basketball talk - The assist - overblown and overrated?

[lefty]

Let's review the basics, of what we already know, to clarify a few points about assists.

Logic says you pass the ball if a teammate has a better chance than you to make a basket. Best example would be where you steal the ball, a teammate runs down court ahead of the pack and you send an outlet pass to him. He gets two points, you get an assist. If you shoot from where you passed the ball, your coach will pull you. If you don't see your open teammate and dribble the ball down court, your coach will pull you.

On a 2 on 1 fastbreak, if you have the ball and you're covered, you pass it. Assist.

Now, take the set offense assist. PG has ball at top of key. C sets a screen. SG runs around screen and gets open. PG passes to SG and he makes an open shot. PG gets the assist but you could argue it belongs to the C, he got the SG open. The SG could ask for an assist as well, he got himself open.

Hockey gives multiple assists, why not the NBA?
SG passes the ball to PF who has posted up. PF makes a few faking moves, dribbles around his guy with a fake or two more, and scores. No assist here. The PF created his shot.

If it hasn't been mentioned, when a playoff series begins with a dominant point guard, the other team studies how that PG gets his assists and adjusts their defense. Passing lanes, rotations, matchups; everything is different than regular season. A team that relies on their PG to get them looks will get frustrated if the passes to them have been thwarted or there is a defender in their face whether they have the ball or not. That could cost them games, and as recent history has shown, it has. Ask Nash, Kidd, Paul, Williams, etc...

Interesting......

[bobbyjoe]

The pure passing PG (which is the spirit of this discussion) is certainly not overrated. Next to a dominant bigman, I think most GM's would be in search of a pure passing PG on their wishlist of pieces to build a great team.

A more fair measurement of the value of a pure passing Stockton, Magic or Nash type of PG than # of championships won would be to look at how much more efficient and productive offenses quarterbacked by those types of PG have been than those led by elite wing scorers or elite bigmen.

You'd be hardpressed to find a more efficient offense in the 90's than the Jazz and in the 00's than the Suns and in the 80's than the Lakers and Magic.

As for the stat itself, it has some major limitations. As noted, the enabler of the basket doesn't always get credited with the assist in the NBA. Also of note is that a good pass which results in 2 Free Throws is not scored as an assist. Lastly if a great passer is surrounded by crud (see Chris Paul) his #'s are obviously lower than they would be on a team with better scorers.

[DaDakota]

If there is one guy dominating the ball, it makes it much easier for the defense to focus on......that is why with the legalizing of zone defenses, the one guy dominates the ball offense has failed every year since the 80s.

DD

[Goran Dragic]

The pure passing PG (which is the spirit of this discussion) is certainly not overrated. Next to a dominant bigman, I think most GM's would be in search of a pure passing PG on their wishlist of pieces to build a great team.

Any GM with a brain would want a dominant wing before a dominant PG.

[pauls931]

All I can say is playing pickup, getting an assist is 10x harder than scoring. Probably because we all suck, play man, and rarely have to double leaving anyone wide open.

I do like the head of the snake theory vs a bunch of scorers. With zones and doubles, you can f'up a team. Just as the Spurs used to throw the kitchen sink at Nash and f'up the suns since they are so dependant on him. before Dragic, even putting nash on the bench would turn them into the washington generals.

[xellos88330]

Honestly, passers should be credited with assists like hockey.

True PG to me is someone who can see 2 passes ahead in the same play. Not just his passes, but the rest of the teams passes.

If they added that statistic, it would make this debate a bit clearer, as it pertains to the effectiveness of a passing guard and a scoring guard. I think the numbers of a scoring guard could surprise a few people.