http://regressing.deadspin.com/nba-court-factors-how-assists-arent-as-unbiased-as-you-1694917271/+kylenw This is extremely interesting. A few Rocket-related takeaways. 1) Our home-court used to be assist-deflationary (relative to much of the league) before James arrived, and is now modestly inflationary. Maybe acquiring a superstar on a long-term deal creates an incentive to inflate? 2) In 2015, Golden State's arena is notably assist-inflationary. If I understand the stat correctly, the ratio of assisted baskets for home games vs. assisted baskets for road games is 1.09 : 1. That's a nearly ten percent discrepancy, and it's reasonable to suspect that the individual player discrepancy (especially for point guards *cough* Steph Curry) is higher. I don't know that it would be higher to the point that the assist numbers of Curry and Harden would be equal if they played in the same environment (it would have to double plus a little more), but it seems possible. I definitely feel like there's a perception that Steph is a better distributor than James, and this plays into the MVP calculus. Would James have an edge if his assist numbers equaled Curry's? 3) Is stat manipulation a sabermetric advantage? Philly's court factor jumped from middling to one of the highest in the league right after Hinkie drafted MCW. Hinkie had every reason to encourage the inflation of MCW's assist totals: a) he had him on a rookie-deal, so there was no possibility of high numbers biting him in contract negotiations; b) high on-court value vs. contract value is a tremendous trade asset while the player is cost-controlled; and c) MCW seemed like a trade chip from the beginning, given that Philly's window of contention is no earlier than 2016-2017, when Saric will come aboard.
In terms of quality of assists accounting for the extra point on 3 pointers and hitting open shooters, Harden blows Curry out of the water.
yeah, but the point-corrected disparity would be even greater absent the home-court assist factor, right? And anyway, it's still hard for people to accept TS%, much less point-corrected assist value. And don't the advanced stats like win shares, etc, have to bake in assists as they are called? I mean, you can't review the tape on every game to decide what *should* have been an assist.
