The NBA has a problem with what counts as an assist or not. All of these shots were attributed as assists to Jokic, but are they really when the other player is creating everything himself?
Definitely not just a Jokic thing, but yeah it’s pretty crazy if you look into the PBP of any random game and see what gets counted as an assist.
The DHOs going away from the basket with multiple dribbles are especially hilarious.
A hand off is barely even a pass. The receiving player dribbling multiple times after a handoff, stopping to pump fake, etc. Idk how that can be argued as directly leading to a basket to count as an assist.
Some handoffs do directly lead to a basket because the big screens as part of the handoff.
If you stop and pop behind the screen after the handoff I’d call it an assist. If they put the ball down to drive to the rim it shouldn’t be imo
If Jamal takes one dribble rise and fire off that handoff that Jokic also basically set a ball screen on, it should be an assist imo. But more than 2 dribbles, any crossover, any pump fake, should immediately disqualify an assist.
Yeah less than 2 basketball moves immediately after a pass should be the standard for an assist. Anymore than that or not immediately and it should boat be self creation.
Yeah if the shooter does a step back they created the shot themselves
Definitely not just a Jokić thing, but also not surprising in the slightest that after a good game that gets posted. The same video could be posted for every NBA game.
it’s been like this since the 90’s.
Pogba had 4 assists in one game but one of them was laying it off to Bruno standing literally next to him who smashed it from 30 yards. Still an assist lol
The NBA has multiple problems
And this is the least of them
This is a symptom of the most important problem. The league is so hellbent on fostering the pretense of having an exciting product that they are killing the actual product.
Such a stat focused league, doesn’t help when people are mainly watching through stats along with awards getting voted on (mainly) offensive stats outside of DPOY
I think calling it product is also part of the issue
Scott Foster certainly ranks higher on the problem list than this
Check the chart.
Who hurts draft kings more?
The rules seem to matter less and less if it means highlighting a star or raising controversy. It’s taking a players league to a whole new level.
It sucks to see.
Suddenly it’s harder and harder to remember what was going on with Kawhi/Aspiration/Clippers
Same statistician as Stockton had?
JJJs block statistician as well
Wilt’s ladies statistician
Wilt’s statistician was himself lol
He used a day planner to track the number of days he had sex and with how many women. In one 10-day stretch, he slept with 23 women. So he extrapolated that number to 20,000 based on the number of days he’d been alive minus the 15 years before he lost his virginity.
There’s Steiner Math, and then there’s Wilt Math 😂
I even saw an interview with him where he claimed he lost his virginity at 4 or 5 years old during naptime at school lmao
Rookie of the year
that’s embarrassing.
Okay but what happens when you add Kurt Angle to the mix?
Jordan’s steal statistician
came here to say this. Jordan’s steal stat guy at HOME games during his DPOY season.
Jordan having a game with more steals than the opponent had turnovers is crazy to me.
It was so blatant that idk how it wasn’t called out in the 90s
t was a pattern throughout his entire career until the official play-by-play was established in 1997. But in his DPOY season, he literally had double the number of steals and blocks at home.
JJJ’s block statistician was validated tho
Hate this about … I was gonna say “reddit”, then I was like “the internet”, then I was like “reality”
So yeah, I hate in general that a false statement gets traction and takes a life of its own. Right now, the false statement is at 359 and the comment pointing out that it was actually investigated and JJJ’s stats were legit is at 20
Persistent myth. Stockton’s road and home game assist splits were closer than most point guards of that era.
Yup. Just so happened to have a duo with Malone
Ya it’s the same anti 100 point game propaganda because everyone loves a conspiracy
For real. We talked about this all of the time in the 80s and 90s. The NBA clearly has never thought it was a problem.
Same as MJ aswell
So then it’s consistent, so what’s the problem
If something only happens for a select few players. It is consistent? I need you to sit down for what I am going to tell you.
are you saying it’s not consistent with other players?
Lmao there’s no way you have analyzed enough other players and whether or not enough of their passes counts as assists for you to make such a claim that it only happens for a select few players.
Just watch a Stockton game and count the assists. WIth the way it is counted now he would get more.
Hell no, watch his career high assist game, he passes to someone who airballs a shot and Malone catches it and finishes and they gave an assist to Stockton lmfao
Please show where that happens.
Lmao have you ever done that? They were pretty liberal with stockton back then
Here is a video of his record.
His teammates take a combined ~10 dribbles after the pass on his 28 assists. All were directly in route to the basket or to settle themselves before the jumper. Basically the only time they bounced it more than once was for open fast break finishes where he outlet to a cherry picker.
Love how this comment with a video and direct response is downvoted with no responses. Such a Reddit in 2026 thing. This sub is so lame.
No way. Assists have always been a juiced stat. This exact discussion was happening at the time. Most NBA stars (Stockton included) were averaging 10+% more assists at home.
Stockton did not average 10+% more at home for his career. You’re right that many did, but it’s weird to point him out when he clearly didn’t. This is easily fact checkable. He averaged 10.9 at home and 10.1 away per game. That’s 7.3% more at home in which he ironically played a couple more away games than he did home games for his entire career. His career average of home vs away is actually lower than the 10% bump other players have averaged at home. Some years he did go higher at home and other years he averaged more on the road. It evens out over a lengthy career.
People over exaggerate the inflation of the 1990’s. It really significantly increased over the last 10 years or so coinciding with the focus on offense in the rule changes.
And Utah has had the 2nd highest home advantage behind Denver (also presumably because of elevation), so it’s not even crazy that he might just get more assists at home.
At least for this season, Jokic is averaging 11.2 at home and 10.5 away so…
Ya it could very well be that the vid in this thread was just a bad night for the Denver stat guy. Jokic legitimately racks up assists. That’s not a significant difference between home and away. Unless we’re suggesting the league as an entirety are inflating superstar numbers in every arena to boost their reputation. Maybe that could happen but I’m not going there right now lol.
I have no doubt home statisticians juice stats a bit because of bias even if unconsciously but you also have to take into account that, for the Jazz at least, they were much better at home as a team than they were away. So with no bias there should be an edge for assists in home games. But agreed the actual edge is probably larger than it should be.
teams also play better at home lol
Teams also win anywhere from like 54-60% of the games they play at home.
All assists are inflated, but I would say Stockton’s were the least so fo the high volume guard of his era. I though Magic Johnson got far more undeserved assists
Lol I’ve seen Stockton throw the ball to Malone and Malone does a whole sequence of post moves for 4 seconds, and then they credit Stockton for the assist.
Did you ever actually tally his assists to footage yourswlf? Magic had fewer for sure.
Or Jordan
That last one was awful.
wtf that was an assist? damn!
JoFraud
All of them were awful lol.
Like the first one was ridiculous to start with
You can at least argue that the screening provide an assistance to Murray, which makes the hand-off “pass” an assist and even this is debatable, since Murray proceded to do moltiple dribblings and moves after the hand-off, but at least it’s not so awful.
However, the first and last one are awful, yes. Just a normal pass, then the player goes 1v1 vs the opponent. Imo, those should never be assists.
That’s true but screen assists are different (you don’t have to even pass to qualify for one). I think a lot of these are more marginal than people here seem to think but to me it really doesn’t matter what the passer is doing if the shooter takes multiple steps, adjusts to the defense and pivots, and then shoots (like the last one)
I’m fine with the first one, Cam was wide open and the defender was in no position to guard him, making it easy to take a couple dribbles to get an easier shot.
In my opinion, that just a variation of finding an open shooter who pump fakes as a defender goes flying by, then makes the shot. Most people wouldn’t fight that’s an assist.
Yeah that’s disgusting
Those are seriously assists? The more I get into the NBA the more it feels like everything is just based off of vibes.
This isn’t necessarily new by any means. If you look at the numbers, Jason Kidd played in more than a thousand NBA games, and somehow has an 11% increase in assists at home as opposed to on the road. At more than 12000 assists, the chances of a coincidence start to slim.
I mean you could easily argue that playing at home = advantage = better results = better box scores
An 11% increase is the difference between 9 and 10 assists a game. Not crazy to think he average 1 more assist a game at home
I’m a little skeptical. Steve Nash did not have that kind of scorekeeper in Phoenix. He averaged 8.7 assists per game on the road and 8.3 at home.
10% is actually a pretty large number.
Kidd also played just slightly more minutes on the road as well.
He’s got the largest split out of any of the PGs on the all time lists.
Lebron and Chris Paul have smaller splits than that.
Although I wills at Steve Nash is the only player I’ve seen with less assists at home so I feel like the home scorekeeper was screwing him a bit here. Feels like he could have had a few more over his career.
Jokic, while not a PG, actually has a larger assist differential than Kidd (14% higher at home, which is 8.0 apg versus 7.0 apg on the road). Kidd has been on 3-4 different teams in his career though, so it’s hard to believe all of those home scorekeepers would favor him. Maybe the teams he’s been on just play better at home than on the road, which leads to that extra assist. That’s usually the case with Jokic and the Nuggets as well, mostly because our homecourt advantage is historically pretty strong due to our altitude.
Kidd’s Nets teams also went 33-8 at home in both years they reached the finals, but had a losing record on the road. Maybe their opponents just hated going to New Jersey so Kidd’s teams would steamroll them. If you can justify Jokic having 14% more assists at home, then I feel like you can justify Kidd having 11% more.
Yeah but for Denver the home court advantage is very real. It’s not a crowd thing, it’s that the air is a lot thinner than where most other teams are used to playing. That does impact endurance a lot.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of Jokic’s differential comes from the other team being more exhausted in the 4q and leaving more open shots for Jokic to pass to.
Also, if shooting % is higher at home than away (an assumption), then assist numbers would be too
Right, if your team shoots better at home too, more likely to get that assist. I wouldn’t call 11% egregious.
It’s the second largest increase in the history of the NBA, beaten only by Nick Van Exel. Other players on the all-time assist board sit around a 7% increase, whilst Steve Nash is even at a decrease between home/away.
But it’s not a coincidence. Player play better at home
11% increase at home is not weird if the traditional wisdom holds that role players and whistles are better at home
That actually sounds completely reasonable
Been that way forever. Been a vibes based league since the early days
Travels, eurosteps, gather steps, fouls, blocking fouls, carries.
It’s all vibes based on how the refs are feeling.
The refs don’t keep stats though.
NBA is kinda a joke league in many respects
Vibes and gambling.
Bro for real. The older I get the more I realize how much the NBA is starting to become more WWE than a legitimate sports league (not just the NBA btw but as it’s my favorite to watch it hurts the most).
Yea assist numbers are suspect or strange at times. I often have the box score open on my phone when watching a game on my pc. I recall an okc game where shai passes to Chet who basically does an iso play but the assist got scored to Shai. Something similar for Cade with a “assist” to duren. Not flaming any of these players but it’s just something I noticed with nba scorekeeping where assists seem to have a really loose definition
When I was really into NBA Fantasy, I had Andre Drummond. First game of the year I decided to tune in. Watched him block three shots and get credit for none.
Yeah, feels like assists are chronically overcounted while blocks are undercounted.
Yep. Even when everyone thought JJJ had inflated block numbers when they reviewed the video he should have had even more. Blocks have always been like that but the assist thing is new. None of those were even borderline. If the player you pass to takes several dribbles and a pump fake it’s not an assist
I think a pump fake into a shot off the catch is fine to count but not one off the dribble.
This is the most honest assist stats have ever been fwiw
Nah, back in the 50s/60s/70s they were locked down on what an assist was. Any dribbling erased an assist. There’s an infamous anecdote from the season Wilt led the League in assists - he would avoid passing to one teammate in particular because that teammate would often take a quick one-dribble before pulling up for his jumper, and that one dribble would erase the assist stat.
Back in the 50s/60s/70s, there was no way to audit statistics, unlike today.
And yet we have this video evidence right here that auditability is not saving us from over counting assists.
It’s not like today’s games are really adjusted that often either though. It’s gotten even more complicated with gambling too, as any stat adjustments days later can impact bets that have already been paid out.
Fair comment, I actually dunno if it was worse or better historically. Guess what I meant to say is assists are just suspect sometimes or they don’t feel like they should be assists. Thanks, edited the ‘nowadays’ out
They were much more stringent on what counted as an assist back in the day. In the 50s/60s/70s, any dribbling erased an assist. Zero of the plays in this video would have counted as an assist back then.
I’d be fine if we established a happy medium in the rules. Pass -> 1 dribble to set the feet -> shot should count as an assist. Cat h-and-shoot is obv an assist. Pass -> 6 moves while dribbling for 10 seconds -> shot should not be an assist.
But what about an outlet pass to a player upcourt, and he grabs it but takes several dribbles in a straight line to the basket? Seems like that should still be an assist.
Can be augmented by time with the ball as well.
I think what’s obvious at this point is that no rule will accommodate everything perfectly. You’re either going to make a rule that counts plays that aren’t really assists as assists, or you’re going to make a rule that doesn’t count assists as assists. Ideally you make a rule that minimizes it either way, but it will happen.
I can’t speak to exactly how it was ruled in the past, but I will say there are changes to the game that can also affect how an assist is ruled. For example, if hypothetically assists were always when a player dribbled one time or less after receiving a pass, then that would be a lot different today compared to the 70’s. Cause nowadays you have the gather step, plus athletes taking crazy long strides and euro stepping to the basket from the three point line while only taking one dribble.
So in that way, it would make more sense for there to be more assists today for the same set of standards (one dribble), but today you can see the scoring player have the ball for way longer and/or cover way more distance after the pass
I disagree. While stockton assists were infamous, i dont remember them being this bad lol
They weren’t. He had an average home/road split, IIRC, about 10% more at home. Dwayne Wade and Steve Nash averaged more assists on the road (which is very rare) and Chauncey Billups averaged something like 20% more assists at home than on the road.
And even then, who’s to say it’s not because teammates shot better on the road/home, and the gameplan adjusted accordingly etc. Not easy to credit/discredit scorekeeping without actually watching the games.
Also teams just generally win more at home. Some years theres been a like 60% win rate at home for the league in general.
This is just false
I believe the rule is:
“An NBA assist is credited to a player who throws the last pass leading directly to a made field goal, provided the scorer makes an immediate move toward the basket or an immediate shot”
You might want the definition to be stricter, but look at any player and these get called assists.
Unfortunately this thread is going down the drain of “they’re statpadding jokic” but the ops intent in general is the definition of an assist is weird as hell. IMO these shouldn’t be assists but they’re scored as such. I’ve seen similar “assists” be scored across the nba when really the passer didn’t really do much.
There isn’t any boxscore for “doing much”, that was never measured. And I never heard anyone want to do that.
If you continue a chain-string pass to a corner shooter and just give the open guy a ball with no obstruction, you also didn’t do any particularly game-changing or difficult task, but no one argues it’s an assist. It never meant doing much.
This sub got DPOY odds temporarily suspended because they didn’t know what counts as a block
Funniest shit was watching people comment about how a steal shouldn’t be credited to JJJ because “He got his hand on the pass and the ball went to his teammate! His teammate was the one that should get the steal!” Bro even if you just play 2K you should know what counts as a steal 😭.
Reddit comments are always a cesspool. It’s not 15 years ago anymore. There are 91 million daily active users and most of them suck.
Especially me
Not me, I’m one of the good ones.
The thing is, you can’t make stats like an assist subjective. We already see how difficult it is for fouls that are subjective to be consistently called. But the thing is, no one gets sent to the Hall of Fame because of how many fouls they had, but assists definitely lead to a decision like that.
An assist, or any stat, should have a simple definition. “The final pass that leads to a score” leaves very little room for someone making the wrong decision.
If someone pump fakes after a pass and then drives is that really an immediate move to the basket? The immediate move was a pump fake.
It’s also affecting the stats of the player who scores, saying they predominantly score assisted buckets whereas if a player can pump fake, drive and score they really are creating their own offence.
https://videorulebook.nba.com/archive/assist-pass-leads-directly-to-made-field-goal-pass-and-jump-shot-2/
Here is an example of what the NBA considers an assist.
If someone pump fakes after a pass and then drives is that really an immediate move to the basket?
Yes? That is creating a threat with a pass. These are always assists.
None of those passes except maybe one lead directly to a made field goal in my opinion. Seems egregious.
Immediate move to the basket you are just skipping past for the rule. These get called assists all the time.
Immediate move to the basket being subjective is the point. They may get called as assists for everybody, doesn’t mean they should
That’s why the person you’re responding to said “you might want the definition to be stricter.”
They aren’t disagreeing that these are pretty loose in terms of the eye test. They are asserting that they are assists by the rulebook and that gets applied to other players as well (which others have also called out in the thread).
I think you’re misunderstanding
People are saying it shouldn’t be called for assists all the time
If these are getting credited as assists then it’s a far more useless metric than people expect
Providing the playing made an immediate move to the basket. You forgot half the definition!
Is taking a handoff on a screen going away from the basket, using a crossover pump fake step back with three dribbles, considered going straight to the basket now?
That does not describe anything happening in the video.
The rule was officially changed a while ago. It used to be you took two dribbles at the most. They keep changing the rules but instead of just saying so they say, “changed the language.”
Wait so a defensive rebound and a pass up to the FT line that then goes coast to coast is an assist as long as he keeps going towards the basket (even with dribble moves to dodge a defender)?
That seems…odd
Yes, an outlet pass that ends up leading to that player scoring on a fast break is an assist. Always.
Wow. First couple seemed especially egregious
Honestly most of these aren’t that crazy to me outside the last one. Passing to a player in a way that gives them an immediate drive into shot is meant to be an assist. They are on the edge due to the pump fakes but they look reasonable enough. Take the first one, the pass results in an immediate blow by (not necessarily because it was a good pass) and a reasonably open look. The second one is another immediate blow by and wouldn’t even be a question if not for the pump fake. Third one also results in a wide open look and the only question is the step back. I’ve always thought an assist should be whether the scorer was still using the advantage gained by the pass when they shot, I would argue almost all of these examples have the scorer still in the process of using that advantage.
I was always under the assumption that anything more than 1 dribble would nullify the assist
No, that’s FIBA. FIBA, instead, gives assists for free throws (if at least one is made). The NBA has had this problem for decades, where scorekeepers just do whatever the fuck they want. Nick Van Exel once had 23 “assists”, because the Vancouver scorekeeper wanted to see how far he could go, lol.
That actually makes sense though. More than one dribble should negate any assist and a pass leading to free throws should be an assist. The NBA should make this a league-wide mandate.
Yeah, the FIBA rules are much better.
A massive issue with the NBA is that FIBA rules could so easily be replicated but the NBA refuses.
If they allowed assists for free throws then Jokic would’ve had even more this game lol
Good tbh. As much as he gets loosely credited assists, he also gets robbed a lot when someone like Braun gets fouled on the fast break because of Jokics outlet pass.
Wow, that’s crazy. Stupid question, do both teams have their own score keepers like in high school? Or are score keepers assigned by the league?
I thought it was 2 dribbles
The last one was an assist?😅
Ofc, it is not a Jokic problem. It counts as an assists to other playmakers today as well. Lmao
NBA really has inconsistent and weird rules.
Former primary statistician from back when it was the D-League chiming in here.
First, I probably wouldn’t have scored these assists and neither would my caller. That being said, there is a general generosity that an assist is the creation of an opportunity. A kick out to an open shooter who pump fakes a closing defender, repositions, and shoots was an assist in my book. Same if they drive on the closeout and pull up. The pass created the opportunity to do that. Any additional basketball move and I would scoff if my caller advocated for an assist. Like in the example of Murray driving past the close out into a dribble move before shooting.
I will say you definitely get pressure from the coaching staff to stat pad. Crediting bigs with extremely generous tap out boards when they had no control whatsoever and were just fighting for a board before a guard cleans it up for example. And just being NOT overly stingy with assists. The latter I would oblige because they’re D-League guys just wanting that 10-day payday. Same reason why a lot of end of quarter heaves I wouldn’t score because they “didn’t get it up in time”. Bigs were generally dicks about it though. Especially some of the 2 way guys. So yeah, get fucked Jeremy Tyler thinking you had 18 boards.
Never once did I get dinged by the league for it and I was in general highly regarded and invited to a Summer League after running stats for a G-League Invitational back in the day.
A kick out to an open shooter who pump fakes
An open shooter doesnt need to pump fake…
Take out the word “open” then. Doesn’t change the point at all, you’re just nitpicking and missing the forest for the trees.
Why is it a problem? I remember like 15 years ago watching the Rondo 20+ assist game highlights and a lot of the assists were like this; it’s always been this way
Jokic probably wrecked OP in fantasy this week. I know he wrecked me lol
Westbrook should be coming up more in this thread
Because Jokic had a good game and looks like the best player in the world again
Haha those are nowhere near being assists
None of these are assists
Yeah, those are all assists in the nba. And, also yes, they stretch the meaning of the word. Been like that for a long while.
Oh god, this going to become a narrative isn’t it..
The agenda pushers are really scraping the bottom of the barrel this season. Seeing this posted by a spurs flair and it makes perfect sense.
These have been assists in the NBA for longer than most of these kids have been alive.
They are so strict with the blocks and steals but they let these count as assists.
nuggets fans downvoting this so it doesn’t have reach is hilarious lmaooo. Sitting at 76% voting and and more comments than upvotes.
ITT: people who don’t actually know the rule for what an assist is are shocked at what’s counted as an assist
I think OP is saying there’s a problem with what is considered an assist. And based on these play, that’s fair
I don’t disagree with OP. The NBA rules should probably more tightly define an assist.
But the fact is everything in this reel fits the very broad rule of what an assist is, and at least half of these comments are insinuating jokic is getting dubious help.
1st - that’s been counted as an assist for about 20 years now
2nd - no fuxking shot that’s an assist
3rd - again, absolutely not- but i can see it if your stretch it.
4th - again: standard assist for about 20 years going.
5th: nope, that’s just egregiously bad.
5 assists out of 19 with only 3 being objectively wrong calls while fishy is not grounds for investigation- yet, I’m curious Op Do you have any more clips that prove this is a season long thing and not just a wonky night of officiating?
He didnt say it needs investigation nor that it’s specific to this season
I didn’t see one assist in that clip
I personally don’t take issue with these. The dude hands off the ball leading directly into drives, that’s an assist.
Last one Murray obviously puts in a lot of work himself, but it was also clearly a good transition set-up by Jokic to give him that momentum.
I disagree. Those shots are still created by Murray. Not Jokic. The concept of an assist is that Jokic made those shots easier. Or easier. Murray is creating those shots.
Stats as a be all tell all have always been overvalued, you can make a great play that leads to a bucket but not get any assist or credit that shows up on the main stat sheet and most rebounds are uncontested but get put into a bunch of mainstream stat ratings
Totally agree with you, mate
Just make it a timing thing. Anything under 4 seconds is an assist.
No. One dribble.
The people who record stats literally work for the home team. So every record keeper going to work their own way and they’re probably going to have some level of bias. The NBA audits and can reverse stats but clearly they don’t do a very good job of it.
This is not new. They counted similar plays as assists in the 90’s. I am not saying that you’re wrong, but I feel that the assist “generosity” has been consistent for long enough that “it is what it is”.
They’re all within what would qualify as an assist in the NBA. I don’t see the issue tbh
These are all NBA assists. The definition is pretty simple. If the player who the pass gets to immediately makes a move to go score, it’s an assist. Little weird but all assists are this way, they aren’t changing things for Jokic.
Whoa…that’s actually insane….these are like those fake Gretzky assists
I think this is just one small example of why, as valuable as stats and advanced stats and metrics are, watching the game is essential to understanding how good players are. Jokic is arguably the best passer ever, but his assists are inflated. And I think this is probably most relevant is when discussing a players game who is good at something “paddable” like assist but doesn’t do it nearly as often. A secondary playmaker likely isn’t getting a lot of these types of assists, so their ability gets slightly deflated comparatively and if you don’t watch the games you might see a 3-4 assist difference and think one is significantly better than the other.
Is it the end of the world? No. Will there always be bias and subjectivity? Yes. But I do wish we could be a little stricter with the definition because it’s absolutely silly to call these assists.
And yet, in a previous post about assists, plenty of people were essentially making the argument that the last person to pass the ball to the scorer should get an assist almost irregardless of anything else. Which is dumb.
Who fucking caaaaares lmao
It’s typically three or less dribbles for an assist.
It was always like this, since Stockton days
I don’t know if attacking the closeout on the first one is “creating everything for himself” since the advantage was created by passing to the open guy. The rest are just standard DHO actions and everyone gets assists for those
The question is whether everyone should get assists for those
If it’s counted the same for everyone what difference does it make?
I’m a Nuggets homer and none of those should have been assists. He did have an insane behind the back pass for an assist late in the game that was really nice. The only stat they can’t really fudge is points (they have the whistle for that). Steals, blocks, rebounds, turnovers, assists and probably more all leave a lot of room for fudging.
Before the softification of the stats, if the player had to dribble more than once, it was no longer an assist. This is ridiculous.
An assist should be a pass that directly leads to a score.
It’s only a “problem” if you have some stake in whether there is an assist or not. The game in general is the same either way. Denver wins 142-135 no matter what you call an assist. I’m not sure NBA is too bothered.
i call them rondos but they have always been around afaik makes no sense to stop counting them now. just make a new stat called true assists lol
Wait till you hear about the stat takers for John Stockton
Pretty sure it’s always been if they score within 3 dribbles after the pass it’s an assist.
Y’all are making stuff up.
Wait till they hear about this John Stockton guy!
If these are all assists, Rudy Gobert should be averaging 6 per game just on hand-off screens to Ant & Donte lol
The assist is, and had always been, a deeply flawed, borderline fake stat. Nothing happening here is really new. So many of Stockton’s assists were essentially entry passes.
Jokic is a top three passer of all time but his assist totals are just a reflection of that. They are absolutely not the measure of it.
0 assists shown
The explosion in triple doubles the last decade is directly attributable to this. Jokic is one of the best passers/playmakers I’ve ever seen, but some of the stuff that gets credited as an assist is absolute bullshit.
This isn’t new. Stockton famously had his assist totals inflated and pretty sure Wilt’s scorekeeper might’ve given him a boost or two in building those ridiculous numbers.
Feels like there are bigger issues to address like tanking, Aspiration and Scott Foster
Whenever this is brought up with Jokic, I see comments like “this is not only a jokic thing,” but I never see videos of other players receiving similar box score treatment. I’m not denying it, but I’d like to see evidence like we see for Jokic.
The NBA is a watered down product in just about every way. It will enter a steep decline if it continues operating the way it is.
NONE of these are assists. By any definition! They’re creating their own offense with the ball, taking several dribbles and making moves. Egregious as hell stat padding at the least
These are all assists in the nba
Yup, they are extremely lenient when awarding assist in the modern game.
you bet the under didn’t you.
If this is true. I would only count #1 and #3 as assists and honestly those are questionable to me.