Are assists routinely misattributed by the official scorekeepers as David Friedman alleges? I'd like to hear more about this than one game's worth of tracking and some complaints from Oscar Robertson about how the kids have it too easy these days, but it's a provocative suggestion.
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A Little Help
20 May 2008 02:11 pm
Comments (16)
It's good to know that Borat has replaced his unhealthy P-Anderson fascination with basketball minutiae. Baby steps, brother.
Indeed, this CP3 fan seems to accept DF's analysis: http://www.faniq.com/blog/Chris-Pauls-Assist-Totals-May-Be-Inaccurate-Blog-8977
I am reminded, as a graduate and fan of Texas A&M, of this article from Basketball Prospectus:
I would like to see a similar study done of Chris Paul, Steve Nash, etc., although I would imagine that home-cooking of stat sheets is much more prevalent in college basketball than professional, but that's merely a gut instinct.
While Robertson's critique is undoubtedly correct, is it easy to swallow the notion that statisticians in his day were perfect in their score keeping? Without a review of tape, every assist seems suspect.
Aside: seriously, players pad their offensive rebounding stats by missing shots? This is one of the more idiotic suggestions I've ever read.
Friedman is not saying that assists are misattributed, but that rather the standard for what makes an assist is applied more liberally these days. I have heard a number of different people make this observation numerous times before -- complete with technical details about what wouldn't be counted back in the day and what is counted now -- so I've generally found the claim credible.
Eggman -- clearly, you've never heard of Ricky Davis?
http://espn.go.com/nba/columns/aldridge_david/1525101.html
Anything that gives any room for the official scorer's judgment is going to have some bias in it, pro-home-team especially. (How does one get to be the official scorer in an NBA game anyway? In baseball, they used to rotate the job among the beat writers for the home team -- not much quality control there.)
I've seen it written elsewhere that there was preferential treatment involved in awarding assists and rebounds. I seem to recall black players from the 60s saying that white stars like Jerry Lucas used to have their stats padded (rebounds, in Lucas's case).
Contra Robertson and Barry, the NBA is so much bigger and more professional now than in their day, and every game is videotaped, so there is bound to be some pressure for greater consistency in scoring.
Two things:
1) I don't think this is all that provocative. I've heard this point made many times, I don't think Rick Barry and Oscar Robertson are exclusively on some muck-raking campaign to inform the world of this phenomenon. I can't remember who, but I've heard plenty of lamen TV broadcasters remark on this point- almost offhand.
2) Do 14 true assists versus 14 somewhat debatable assists really inform your understanding of how well a point guard is directing the offense? For example, it's often stated how good LeBron James is as a passer. And as a guy who watches him almost every game, I'd say there's probably nothing necessarily wrong with that assessment. But he also prefers to pass the ball only under the condition that it's obvious the recipient will score (could be a wide-open 3 that he created the space for or even practically inserting the ball in the hoop for his teammate... it's usually a very deliberate attempt to give his teammate the basket).
However, while these types of assists are true assists, there might actually be scenarios where it's better to pass to a guy who may not be open for a catch-and-shoot but has an obvious mismatch that he can exploit and create his own shot off of. Or it might be better in another scenario to pass to another player immediately after LeBron receives it in order to keep the ball moving (even if there is no mismatch or open shot, but the second or third subsequent pass might yield a positive outcome), rather than hold the ball, wait, read the defense for 5 seconds, and then try to create an opportunity for someone else by himself rather than trusting the play call or the flow of the offense.
The problem of inflated assists numbers (by friendly scorekeepers) is well known among statheads, and a relatively simple way to check it is to compare assist numbers for a player in home and road games.
25 years ago, if you passed to a guy who dribbled or pump-faked, there was no assist. It was pretty much just hitting a guy with a pass for a lay up or a catch&shoot.
Even then, though, there were "assist hogs". Kevin Porter often would forgo easy layups to pass to a team mate for an equally easy lay up. He was a good point guard, but not as good as some guys with fewer assists.
Er... closer to 30 or 35 years ago. Somebody must be speeding up the calender.
Paul averaged 15.2 assists per 48 minutes in home games. 14.4 per 48 in road games. Almost an assist per 48 minutes seems significant, but then again, the Hornets averaged 2.5 more points per game at home on the road, so that accounts for a portion of the difference.
But the greatest home/road discrepancies are often found in the blocks category. This year's season leader, Marcus Camby, averaged 5.5 blocks per 48 minutes at home, and 4.4 per 48 on the road. A 25 percent increase seems a bit unreasonable. Of course, the air is thinner in Denver. Perhaps this accounts for Camby's greater lift on his home floor.
Stojakovic jumper, 3:31 2nd q--Incorrect; Stojakovic caught the pass, pump faked, used an escape dribble and then shot. If the shooter does more than half of the work the passer is not supposed to receive credit and this basket would never have been scored without the fake and the dribble move.
Yes, these assist things can be subjective. This play happens all the time in basketball, and I'd say it usually deserves an assist. For a good player, the pump fake and then dribble shot is an easy, frequently practiced move. It's easy b/c the defender is flying at you out of control. You just have to know what to do. That's because the pass caught the defense off guard. In this case, I'd assume it's a real assist. B/c Peja can't get his own shot very often anyhow.
One thing that always amazes me that happens over and over - nowhere in the original post or in this thread has anyone posted the official NBA scorekeeping guidelines for assists. Friedman seems to have access to the actual text (I can't find it anywhere myslef) but he never passes on the info.
Hard to have a useful convo about a written standard when none of us seems to know precisely what the written standard is.
APS
In a comment that I posted in response to some comments at my site, I quoted this passage that appeared on NBA.com in 2002:
"An assist is a pass that directly leads to a basket. This can be a pass to the low post that leads to a direct score, a long pass for a layup, a fast break pass to a teammate for a layup, and/or a pass that results in an open perimeter shot for a teammate. In basketball, an assist is awarded only if, in the judgement of the statistician, the last player's pass contributed directly to a made basket. An assist can be awarded for a basket scored after the ball has been dribbled if the player's pass led to the field goal being made."
I suspect that assists are being scored more liberally in general now and particularly for the top several players in this category, which is why I don't think that looking at home/road splits will tell us much about how accurately assists are being recorded.
The reason that I went back and tracked Paul's assists in game one of this series is that while watching the game I noticed that West scored on a lot of good one on one moves but when I looked at the official play by play sheet Paul was credited with assists on seven of his 13 field goals. I went back to the tape and found that three of the assists were correct, three were clearly wrong (on one of them, Paul passed to Bonzi Wells who then passed to West) and one was marginal.
Likewise, after game seven the play by play sheet did not correspond with what I saw and when I checked the tape I found five of the officially credited assists were incorrectly scored.
The Stojakovic play was the closest one of the incorrect assists to being a legit assist but when Peja caught the ball he did not immediately shoot and Ginobili prevented him from doing what most right handed shooters want to do, which is make an escape dribble to the left and then shoot. Peja faked and made a dribble to the right, which is a tougher shot for a right handed player. In any case, whether or not Peja's move is "easy" is not really the point; an assist is only supposed to be awarded if the pass played an important role in making the score possible. Yes, Peja would not have scored if Paul had not passed him the ball but he also would not have scored if he had not made a fake and a dribble move which is not natural for a right handed shooter. At least Peja did not take four dribbles and do the Kevin McHale footwork drill like West did on one of the plays for which Paul got an assist.
Moses Malone and Dennis Rodman are two players who were renowned/notorious for tapping a ball two or three times before scoring, which friendly scorekeepers would record as missed shots and offensive rebounds. Some would say that they were padding their rebound totals intentionally, others would say that they were keeping the ball alive until they could control it. I believe that Michael Cage did something similar in the last game of the season the year that he won the rebounding title. Malone also would sometimes throw the ball off the backboard if he was trapped, beat the defender to the ball and then shoot a shot from a better angle, ending up with a miss, an offensive rebound and a field goal scored. Most fans from that era remember him doing this and players, announcers and fans all used to talk/joke about how Malone did this.
P.S.: Hate to disappoint PowerGamer but the profile pic is an old one and the mustache has been gone for a while.
In a comment that I posted in response to some comments at my site, I quoted this passage that appeared on NBA.com in 2002:
"An assist is a pass that directly leads to a basket. This can be a pass to the low post that leads to a direct score, a long pass for a layup, a fast break pass to a teammate for a layup, and/or a pass that results in an open perimeter shot for a teammate. In basketball, an assist is awarded only if, in the judgement of the statistician, the last player's pass contributed directly to a made basket. An assist can be awarded for a basket scored after the ball has been dribbled if the player's pass led to the field goal being made."
I suspect that assists are being scored more liberally in general now and particularly for the top several players in this category, which is why I don't think that looking at home/road splits will tell us much about how accurately assists are being recorded.
The reason that I went back and tracked Paul's assists in game one of this series is that while watching the game I noticed that West scored on a lot of good one on one moves but when I looked at the official play by play sheet Paul was credited with assists on seven of his 13 field goals. I went back to the tape and found that three of the assists were correct, three were clearly wrong (on one of them, Paul passed to Bonzi Wells who then passed to West) and one was marginal.
Likewise, after game seven the play by play sheet did not correspond with what I saw and when I checked the tape I found five of the officially credited assists were incorrectly scored.
The Stojakovic play was the closest one of the incorrect assists to being a legit assist but when Peja caught the ball he did not immediately shoot and Ginobili prevented him from doing what most right handed shooters want to do, which is make an escape dribble to the left and then shoot. Peja faked and made a dribble to the right, which is a tougher shot for a right handed player. In any case, whether or not Peja's move is "easy" is not really the point; an assist is only supposed to be awarded if the pass played an important role in making the score possible. Yes, Peja would not have scored if Paul had not passed him the ball but he also would not have scored if he had not made a fake and a dribble move which is not natural for a right handed shooter. At least Peja did not take four dribbles and do the Kevin McHale footwork drill like West did on one of the plays for which Paul got an assist.
Moses Malone and Dennis Rodman are two players who were renowned/notorious for tapping a ball two or three times before scoring, which friendly scorekeepers would record as missed shots and offensive rebounds. Some would say that they were padding their rebound totals intentionally, others would say that they were keeping the ball alive until they could control it. I believe that Michael Cage did something similar in the last game of the season the year that he won the rebounding title. Malone also would sometimes throw the ball off the backboard if he was trapped, beat the defender to the ball and then shoot a shot from a better angle, ending up with a miss, an offensive rebound and a field goal scored. Most fans from that era remember him doing this and players, announcers and fans all used to talk/joke about how Malone did this.
P.S.: Hate to disappoint PowerGamer but the profile pic is an old one and the mustache has been gone for a while.
Comments closed June 03, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
He's mentioned it before about Paul, and also did a similar blow-by-blow analysis to show an inflated total in another game.
Obviously, I didn't DVR the game myself and double-check each sequence of play he described, but his takedown sure is thorough and convincing on the surface.
Posted by Pistons Fan | May 20, 2008 2:43 PM