<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'></p> Basketball's boxscore has always lacked heft, which is a problem for more than a sub-culture of math-loving shut-ins. The numbers gleaned from boxscores are often the basis for contract negotiations, which explains why players who rack up big totals in the main statistical categories – points, rebounds, assists, shooting percentages, blocked shots and steals – are often rewarded with big deals.</p> Those numbers, of course, don't tell you everything you need to know. Teams made up of expensive players with impressive stats have a history of not meshing. And that's one of the reasons why NBA franchises keep track of no end of additional statistics. They're attempting to quantify the important contributions to success that, as the old saying goes, don't show up in the boxscore.</p> The Raptors, for instance, keep detailed tabs on the finer points of defence, charting, among many things, deflections and boxouts and closeouts – the latter, essentially, giving a defender a grade on whether or not he got a sufficient hand in the face of a shooter.</p> And while the club doesn't make those numbers public, web-savvy enthusiasts such as the video excavators at 82games.com, provide the rest of us no end of interesting fodder not found in the regular stats package – not only, for instance, the team that committed the most charges last season (the ball-hogging New York Knicks), but the team that took the most (the Phoenix Suns).</p> Still, there is always room for more information. Sam Mitchell, the Raptors coach, said he was ranting to his players just the other day about the need for another stat. Call it the hockey assist, as Mike Brown, the Cleveland coach, recently dubbed it. It's the pass that leads to the pass that is the assist. Unlike in hockey, where as many as two players are credited with helpers on any given goal, basketball's assist statistic credits only the player whose pass leads directly to a bucket.</p> The basketball assist has always been contentious, of course, a judgment call by the scorekeeper. But Mitchell said charting hockey assists would offer incentive to his players to keep the ball moving. As it is, said the coach, their base instinct is to hold the ball "looking to make the perfect pass to the guy who'll score."</div></p> The Toronto Star</p>
Nice article. And I agree. It's been a while since the NBA added any new stats to the stat lines. And as long as they keep the 'hockey assist' seperate from the regular one, it won't adversely affect the record book. It'd be interesting to see who leads in this new category, whether its a traditionally high assist guy like Nash or Kidd, or whether its someone who usually doesn't rack up many assists, like Eric Snow or Derek Fisher.</p>
The Suns would just dominate that catagroy...everyone who would passes to Nash would get credited with an assist half the time. But I agree with Mitchell in the article that this would encourage players to do that extra pass and also be awarded an assist to their stats.</p>
It's an interesting concept. I actually wouldn't be as interested in the individual totals as I would the teams totals. I think it'd be a good way of measuring the ball movement in a given team's offense.</p>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Ed the Decider)</div><div class='quotemain'></p> Anyone find it funny that a Canadian brught it up?</p> </div></p> </p> ...or that it's about the Canadian team.</p> This would be a good idea, I'd like to see this stat...even if it is on 82games.</p>
