Game Thread GAME# 63: WIZARDS @ BLAZERS - MARCH 4, 2020 - WEDNESDAY, 7:00, NBCSNW

I can't go all the way with this but as an easy general search I looked up their fg% in games above 21 assists.

45% or above 210 out of 308 games.

46% or above 189 out of 308 games.

47% or above 160 out of 308 games.

48% or above 140 out of 308 games.

49% or above 118 out of 308 games.

50% or above 108 out of 308 games.

I know this doesn't exactly answer your question but only once in those 8 seasons (2012-13 the worst team) did they shoot below 45% FG% for the year.

 

Sorry, I asked the question poorly. I'm wondering how many attempts (and/or field goal percentage) where they take a shot that would be assisted if it were to go in and how many of them are actually made. I'm still asking the question poorly!

 

No, I said I get your question but don't have the 13 years it would take to answer it correctly so I presented FG% over an 8 year span to show the correlation between blistering shooting and getting more assists. I specifically said it wasn't what you were asking.

More specifically getting the individual game data for what you are asking is the problem.

 

I'm not always great with my reading comprehension either, my bad!

 

I was curious, so I looked it up. Past NBA champs over last 13 years (fun number) and their assist ranking:

2006-07 - Spurs, 11th over Cleveland 15th
2007-08 - Boston, 8th over Lakers, 4th
2008-09 - Lakers, 2nd over Orlando' 29th
2009-10 - Lakers, 15th over Boston, 2nd
2010-11 - Dallas, 2nd over Miami, 26th
2011-12 - Miami, 21st over OKC, 30th
2012-13 - Miami, 7th over Spurs, 1st
2013-14 - Spurs, 1st over Miami, 11th
2014-15 - Warriors, 1st over Cavs, 10th
2015-16 - Cavs, 13th over Warriors, 1st
2016-17 - Warriors, 1st, over Cavs, 13th
2017-18 - Warriors, 1st over Cavs, 12th
2018-19 - Raptors 13th, over Warriors, 1st

ok then, 26 finals teams and only 4 were in the bottom half of the league in assists; and the last one was 8 years ago when Miami won the title over OKC. Of course, Miami had a prime Lebron, a prime DWade, and a prime Bosh, so their capacity to resort to one-on-one was unparalleled. Put another way, 22 of 26 teams were in the top half of the league in assists, and 13 of 26 teams were in the top-10

meanwhile Portland is last in the league for the 2nd time in 3 years. Unlike Miami with Labron & Dwade, or OKC with Durant & Westbrook, Blazers don't have a tag-team of elite, superstar one-on-one talent. They need more ball movement and player motion off the ball, and the passers who can exploit it.

 

They need a lot of things, better shooters, better passers, better players. Passing will only go so far. Cause all those teams were just flat out better than the Blazers.

 

It’s valid for Tince to do that I think. In general if there is no correlation between A and B then there is no causation. But if there is high correlation between A & B there can still be zero causation in either direction.

 

2012-2020 Blazers under Stotts

19 or less assists: 90-134 (.402%)

20 or more assists: 263-150 (.637%)

21 or more assists: 237-123 (.658%)

22 or more assists: 206-102 (.669%)

23 or more assists: 183-79 (.698%)

24 or more assists: 156-63 (.712%)

25 or more assists: 131-40 (.766%)

26 or more assists: 100-21 (.826%)

27 or more assists: 73-12 (.859%)

28 or more assists: 57-11 (.838%)

29 or more assists: 38-7 (.844%)

30 or more assists: 20-7 (.741%)

31 or more assists: 12-4 (.750%)

32 or more assists: 9-3 (.750%)

Under Stotts over 35% of their games they've had less than 20 assists in a game and win just 40% of the time when that happens. The problem this season? They're only averaging 20.1 assists per game!!! Only 19% of their games they have 26 or more assists but win at a near 83% clip when they do so.

This is why I don't care what other team's records are when they get assists. It's a fact the Blazers are better when they have more assists. Look at those winning percentages and just try to dispute them.

 

Now just think if it was live on National TV ESPN and in front of 20,000 screaming fans and you were destined to be featured on ESPN highlight reel GLORY? Do you think you might go "MeJ" on him next time?
How many times these guys gotta get back on defense when they are shell shocked because someone else dribbled it off their knee?

 

Even Stotts makes plenty of mentions when the ball is moving and they are making shots they play better all around. Assists do indeed matter but i think the point here is getting lost a bit?
Playing well on offense also helps defense and assists are a metric that shows shots are falling and the team is finding the open shooter. When they are relying solely on ISO it gets tough to watch as well as win.

Very interesting conversation by all involved.

 

you're preaching to a choir of one TB. I agree....what the Blazers need is more talent at the top end of the roster; messing around with the lower end of the rotation doesn't alter a team's trajectory. Portland needs to upgrade the core, and I think the core is, by default, Dame-CJ-Nurk. Actually, I think Blazer management should consider they only have one core player, Dame, and build from that. The belief that anybody else on the roster is untouchable is a big part of the problem

I can see both sides of the assist debate. On one side, I think it's likely true you can't just isolate on one stat and say "this is what a contender must have". There are more paths to contention than just one, and every once and a while a team can zag to a title when the rest of the teams are zigging.

on the other side, you have to keep in mind that assist numbers are just the proxy for offensive production. They represent ball movement, player motion, and dependable offense. Iso-offense seems easier to defend than effective team offense, unless of course the iso-offense is coming from generational talent like Lebron/Dwade; Durant/Curry; Kobe/Shaq; Jordan/Pippen; Bird/McHale....even then, those teams generated a lot more team offense from their iso-ball than Portland does.

 

holy shit....

did you have some sort of search algorithm to come up with th0se numbers? I'm trying to think if BBREF has a game finder app for that. That's a ton of data

the only question I would have about those numbers would be along the lines of: did those 224 games of 19 or less assists come against a lot of top-10 defenses? A lot of times it seems Portland has low assists when they are playing great defensive teams that take away Blazer passing lanes.

 

I don't think anyone has argued that assists are an isolated stat that shows what a contender needs to have. It is the easiest way to show "ball movement" in a stat but it's far from ideal.

In the Stotts era I think it's pretty obvious that when the ball is moving the Blazers are a better team than if it's iso heavy.

 

Unfortunately the search doesn't have a way to filter opponents defensive rating in those games. I could give someone a list of the 224 games if someone wants to figure it out.

Edit: It wouldn't also account for if opposing players were missing or injured in those games.

 

@wizenheimer if you really want to go crazy with data on bbref, it's a pretty easy site to grab data from. You can use python and beautifulsoup or some other library and pandas / numpy to grab data and organize it. Since you really like numbers and putting those stats together this might save you some time even if it has a little bit of a learning curve to it. None of the coding parts is that complicated and there are like a billion tutorials on how to do it. Just an idea.

 

it's almost like you were speaking in tongues there. I couldn't choose between panic and coma. I'm more of a hardware guy than a software guy

 

Haha, don't tell your doctor it was me.

 

Copy and paste into excel. Done deal. Boom boom.

 

I tried to analyze the correlation between assists and W/L percentage by holding FG% constant in order to eliminate hot shooting as a hidden cause of more winning and more assists. I filtered games on FG% between 45% and 48%. I split that into two groups (1) games with 25+ assists (2) games with fewer than 25 assists. Each groups had nearly identical FG% but the high assist group still had a much better W/L% (by almost 12%).

But there was another correlation. The high-assist group had significantly more extra possessions defined as ORB + STL - TOV. Those extra possessions are almost enough to explain all of the difference W/L record. So are extra possessions the hidden cause of everything?
1. Did the extra possessions cause the extra assists? No way. There were only about 3 extra possessions. That might produce one more assist, not 7+ assists.
2.Did the extra passing cause the extra possessions? More passing could lead to more ORB by breaking down the defense, but it should also lead to more turnovers. And more steals? I don't think so.



More likely there is a separate cause of higher assists, extra possessions, and more wins. That cause IMO is simply being more talented than the other team. When an offense can dominate a defense (whether by great passing or great one on one) defenses get compromised, players are open (more assists), the offense flows easily (fewer turnovers) and the defense is scrambling (more offensive rebounds).

Bottom line, I like passing and do think it results in better offense in the long run. But I don't think it's something you can simply turn on. There is effective and ineffective passing just as there are good and bad shots. Here are the top 6 teams in the NBA by number of passes. There seems to be a strong correlation between passing and losing. What does this prove? Probably that bad teams can't get an open shot so they make another pass.