When a basket is scored, whats the maximum number of people who can get credited with an assist? And dont presume to tell me my logic when you yourself dont understand it. I give credit to the player who draws the double team. After he passes it out, the recipient of the pass must decide whether to shoot or pass. If he decides to make the extra pass and a basket is scored, I believe that the pass he threw is more important than the pass he received. You may take the stance that his pass wouldnt exist if he didnt receive the first pass. But look at it this way. In regards to the scored basket, which pass was more integral? The one that indirectly helped or the one that directly helped?
You lose objectivity if you selectively choose which hockey assists (based on its definition) should be counted as hockey assists.
A lot of people have already pointed out to you. If you just choose to ignore what they say and keep repeating the direct-indirect argument like a broken record, no one will talk to you anymore. So let me put it out one more time for you. If you really want to measure offensive effectiveness, the direct pass assist number is the easiest but not necessarily the best measure. There are lots of instances where the direct pass has very little to do with the success of the play. The guy who just stands there and swings the ball to the weak side open shooter has LESS to do with creating the shot than the guy who draws two defenders to him and pass it out to the swing guy. Anybody can wait there to receive the pass out from the double team and swing it to the open guy. But not anybody can draw a double team and pass it out. Now do you understand?
Who cares? Assists aren't everything. We're not talking about boxscore stats here, but rather how to evaluate a player's performance on a play by play basis. I didn't realize you were backtracking from this post: [rquoter]If you're going to give him props for passing out of a double team, that means you're looking at his game through a microscope. [/rquoter] So now it's ok to give him credit for passing out of a double team? Swell. My stance is credit should be allotted based on what players do to help the team over and above what your typical player at that position would be expected to do. If a large majority of perimeter players could be expected to make that extra pass, then I give a little credit to the "direct pass". If a smaller percentage of players could be expected to draw the double team that led to the eventual score, then I give relatively more credit to the "indirect pass".
Sorry, I dont care if people want to talk to me or not. I repeat the direct-indirect argument b/c its a logical argument that no one can refute. You're going to fault me for continually using sound logic? Nice. Sorry to burst your bubble, but without the direct pass, 0 points are scored and the play is a failure. Always. I guess the more appropriate question is...do YOU understand?
It's not logical. It's arbitrary. There's a difference. You've arbitrarily decided that "direct/indirect" is the important criteria for allotting credit. You've provided no convincing rationale for this. When coaches game plan for a team, this issue of "direct/indirect" pass has no bearing. They focus on the principle players in a given play -- the guys who present tough matchups that require double teams, guys you can't rotate off of because they'll burn you with outside shooting, guys with exceptional court vision, etc. I'd recommend that you read the following chapter from the excellent book "Basketball on Paper" by Dean Oliver: http://books.google.com/books?id=Xh...RRZ&sig=LiBdNF6fgLIzvoicqi8mP1sYQ24#PPA144,M1 The first 4 pages or so where he lays out his "Difficulty Theory" on assigning credit to cooperating players is available in the Google Books preview.
Actually, we're talking about the validity of a hockey assist. Sorry, I dont see any backtracking on my part. If you see it, please elaborate. I never said the double-teamed passer shouldnt be given credit. My contention is that he shouldnt be given more credit than the player who actually makes the assist. Btw, the context of that microscope quote was that if you're going to give him props for his indirect good plays, you should fault him for his indirect bad plays. If thats the case, tmac would get no credit whatsoever. I expect a wingman earning 20 million to pass out of a double team when he's trapped. We're talking about nba guards and small forwards. The best players in the world. Each of them are capable of making the extra pass. But then again, its their choice to make that extra pass. If tmac passes out of a double team to rafer, and the defense is rotating to rafer, then rafer could opt NOT to pass it. He could try to penetrate. If he instead chooses it pass it to the wide-open player, then he should get more credit than tmac. after all, tmac gives rafer the choice to pass or shoot. its up to rafer to make the correct one. If thats how you feel, then thats how you feel. I'm obviously not going to change your mind just like you wont change mine.
My mind could certainly be changed, if you presented a convincing argument. But if that's how you feel, there's no point continuing. I would advise others in the thread to also take note that wekko368 isn't going to change his mind, so its futile to continue discussion with him.
Direct = directly leads to points. Indirect = indirectly leads to points. How is this not logical? A direct cause is more important than an indirect cause.
I've provided logical arguments, but you're just being stubborn. If you can somehow prove that a hockey assist directly leads to points, then i'll rethink my position. Otherwise, i'll continue believing i'm right.
Explain the logic, if you can. It would require, firstly, explaining what you mean by "importance". If I'm a coach or scout, what do I primarily game plan for? The guy who present all sorts of matchup problems that distort the defense, or the other guys on the court who play off that?
I rate "importance" by how critical it is for the objective to come into fruition. In this instance, the objective is to score points. On an assisted basket, the basket cannot exist w/o the assist. However, it CAN exist w/o a hockey assist. And even if you want to talk about a successful hockey assist, its success is 100% dependent on the success/existence of the subsequent assist. Of course you game plan for the opponent presenting the greatest matchup problems? How does that relate to the topic at hand?
You're ignoring what actually happened on the play and instead focusing on what could happen in general. If your criteria is how critical an action was to scoring the basket, then in the play under consideration Tracy drawing a double team and passing out of it is no less critical than the extra pass or the shot itself. All the three needed to happen for that basket to be scored. Because what coaches game plan for is what they would deem "important" in the other team scoring. We need to settle on criteria for importance, since that's the root of the disagreement. Here's another example. Chuck Hayes is wide open under the basket because the opposing defense is focusing on a two man game between Tracy and Yao. Tracy makes a spectacular thread the needle pass to Chuck, who converts an easy lay up. In that scenario, Chuck was most "directly" involved in scoring the basket. Should he get the majority of the credit for that score? Based on your reasoning, he would have to.
We've been talking about hockey assists vs regular assists, not made baskets. Of course a made basket trumps either.
We're talking about your logic. If you think regular assists are more important than hockey assists because one is more "direct" than the other, than this is about "directness"/"indirectness". Which means, by your logic, more credit should always be given to the player who made the basket than what went into getting the player the shot. Examples abound, such as the one provided above, where that isn't a useful standard at all. Again, you want to just arbitrarily assign credit based on "directness". But if we actually care about learning something about how valuable players are to the team via their performance, that isn't enough.
Lets not mention that Hockey Assists will be counted for by the people that actually matter, the team mates. Im sure if Battier made the assist from a Hockey pass from t-mac he would credit T-mac for making that basket. Thats something that is obvious when you play basketball. Your team mates will say yes good passing and that was a good play from T-mac. Since the thread is to objectively consider each individual play I would say a Hockey assist is a good play and a missed shot on a hockey assist as a neutral play. Your using broken logic because it doesn't give recognition that a team mate would give to a player. Thats all that really matters on plays. I don't expect a 20 million paid wingman to pass out of double teams. Kobe Bryant regularly does not. And he shoots questionable percentages for the amount of shots he takes. If you look at some of the other players in the league but with him specifically you would be looking at nearly 40% bad plays, 40% good plays and 20% neutral plays. I cbf writing it all out but i looked at the game he played on the same night as the indiana game and he had approximately that many plays. Including 11 turnovers. A good play is a good play if the basket is made. A good play is also when the teammate is found open because of a double team. Everyone who plays basketball would credit a team mate passing out of a double team for a second open man. Sure the outlet passer gets the assist and made the good outlet pass. But thats not possible without the outlet pass first. All three players were involved in the play and should be credited with a good play( or in other words correct decision making)
EXACTLY! Now you know what we are trying to point out here with TMac?? This is not exact science. We are just saying the decision TMac made was good/neutral/bad. We are not giving out assists here to fill up his official stats, got it? No, that is exactly what you said. It was YOUR interpretation of the criteria, which I was showing through Yao's example as being a ridiculous way to judge a good/bad shot selection. The OP clearly said that if TMac takes a tough shot and makes it, that's considered good. If he takes a tough shot and misses, it is a bad shot. If he misses a wide open shot or take it to the hole and misses, it is good or neutral. But you want every shot TMac misses to be a bad, even if it is wide open one. See the irony in your statement? You know it is wrong, but you still want to interpret it this way. Very subjective. Maybe he is waiting on Yao to catchup? Who knows. I would rather have the OP's play by play objective analysis of TMac's defensive efforts than the very vague comment above. Everyone knows we are a consistent 50+ win team with Gundy style basketball and with TMac doing what he does and if both our stars are healthy for most of the year. That's a given and not a bad record at all. Now considering how much Yao has improved this year imo (his rebounds, minutes played, catching, and staying away from fouls etc.) and with better role players (Scola, Landry, Brooks) why can't we be better this year??! Why are we assuming that our results would remain the same (which were in fact very good) if TMac plays the way he has been the past few years?? Again, which decent jump shooter in the NBA doesnt do that? but clearly it's just not as often as most TMac haters claim it to be. Heck I think Alston does it almost as often.
Again, why don't you guys understand this is not an exact science. The fact is he made the right decision when he got doubled instead of jacking up a bad shot. The whole point of this post I assume is to analyze play by play TMac's decision making and effort through one entire game. It is to debunk TMac haters' assertion that he is hurting the team by being selfish/ballhog/jacking up heavily contested shots/lazy/etc etc. In that regards, the OP hit a homerun with this thread. It is funny to see some people trying to poke holes in the analysis and scampering to cover their behind.
