Assists & Raptors victories: there’s no correlation
By Brian Boake
The Raptors were out-assisted by their opponents consistently, yet won 56 regular- and 10 post-season games. What’s the story?
The Toronto Raptors have been the subject of much commentary for their ability to win a bunch of games despite tallying fewer assists than most NBA teams.
Assists are credited by the official scorer to the player who makes a pass which leads directly to a basket, even if the pass receiver dribbles the ball prior to scoring. There are no assists awarded on baskets scored from offensive rebounds. If a player receives a pass and is hacked while shooting, causing him to miss, there is no assist awarded, even if he makes his free throws.
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An “assist” is not objective. Here’s a Wall Street Journal article from a few years ago which stressed the subjective nature of assists, and a more recent one from Deadspin making the same point.
OK, let’s not get hung up.
Assists are not as essential to victory as one would assume. Teams which average the most assists are championship contenders, says Conventional Wisdom. And there’s the Golden State Warriors, the epitome of a contending squad, sitting #1 in the regular season. Assists = Wins, right? Not so fast – the Dubs are followed by the Atlanta Hawks and San Antonio Spurs, both quality teams, and the fourth-place team is…the Sacramento Kings. Lottery teams Orlando, Minnesota and Milwaukee are seventh, eighth, and ninth.
The Raptors finished as the second-worst team in the NBA in assists per game, averaging 18.7, which was .7 better than the punching bag known as the Los Angeles Lakers.
Toronto’s assist leader was point guard Kyle Lowry, who averaged 6.4 Per Game [PG]. That’s no surprise, but it is to find in second place alleged ballstopper DeMar DeRozan with 4.0 APG. Our backup point guards barely register. Cory Joseph averaged 3.1 APG.
Guards should always average more assists than front court players, who are the recipients of passes. Regardless, our big men haven’t shown themselves to be generous with the ball. Jonas Valanciunas ranks 36th among NBA centres with .7 APG. I wonder whether that’s because he isn’t often asked to handle the ball at the foul line. When he’s there, he’s setting picks. Pass-happy centres like Pau Gasol (and Joakim Noah, who if he’s healthy will help the Knicks) like to turn and face the basket, then fire bounce passes to cutters, which the Raptors don’t do enough of.
JV seldom gets touches other than at the low block. One wonders whether he’ll get more license to handle the ball creatively this season, something I think he’s capable of. Presumably, the drafting of the dextrous Jakob Poeltl is an indication the Raptors want to emphasize an everybody-touches-the-ball offense.
Next: Raptors swing & miss in Free agency
I’ll be returning to the topic of assists, as we’ve barely scratched the surface. I’ll leave you with perhaps the most interesting statistic I uncovered during my research. The Raptors averaged 36.7 field goals PG, which ranks them 27th. Only three lottery teams (76ers, Jazz, Lakers) made fewer buckets.
How good or bad is an average of 18.7 assists to 36.7 field goals PG? We’ll explore soon.