Metallikid wrote:dhsilv2 wrote:Metallikid wrote:
But he also had a higher ASSIST RATE - "Assist percentage is an estimate of the percentage of teammate field goals a player assisted while he was on the floor." Which means Manu was not the better passer, because he didn't result in more assists for his teammates than Tony when he was on the floor. Not to mention TP had the ball in his hands more, which means a significant portion of Manu's assists came as secondary passes after Tony probed and warped the defenses and made the primary pass. To top it off Tony has the lower career Turnover % as well. So I think the idea that Manu is a better passer or offense initiator than TP is just flat out empirically wrong. What I will give Manu is that he was fantastic at moving off-ball, but that doesn't make him a point guard.
Did you just say Manu wasn't the better passer? LMAO! OMG....
No, assists in ANY metric doesn't measure passing.
Parker's peak AST% is greater than Larry FREAKING BIRD's! Are you going to with a straight face tell me Parker is a better passer than Bird?
Your first statement is not an argument and you've really provided no evidence as to why Manu is a better passer than Tony.
If assists, assist rate, and turnover percentage have no bearing on how good a passer someone is, which I think you are wrong about, then what metrics are?
Much like defense we don't have great passing stats. We don't quantify it well. It's why it's hard to argue about Curry vs Trae in terms of passing for example. This however is one of the greatest passers in NBA history against a guy who was maybe a bit above average. It's not really a discussion worth having when comparing these two in terms of passing ability.
Remember a great pass doesn't always lead to a score and sometimes that isn't even the goal of the great pass. Elite entry pass guys from the past weren't getting assists for getting their post players the ball in the right place, but it was a critical skill. Similarly, a pass the shifts the defense and allows a player to pass cross court to create a 2 on 1 or 3 on 2 type set is again not going to be recorded and these are the types of things that Manu was exceptional at.
You could always take (assists + secondary assists)/total passes if you wanted to get more into the efficiency of a pass, but again you're still going to very often be grossly incorrect with that analysis too.
That said just looking at 2015 (70 and 68 games respectful) we get Parker (11.99%) Manu (17.23%). Clearly again this isn't a fair analysis of passing, but it's a better way to illustrate the concept. I'm also not sure I fully buy into the accuracy of secondary assists, to say the least about how poor we know the nba is at the consistency of assists themselves.
edit - used 2014 by mistake, but 15's numbers aren't too much different. Both drop about a percent.