86 Bird Assist Tracking: How valuable were Larry's assists?

[OhayoKD]

There has been a fair bit of recent discussion, much of which I’ve engaged in, scrutinizing just how much value Larry Bird offered as a playmaker. While some tracking has been produced exploring this, the sample is still quite small and I don’t think any of it has really used the specific process I’ve been using since this thread:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2388436&p=113860138&hilit=66#p11386013

A single game’s worth of assists will not turn this small sample into a large one but you gotta start somwhere.

Some of you might be familiar with how we’re going to do this, but for the uninitiated we will be counting the following

1. Defenders taken out (DTOs) -> this is when a player entirely or near-entirely renders a defender unable to affect an offensive play themselves(excepting a reset)

2. Additional Defenders Affected (ADAs) -> this is when a player helps render a defender unable to affect an offensive play

Will be looking for these on non-baskets and on rebounds and will be counting the two as separate things. Will also count plays where there was an opportunity to take-advantage of a player's off-ball creation but the opportunity was passed on. Will not be looking for on-ball creation though I encourage any interested party to look for the same things with the ball. I also encourage any interested party to do their own tracking/vetting.

…

I will also be qualitatively judging “creations” as either “Great”, “Good”, “Decent’, or “Weak”.

I have chosen 1 game for each player and will look at the first 40-possessions of each.

I also encourage the willing to cross-reference the grades from this tracking with the previously linked one to see if they think these value-judgements are consistent.

Preamble over.

Watch on YouTube

Assist 1 - 2:48

Bird receives the ball on a fast-break and dribbles it down the court making one defender lose track of their man ball-watching before taking him out with a pass-fake, and then taking out a second with a shot-pake turned pass. Parish converts the open jumper. Most attackers, especially in the 80’s, are not attempting those fakes, Bird does, ultimately turning a positive play into a highly valuable one. Good.

Assist 2 - 3:25

Bird throws an outlet pass to Mchale taking out one defender and leaving Mchale with lots of work (still has to drive and convert over two defenders). Not an especially difficult pass and creates very little. Weak.

Assist 3 - 3:43

Brings the ball up from the backcourt before taking out 1 defender and distracting 1 other making the double come late.. Mchale still has to turn and score over his guy. Decent.

Assist 4 - 4:38

Secures the board and leads the break distracting 1 defender before taking another out with a read to Walton. The player Bird distracts and helps late and Mchale gets in the way of Walton’s would-be shot-contestor. Decent

Assist 5 - 5:30

Is that even an assist? Bird gets an easy defensive board and then completes a replacement level-read to Ainge who proceeds to dribble the ball from the back court to the opposing key, goes around multiple defenders, and then lays it in. Bird basically does nothing here. Weak.

Assist 6 - 6:18

Bird lumps the ball past his man with an overhead pass to Mchake, Mchale gets inside of Peterson and lays it in. Doesn’t really draw extra attention and only takes out his own guy but it is an accurate throw for a fair distance and that’s probably a significantly tougher read for a small. I can see the argument for grading this as weak but I’ll be nice and give Bird another Decent.

Assist 7 - 6:25

Bird gets the ball at the elbow and waits for Sam Vincient’s man to get out of the way before throwing it past his own guy to Robert Parish who dribbles around Olajuwon and scores over a poorly positioned Peterson. Again, Bird isn’t really doing much here. He also passes on an opportunity to find Mchale open at or by the basket at 6:27-6:28 (though that read might be significantly tougher for him than someone with more arm-strength like Lebron or Jokic). Weak.

Assist 8 - 6:38

Bird has the ball at the elbow and waits till his man is screened off to complete a basic read to a wide-open Parish. To Bird’s credit he baits Parish’s man into cheating the opposite way though Parish is still left with plenty to do. Weak

Assist 9 - 7:26

Bird secures a rebound and throws an outlet to Parish taking out 1 defender and delaying an additional 2. Parish hits a semi-contested jumper. If Bird fires earlier instead of taking a few dribbles he might have had a home-run to Mchale open (though again, that’s probably more difficult for him to hit than a Jokic or a Lebron). Instead he’ll have to settle for a Good.

Assist 10 - 8:01

Bird steals the ball taking out one defender and hindering another(with help from Mchale) before getting Sampson out of position through a give and go with Ainge. Specifically looking at creation, I’ll rate this play as Good.

Assist 11 - For the first time in this tracking Bird draws a double and then fires a rocket to take out two defenders finding Ainge. Ainge converts a semi-contested jumper. Good.

Assist 12 - For the second time in this tracking Bird draws a double and swings the ball to Vincient who finds Parish wide-open. Parish dunks. Reliance on a middle-man makes this less valuable than the previous play. Still, taking out two defenders is enough for Bird to secure a decent.

Assist 13 - Bird takes out the Rockets whole defense with a quick outlet to Ainge. There are some epistemological questions to be asked here (does the ball bypassing players who are likely attached to other attackers if the possession develops further actually count as taking them out?). My answer for now is to count defenders who are significantly distanced from their would-be marks (in this case, there are 3) or are in position to affect the recipient (there are two). Taking out 3 defenders and bypassing the oher 2 gets Bird a Great to end this tracking.

Tally and Analysis

For Bird’s 13 assists, I gave him 16 DTOs and 9 ADAs giving Bird a total of 25 defenders and per-assist rates of 1.2 defenders taken out and 1.9 total defenders affected.

For a comparative frame, Hakeem, per-assist, had 2.3 DTOs and 2.9 defenders affected in HOU-LAC game 5 and HOU-SEA game 7(93, 12 total assists). Over 8 assists in the first game of the 2009 ECF I had Lebron with 2.4 DTOs per assist and 3 defenders affected on average. Over 8 on video Jordan assists in the 5th game of the 1991 finals, I gave Jordan, per assist, 1.5 DTOs and 1.9 toal defenders affected on average.

Using this approach, Bird, so far, grades out the lowest in terms of anyone I’ve tracked in-terms of assist-quality falling below everyone else in terms of DTOs and being tied for last in terms of total defenders affected(per-assist). Of those who have been tracked, only one is generally held in similar esteem to Bird as playmaker: Lebron. Bird’s DTOs(per-assist) trail Lebron’s by a factor of 2 and I gave him less than 2/3rds of Lebron’s total defenders affected(per-assist).

In short, if this set of assists is representative…yikes

Some caveats:

1. Quantity matters too

Bird averaged 9 assists this finals so even if this sample is representative, this doesn’t stop Bird from creating more than players who generate higher quality assists but register less of them.

2. What isn’t counted

While Bird scoring poorly here aligns with some of the per-possession tracking we’ve done
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=114250252#p114250252

alot is left out when you only look at plays featuring assists:

Secondary creation, the effect a player has as a ball-handler, rebounding gravity, and creation which is not capitalized on are not captured here.

If you have multiple teammates who can do alot themselves (mchale, parish, to a degree ainge), your contributions may be more likely to end in scores. Bird’s total creation may be overrepresented by whatever he is creating in the plays he records an assist relative to players with less fortunate context:


Any sort of off-ball creation would not show up(unless it occurs alongside an assist-play) and while I’m skeptical how much is there
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=114336565#p114336565
a truly holistic appraisal would account for that as well.

3. Misses/Turnovers

A benefit of working off-ball is you have less opportunity to turn the ball over. A con is you have less opportunity to draw extra defenders thereby “missing” potential passing windows. Neither shows up if you’re just tracking assist-plays.

4. Era/Team Context

Alot of the “decents” I gave Bird make me wonder if I was being unfair with the “weaks” i gave other plays where primary difference was Bird’s teammates being found more open. The right personnel can give you more opportunities to create:

Spoiler:

Great tracking by OhayoKD, I think it's cool and have done similar stuff myself.

Just want to point something out in general for others to keep in mind when trying to count up stuff like this:

The roster Bird has is widely regarded as one of the greatest supporting casts ever, perfect for creations because of it's versatility and having multiple methods of attack and proficient play finishers.

This play is a great demonstration of the Warriors roster. Starting at 4:40

Curry crosses half court and has 2 defenders following him, not committing to the trap but focusing on him already.
https://imgur.com/a/TBPGBTa

Then, he straight up gets tripled at the logo.
https://imgur.com/a/qcCiQoE

Curry reroutes the defense by using the Draymond screen at the edge of the court, creating a TON of spacing as he once more gets trapped.
https://imgur.com/a/zIDXBUZ

Then, the problems:
1- Kent Bazemore is not a real spacer. He shot a fine percentage but the defense does not respect him, so Ja Morant gives him a lot of space to be a more effective low man.

2- Draymond has literally 0 scoring talent at the rim or in the paint or really anywhere, and he does not trust himself to make a free throw. He knows this, so he doesn't roll hard, which is ultimately what allows JJJ to catch up.

3- Kevon Looney cannot do anything on offense. He cannot finish, post up, or capitilize on mismatches, so he's parked himself at the 3 point line and his defender is allowed to completely disrupt the play, not because of his defensive talent but because the offense is so deeply flawed.

If we replaced Draymond with a more competent roller, or replaced Looney with a stretch 5 or a normal big, or replaced Bazemore with a real spacer, suddenly this looks like Curry took 3 defenders out of a play and generated a wide open layup or 3 according to your system, but it fizzles out.


I know it doesn't affect the final conclusion since Curry won out, but even manual play tracking can underestimate players because of lacking context. This play goes from what would be a fantastic demonstration of gravity, on ball and off ball playmaking and offensive versatility to a play that "fizzles out because JJJ recovers well."

I'm pretty sure that was the description of the possession in the original post, I checked like 3 times and there was a missing possession which really confused me but it doesn't really matter.

On the other hand having teammates who do alot themselves may take away opportunities for you to be impactful. It might be worthwhile tracking Bird with weaker scoring talent around him in years like 81 and 84 to see if he “takes over” so to speak. Granted, Bird being unable to retain the same playmaking value on a better team would work against one of his most oft-cited strengths (scalability).

Illegal defense also makes doubling players significantly harder offering less opportunities for a playmaker to create without a similar drop in oppurtunity(or maybe even an increase) to make the final pass, potentially lowering assist quality.


5. The value of compromised defenders is not linear

This is particularly pertinent with players who are creating more via volume(alot of assists) as opposed to efficiency (high DTO-per assist). There are more players can reliably take out their own man than players who can reliably take out 2 defenders and there are more players who can reliably take out 2 men than there are players who can capitalize on opportunities to take out 3 and so on. DTO is basically assuming all “defenders taken out” are created equal, inflating the assist/creation quality of players who are doing lots of replaceable things vs players doing less hard to replace things. If this tracking is representative, Bird who took out multiple defenders in only 4 of his 13 assists might be a beneficiary of this. Accordingly, I might start counting Extra Defenders Taken Out (EDTO) with future tracking.

Some questions I’m pondering following this session of eye-test and write

1. Was there a path to frequent high-quality creation in the 80’s outside of slashing and post-play?

Touched on this earlier but illegal defense seems like a pain for anyone trying to draw multiple defenders significantly removed from the basket. While Bird’s limitations as a slasher have been covered when scrutinizing his scoring, I haven’t seen anyone (outside of this site) examine how this weakness might affect Bird’s effectiveness creating offense for others.

2. Are physical attributes like height, arm-strength and athleticism undervalued when comparing “pure passing”?

Great NBA playmakers are often compared to quarterbacks, yet there seems to be little discussion around traits quite highly valued for their NFL analogues. There were a couple times in this tracking where I saw Bird pass on a read I’ve seen bigger, stronger, and/or more athletic playmakers try in similar tracking. The two possessions where a teammate got involved to give Bird a cleaner “pocket” so to speak stood out to me. I have not really been properly tracking misses, but watching Bird gave me the impression of someone operating cautiously. It was a pretty stark contrast to the impression I got tracking Lebron’s creation in the 2007 finals where he was frequently firing off rockets with little apparent regard for distance or the amount of traffic impeding the throw:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=114823648#p114823648

Not saying Bird is Brock Purdy, but he doesn’t seem like Josh Allen either.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Might do this with a high-assist game for Magic next.

[SNPA]

13 assists in a game and your summary is he was operating “cautiously.”

That’s pro or anti take? I’m not clear.

[OhayoKD]

13 assists in a game and your summary is he was operating “cautiously.”

That’s pro or anti take? I’m not clear.

Let me help:

How valuable were Larry's assists?

We're looking for quality, not quantity here. There's tracking for that too but it's not the focus of this thread.

[theonlyclutch]

This is awesome film tracking and clearly a lot of effort has been put here.

Obvious caveats with sample size, use of definitions (Value of each DTO is not equal depending on expected points of the shot type I. E layups =/= open 3s), subjectivity aside. It sure seems like a lot of Bird's assists don't create an advantage that improves the 'xPP' of his teammates. Assist 5 is super egregious in that regard given Ainge basically had to do all the hard bits (dribbling 6 times and finishing a contested layup over multiple defenders) himself. But even many of the other assists can be broken down to Bird floating a pass to Mchale/Parish who then has to finish over a defender in the post. Those are not passes that improve xPPs and the fact that they are counted as assists at all is a credit to Mchale/Parish's scoring skills, not Bird's playmaking skills.

Contrast that to players like Lebron/Luka/CP3 who constantly throw passes leading to open shooters/lobs, or even in-era with Magic getting guys open at higher frequencies, and it becomes more clear which player's playmaking leads to higher xPP improvements from teammates. In the context of all that it is extremely hard to reconcile what Ben is seeing when putting the value of Bird's playmaking on par with all the above names...

[SNPA]

Contrast that to players like Lebron/Luka who constantly throw passes leading to open shooters/lobs, or even in-era with Magic getting guys open at higher frequencies, and it becomes more clear which player's playmaking leads to higher xPP improvements from teammates. In the context of all that it is extremely hard to reconcile what Ben is seeing when putting the value of Bird's playmaking on par with all the above names...

So an off ball PF in an era where ten guys would routinely play inside the arch vs helios from the space and pace era. It’s a contrast. That part is correct.

[OhayoKD]

Contrast that to players like Lebron/Luka who constantly throw passes leading to open shooters/lobs, or even in-era with Magic getting guys open at higher frequencies, and it becomes more clear which player's playmaking leads to higher xPP improvements from teammates. In the context of all that it is extremely hard to reconcile what Ben is seeing when putting the value of Bird's playmaking on par with all the above names...

So an off ball PF in an era where ten guys would routinely play inside the arch vs helios from the space and pace era. It’s a contrast. That part is correct.

Literally creates less off-ball than one of the helios listed lol

[falcolombardi]

Bird probably has beneffited more than anyone else from highlight watching because people think the absurd out of nowhere assists were a a multiple times a game occurence which doesnt track

Thinking basketball seemed to over weight the relatively tiny priportionally amoubt of what he called touch assists by bird (quick passes that led to easy shots) to imply bird assists were uniquely valuable

He was a brilliant passer but the degree of grquency to which he would pull a home run assist is thoroughly exxagerated

[trex_8063]

It is time-consuming doing tracking work like this, so thanks.

I would even say you're marginally generous in your subjective grade of one or two of these assists (there are 1 or 2 I probably wouldn't credit as assists at all [one which you called out yourself]). That said, this is one game, and there are likely others that would paint him more favourably.

One note on the assist at the 7:26 mark: I believe you meant to write that it was an outlet to Ainge [not Parish] .

[lessthanjake]

I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I’m not sure how helpful this “Defenders Taken Out” and “Additional Defenders Affected” stuff is, since those measures are themselves very subjective. I don’t have time to go through the video and tally things up myself, but I’d be shocked if I wouldn’t end up with pretty different numbers than you, even using the same definitions for DTO and ADA. And if some other person looked at it, they’d probably end up with something that’s different than either of us. This isn’t some objective measure, and I think trying to compare players using these measures would therefore likely just end up with peoples’ tallies confirming their priors.

That said, it might generally be a useful tool to use in thinking about and evaluating passes. Even then, though, it’s also not the full picture there, as I’d say there are great passes that don’t necessarily take defenders out, but perhaps just fit a pass into a tight window, which is the best opportunity in the moment even if the recipient’s defender is still there. We should always remember that the opportunity created from a pass is inherently limited by the off-ball movement of teammates. If a teammate has great off-ball movement, a pass to them is way more likely to “render the defender unable to affect the play” than if the teammates’ off-ball movement isn’t as effective and they don’t have virtually any separation from their defender. The passer doesn’t control the recipient of the pass, and what the recipient does (as well as potentially other teammates screening, having gravity, etc.) is an enormous factor in whether a defender is “taken out of the play.”

Related to all of the above, beyond the above-mentioned inherent subjectivity, I also think this heuristic cannot really be directly compared across eras. The NBA has generally gotten more and more space over time. With more space, it becomes a lot easier to “take defenders out of the play,” because there’s more room to get separation from a defender, help defense has to come from further away, etc. “Taking defenders out of the play” has just become a much bigger part of what NBA offense is about as space has increased. This is exacerbated by certain rules that make beating your man on the perimeter easier nowadays. Not that this stuff is absent in any era, but this isn’t a heuristic that’s really comparing apples to apples, if applied across eras. One conclusion from this is that perhaps assists in past eras were less valuable in general because of these differences. And that might actually be the case (I’d have to think more about it), but the value of a player is relative to their era, so a player who provides less playmaking in a lower-playmaking era might actually be more valuable as a playmaker than a player who provides more playmaking in a higher-playmaking era. Just some food for thought.

[Djoker]

Jake literally just mentioned a lot of this above but I too think relying solely on defenders taken out to judge quality of passing isn't really super reliable. The first point is subjectivity but more importantly Bird made incredible reads and threw so many passes through tight windows that ended up as layups. He didn't take defenders out of the play but if his pass is so good that it gives a teammate a point blank lay up or free throws, why would I grade it lower because he didn't take defenders out of the play? Bird's main passing strength is his incredible vision. He can exploit these tight windows that others can't. OP's way of grading passing, even though I commend the effort, is ignoring Bird's precise strength as a passer.

[theonlyclutch]

Jake literally just mentioned a lot of this above but I too think relying solely on defenders taken out to judge quality of passing isn't really super reliable. The first point is subjectivity but more importantly Bird made incredible reads and threw so many passes through tight windows that ended up as layups. He didn't take defenders out of the play but if his pass is so good that it gives a teammate a point blank lay up or free throws, why would I grade it lower because he didn't take defenders out of the play? Bird's main passing strength is his incredible vision. He can exploit these tight windows that others can't. OP's way of grading passing, even though I commend the effort, is ignoring Bird's precise strength as a passer.

You'll have to point out where he made those because by my count nothing in that clip from the OP points to something exceptional. The closest here is probably the cross-court skip pass to Ainge and cross-court outlet (to Ainge), but good on-ball playmakers do skip passes in their sleep these days and even Kevin Love threw outlet passes like those with regularity. If that's supposed to be Bird's strength then the OP can rest his case.

[falcolombardi]

Jake literally just mentioned a lot of this above but I too think relying solely on defenders taken out to judge quality of passing isn't really super reliable. The first point is subjectivity but more importantly Bird made incredible reads and threw so many passes through tight windows that ended up as layups. He didn't take defenders out of the play but if his pass is so good that it gives a teammate a point blank lay up or free throws, why would I grade it lower because he didn't take defenders out of the play? Bird's main passing strength is his incredible vision. He can exploit these tight windows that others can't. OP's way of grading passing, even though I commend the effort, is ignoring Bird's precise strength as a passer.

Nobody ever argued bird didnt make great passes

We are arguing if he did it often enough that it becomes a truly substantial differentiator from other strong playmakers who may have been more self sufficient at generating passinxg windows with their on ball scoring threat

Ovefixating on how great bird highlight passes were without stablishing how often he made those is like evealuating kobe as an all time guard defender cause he has some great highlights here and there over his career

[70sFan]

I have very little time to tracking work these days, so I want to say that I appreciate any kind of this work, as I understand how time consuming it could be. I have to mention that based on my experience with it, one game sample can be very misleading. I think the signal starts to spike from the noise at around 20 games and it's good to have ~40 games sample, it becomes reliable around that mark.

[capfan33]

Jake literally just mentioned a lot of this above but I too think relying solely on defenders taken out to judge quality of passing isn't really super reliable. The first point is subjectivity but more importantly Bird made incredible reads and threw so many passes through tight windows that ended up as layups. He didn't take defenders out of the play but if his pass is so good that it gives a teammate a point blank lay up or free throws, why would I grade it lower because he didn't take defenders out of the play? Bird's main passing strength is his incredible vision. He can exploit these tight windows that others can't. OP's way of grading passing, even though I commend the effort, is ignoring Bird's precise strength as a passer.

You'll have to point out where he made those because by my count nothing in that clip from the OP points to something exceptional. The closest here is probably the cross-court skip pass to Ainge and cross-court outlet (to Ainge), but good on-ball playmakers do skip passes in their sleep these days and even Kevin Love threw outlet passes like those with regularity. If that's supposed to be Bird's strength then the OP can rest his case.

Like most things that are even remotely complex with multiple variables involved, one measure is never going to be sufficient to explain everything. But I would say the general idea of looking at defenders taken out is a better/more accurate measure of passing/playmaking ability then most that currently exist, and is definitely something that should be explored more when looking at passers.

And to the point of the metric ignoring Bird's greatest strength, you have to question, how much better is Bird at throwing balls into tight windows compared to other upper echelon passers? It's not like Magic or Lebron are lacking in that category at all, Magic in fact is probably better at it (albeit slightly), but they both clearly have a major advantage when it comes to putting pressure on the defense and forcing the defense to send help.

And this is more rambling/conjecture, but I think being able to take defenders out due to on-ball ability is more reliable/less team dependent then always trying to force balls into tight windows that may or may not appear in the course of a game. Hell, with someone like Jokic modernly we've seen this to an extent where defenses in the playoffs stay home on cutters and those incredible tight reads he normally makes on the strong side aren't readily available to the same extent.

At the end of the day, intuitively the way I've always thought of basketball at its core is, your forcing the defense to make a choice. Live with you scoring 1on1, or having to send help (and then passing ofc to take advantage). Bird from this sample doesn't seem to bee forcing the defense to make that choice as much as you might like.

[SNPA]

Jake literally just mentioned a lot of this above but I too think relying solely on defenders taken out to judge quality of passing isn't really super reliable. The first point is subjectivity but more importantly Bird made incredible reads and threw so many passes through tight windows that ended up as layups. He didn't take defenders out of the play but if his pass is so good that it gives a teammate a point blank lay up or free throws, why would I grade it lower because he didn't take defenders out of the play? Bird's main passing strength is his incredible vision. He can exploit these tight windows that others can't. OP's way of grading passing, even though I commend the effort, is ignoring Bird's precise strength as a passer.

You'll have to point out where he made those because by my count nothing in that clip from the OP points to something exceptional. The closest here is probably the cross-court skip pass to Ainge and cross-court outlet (to Ainge), but good on-ball playmakers do skip passes in their sleep these days and even Kevin Love threw outlet passes like those with regularity. If that's supposed to be Bird's strength then the OP can rest his case.

Like most things that are even remotely complex with multiple variables involved, one measure is never going to be sufficient to explain everything. But I would say the general idea of looking at defenders taken out is a better/more accurate measure of passing/playmaking ability then most that currently exist, and is definitely something that should be explored more when looking at passers.

And to the point of the metric ignoring Bird's greatest strength, you have to question, how much better is Bird at throwing balls into tight windows compared to other upper echelon passers? It's not like Magic or Lebron are lacking in that category at all, Magic in fact is probably better at it (albeit slightly), but they both clearly have a major advantage when it comes to putting pressure on the defense and forcing the defense to send help.

And this is more rambling/conjecture, but I think being able to take defenders out due to on-ball ability is more reliable/less team dependent then always trying to force balls into tight windows that may or may not appear in the course of a game. Hell, with someone like Jokic modernly we've seen this to an extent where defenses in the playoffs stay home on cutters and those incredible tight reads he normally makes on the strong side aren't readily available to the same extent.

At the end of the day, intuitively the way I've always thought of basketball at its core is, your forcing the defense to make a choice. Live with you scoring 1on1, or having to send help (and then passing ofc to take advantage). Bird from this sample doesn't seem to bee forcing the defense to make that choice as much as you might like.

The game isn’t played 1-1 or 2-2 though. In a game of 5-5 being able to be a top tier passer, while not needing the ball all the time, opens up space for others to flourish too.

There is a time of possession factor here to consider.

[penbeast0]

There has been a fair bit of recent discussion, much of which I’ve engaged in, scrutinizing just how much value Larry Bird offered as a playmaker. While some tracking has been produced exploring this, the sample is still quite small and I don’t think any of it has really used the specific process I’ve been using since this thread:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2388436&p=113860138&hilit=66#p11386013

A single game’s worth of assists will not turn this small sample into a large one but you gotta start somwhere.

Some of you might be familiar with how we’re going to do this, but for the uninitiated we will be counting the following

1. Defenders taken out (DTOs) -> this is when a player entirely or near-entirely renders a defender unable to affect an offensive play themselves(excepting a reset)

2. Additional Defenders Affected (ADAs) -> this is when a player helps render a defender unable to affect an offensive play

Will be looking for these on non-baskets and on rebounds and will be counting the two as separate things. Will also count plays where there was an opportunity to take-advantage of a player's off-ball creation but the opportunity was passed on. Will not be looking for on-ball creation though I encourage any interested party to look for the same things with the ball. I also encourage any interested party to do their own tracking/vetting.

…

I will also be qualitatively judging “creations” as either “Great”, “Good”, “Decent’, or “Weak”.

I have chosen 1 game for each player and will look at the first 40-possessions of each.

I also encourage the willing to cross-reference the grades from this tracking with the previously linked one to see if they think these value-judgements are consistent.

Preamble over....

Question, if this is being used as a measure of playmaking, should we be counting the times the player drew extra defenders off their man and shot anyway rather than hit the open player? Sort of this measure's equivalent of turnovers.

[OhayoKD]

There has been a fair bit of recent discussion, much of which I’ve engaged in, scrutinizing just how much value Larry Bird offered as a playmaker. While some tracking has been produced exploring this, the sample is still quite small and I don’t think any of it has really used the specific process I’ve been using since this thread:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2388436&p=113860138&hilit=66#p11386013

A single game’s worth of assists will not turn this small sample into a large one but you gotta start somwhere.

Some of you might be familiar with how we’re going to do this, but for the uninitiated we will be counting the following

1. Defenders taken out (DTOs) -> this is when a player entirely or near-entirely renders a defender unable to affect an offensive play themselves(excepting a reset)

2. Additional Defenders Affected (ADAs) -> this is when a player helps render a defender unable to affect an offensive play

Will be looking for these on non-baskets and on rebounds and will be counting the two as separate things. Will also count plays where there was an opportunity to take-advantage of a player's off-ball creation but the opportunity was passed on. Will not be looking for on-ball creation though I encourage any interested party to look for the same things with the ball. I also encourage any interested party to do their own tracking/vetting.

…

I will also be qualitatively judging “creations” as either “Great”, “Good”, “Decent’, or “Weak”.

I have chosen 1 game for each player and will look at the first 40-possessions of each.

I also encourage the willing to cross-reference the grades from this tracking with the previously linked one to see if they think these value-judgements are consistent.

Preamble over....

Question, if this is being used as a measure of playmaking, should we be counting the times the player drew extra defenders off their man and shot anyway rather than hit the open player? Sort of this measure's equivalent of turnovers.

Yes. I've been too lazy to count it, but yes. At some point that should be accounted for too. That is actually why Ben penalizes a lower ratio of scoring-load to total-load(noting his version is basically only counting assists with a couple boosts(layups, 3-point percentage) and shot-attempts) with passer rating (a box-based proxy of creation quality, not quantity).

Of course transposing that concept to this metric would mean not just counting when a player passes up a creation-window for a shot, but also when they pass it up to dribble, or make a less potentially valuable pass, and so on.

[ShotCreator]

This just isn't how basketball works. Psychologically or technically from a skill standpoint. 13 assists is an indicator of something significant. Objectively. It's not a regular level of playmaking.

You have to be a really good anticipatory passer to get that level of assisting. This is essentially implying Bird coincidentally got assists on these 'weak' passes. The thought process is just asinine IMO.

People tend to miss the plot when they try to dissect the game like this.

[OhayoKD]

This just isn't how basketball works. Psychologically or technically from a skill standpoint. 13 assists is an indicator of something significant. Objectively. It's not a regular level of playmaking.
.

It's an indicator you passed to the person who scored shortly before they scored 13 times

[tsherkin]

This just isn't how basketball works. Psychologically or technically from a skill standpoint. 13 assists is an indicator of something significant. Objectively. It's not a regular level of playmaking.

You have to be a really good anticipatory passer to get that level of assisting. This is essentially implying Bird coincidentally got assists on these 'weak' passes. The thought process is just asinine IMO.

People tend to miss the plot when they try to dissect the game like this.

This isn't entirely correct. There have been a bunch of guys no one would confuse for truly gifted playmakers who have been double-digit assist guys. The less you shoot, the more you work with shooters inside a structured offense, the more it's possible. Especially in a more up-tempo environment.