A Myth About Assists

Feb 07, 2012

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people just spout "conventional" basketball wisdom without bothering to check the most basic facts. Conventional wisdom in just about every field of knowledge is usually riddled with falsehoods and logic traps, and basketball analysis is no exception. Today I am going to tackle one that's really been getting to me: the myth that a player's teammates' shooting percentage plays a large role in the number of assists a player racks up. Whether it's in defense of Kyrie Irving or Deron Williams, or in denegration of Ricky Rubio, I hear it all the time: "player X's assists are only so low because his teammates cannot shoot.  If he played with better shooters, he'd have way more, I just know it."

Damn These Small Sample Sizes

Jan 25, 2012

At first I thought I was going to write a Ricky Rubio rant. Recently in a podcast, I called Rubio the rookie of the year.  In three games since, He's shot 8-for-33.  He's had 29 assists, but also 10 turnovers, and on Monday he really killed the Wolve's chances when all 5 of his turnovers came in the 4th quarter. If he had not hit a game-tying 3 in his 1-for-11 shooting night against the Clippers, we'd probably be crucifying the poor guy right now.

Rubio? Irving? What About Leonard?

Jan 23, 2012

There are several classic blunders. One of them is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia" and another is "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line," but the least known one is probably "Never bet against the San Antonio Spurs in the draft."