using that as the cut off for significant statistical deviance just for example) is

Lakers 0 apg (Rank 27th)
1 apg (rank 26th - 20th)
2 apg (rank 19th - 11th)
3 apg (rank 10th - 8th)

and then you have teams posting wildly higher assist numbers per game. I don't consider a variance of 1-3 assists to be meaningful given the complexity of the nature of a team based statistic and the small sample size of data thus far in the season.
3) Taken in context, there are really only 8 teams in the league really outperforming the Lakers enough to dissect the reasons why.
4) At this point, is it even worth analyzing the top teams in the league?

Because at that point, a smaller fraction of teams being wildly better at a part of the game than most others seems to be easily attributed to the quality of staff on the payroll. Nawhtimean?

To answer your final question though, I think the reason the Lakers are at the bottom of the league in assists is the relative inexperience of the first and second year players, Coaching schemes and Kobe, Randle, Lou and Nick traditionally attacking instead of creating.

[SlimShady83]

Lack of ball movement, lack of shooting - I've noticed that once someone passes the person who gets, usually dribbles/plays around with for a little bit then shoots/drives. Just imo

[Mamba Mentality]

It's pretty simple really, when you have guys like Kobe, Clarkson, Swaggy, Lou, and Julius you're going to struggle in the assists department. Those five guys are ball stoppers...and the sad thing is we usually have any three of them on the floor at the same time on most nights.

This roster in general is just horribly constructed, top to bottom. We should have traded Swaggy, and should have never signed Lou. Leave those guys for the treadmill teams. I'm expecting a complete roster transplant next season.

[gts1]

Here's why I'm not concerned at this time at the assists numbers.. I think those assist numbers will come up when/if the FG% rises, 26th in assists coincides with 27th in FG%.... to me that's the biggest factor, hard to rack up those numbers if the ball is not dropping

Aslo as mentioned the ISO plays kills assist numbers but those are lessening as the team learns to play together, as we've all seen the ball is moving better as of late and should continue to do so... One area that needs extra work is the offensive rebound numbers... ORBs tend to lead to increased assists too but right now we're close to the bottom of the league in offensive rebound rate..

shoot better, keep moving the ball and grab a a couple extra missed shots off the glass per game and things will balance out

it'll be interesting to revist this topic at the all star break

[Slava]

This right here:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/MichaelVPina/status/668137705901944832[/tweet]

But I think its going to improve, Kobe changed is tone in the Detroit game and we had 21 assists for 27 field goals at one point. That will continue to improve steadily if he keeps trying to get the young guys shots.

[Michael Lucky]

not surprising. I think Young, Lou, and Kobe must lead the league in shooting contested threes.

[ArC_man]

I think it's a bit concerning and it's due to the offense as well as the personnel. Something's definitely wrong with the ball movement if Kobe is preaching move ball movement .

A couple of other stats to look at in terms of judging ball movement are "Potential Assists" and total "Passes Made" (unfortunately we're bottom 5 in these as well). Potential assists ignores the FG% on the shot afterwards and passes made is a decent judge on how much the ball is moving around. http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/team/passing/

However, I think most of these stats need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis and aren't always a judge of how good an offense is. For example, the Clippers have rather low amount of potential assists and passes made (bottom 10 in both) for a top 5 offense but you have to realize that Chris Paul is the one making these passes so a higher percentage of these passes lead to FGs. On the other hand, Philly passes the ball like crazy (top 5 in passes made) but the ball movement doesn't lead to buckets.

[LApwnd]

Does this team actually have any set plays? Its rare to see anyone get easy buckets in half court setup

[Rosque]

Does this team actually have any set plays? Its rare to see anyone get easy buckets in half court setup

Do iso's count?

[BJGOAT3]

A trivial cause of this, not only we have terrible ball movement, but also our spot-up shooting is terrible. Other than Nick Young and Lou Williams, there isn't anybody on the team who has the ability to consistently knock the spot up three, and both of these players hate to spot up, they are off-dribble 3 pt shooters. Clarkson seems to be improving in spotting up, but majority of the minutes go to players effective in isolation. D'Angelo doesn't have the respect of opposing defences yet, so they never contest him tight during pick&rolls, resulting with jump shots from him instead of feeds inside. Also our bigs are really incapable of being effective in pick&roll. Randle is a top of the key isolation player right now, he rarely sets a pick, Hibbert is weak in pick & roll, he was never effective in that regard in Indiana as well. When you look at what generates most assists in the game it is probably pick&roll and extra passes for spot up shooters, both are non existent with this team.

Even if ball movement is magically fixed, Lakers don't have the personnel to be a high assists team. Only way of changing this is a high pace transition based offence with D'Angelo Clarkson Randle running a lot, that doesn't fit to Kobe-Hibbert segment of the starters at all.

[Jakay]

Does this team actually have any set plays? Its rare to see anyone get easy buckets in half court setup

Does this team get any easy baskets at all? For a young team they really don't get out in transition very well.

[Westbreezy]

Does this team actually have any set plays? Its rare to see anyone get easy buckets in half court setup

Does this team get any easy baskets at all? For a young team they really don't get out in transition very well.

Think I read that they had 0 transition points today

[Laker_Kid]

Does this team actually have any set plays? Its rare to see anyone get easy buckets in half court setup

Does this team get any easy baskets at all? For a young team they really don't get out in transition very well.

Think I read that they had 0 transition points today

funny coz nick young actually mentioned this in his interview.

"Are you concerned more offensively that defensively at this point?

"I think it's both. We need more easy plays... more fast breaks... we only had 2 transition points tonight... we got some young players, we're supposed to be out there running and gunning..."

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euwCUwD1v4k[/youtube]

if I'm D'Antoni, I'd be mad at the Lakers for having the roster I like the last 2 years (this and last year's). lol.

[Laker_Kid]

*sorry double posted.

[warrenpeace]

Actually, D'Antoni would not play Randle, because he is not a stretch 4. He would think that Ryan Kelly is a better player than Randle and start Kelly instead of Randle. Remember how he thought a waiver wire player Earl Clark was a better player than Gasol. Gasol leaves the Lakers and is the starting center for the east in the all star game and Earl Clark is out of the NBA. The Lakers probably would not have drafted Randle if D'Antoni was the coach.

[Mirjalovic]

Actually, D'Antoni would not play Randle, because he is not a stretch 4. He would think that Ryan Kelly is a better player than Randle and start Kelly instead of Randle. Remember how he thought a waiver wire player Earl Clark was a better player than Gasol. Gasol leaves the Lakers and is the starting center for the east in the all star game and Earl Clark is out of the NBA. The Lakers probably would not have drafted Randle if D'Antoni was the coach.

LOL

he would love a big that run like Beast. He probably even will start Beast as 5