High level passing is one of the most valuable skills in basketball. However, determining a player’s passing skill is a difficult task. Simply passing the ball to a teammate may or may not be valuable. The Assist was invented to attempt to quantify when a player makes a valuable pass. A player records an Assist when they make a pass that leads directly to a made basket. Yes, It’s vague and the line can get blurry for when an Assist should or should not be recorded. The obvious issue with this system is it’s open to the interpretation of the official scorer. Different official scorers at different games may or may not credit a player with an Assist. Overall Assists are a decent proxy for passing ability but over time we have developed better ways to measure passing. Below is a hopefully useful guide to different passing stats developed over the years.

Assist:
A player records an Assist when they make a pass that leads directly to a made basket. One of many issues with the traditional Assist is if a player is fouled on a would-be Assist and misses the shot, the passer is not credited for an Assist regardless of whether or not they make the free throws.

 

Assist Points:

Assist Points work the same as normal Assists except it shows you the total points created from those Assists. If a player has 7 Assists and 5 are three-point Assists and 2 are two-point Assists they would have 19 Assist Points. This is useful for simple analysis when combined with points scored. If a team scores 100 points and a player has 35 points and 15 Assist points, they helped generate 50 points or 50% of the team’s offense for the game.

 

Assist Percentage:

Assist Percentage is the percentage of team Assists a player is responsible for when they are on the floor. This stat makes comparing Assists across different situations/eras easier because it is less affected by the pace and scoring environment. It also shows the Assist workload a player was responsible for on their team.

Potential Assist:
Potential Assists work a bit differently than traditional Assist. A Potential Assist is rewarded if a teammate shoots within one dribble of receiving the ball. It doesn’t matter if the shot goes in or not. The idea is that a passer shouldn’t be punished because their teammate missed the shot. It does not take into account shots missed on free throws. These started getting tracked in the 2013-14 season.

 

Secondary Assist:
These are often called “hockey Assists”. They are given to a player when they make a pass to a teammate who then gets an Assist within .5 seconds of receiving the ball. The idea is if a star drives and kicks to a shooter and then that shooter swings the ball to a teammate for an open shot the star should get a little something something. These started getting tracked in the 2013-14 season. 

 

Quick Decision Making Assist:

These are the Assists that get recorded that lead to another player getting a Secondary Assist. If player A passes the ball to Player B, who then records an Assist in less than .5 seconds, Player A gets a secondary Assist and Player B gets a Quick Decision Making Assist. This metric can help identify good extra passers and ball movers

 

High Value Assist:
A High Value Assist or “HV Assist” are an attempt to determine which passers are creating valuable shots for teammates. To record a HV Assist a teammate must take a three point shot, a shot at the rim, or get a FT Assist. The idea is that players who create high-efficiency shots for teammates are better passers/playmakers.

 

FT Assist:

A free throw Assist is credited if a player passes to a teammate who draws a foul before taking two dribbles

Playmaking Talent:
Playmaking Talent is Basketball Index’s in house passing metric. It’s made up of 5 components.

Passing Creation Volume – Potential Assist + FT Assist.

Passing Creation Quality – The expected eFG% on Potential Assists generated based on shot quality.

Passing Versatility – An estimate of the diversity of passes a player makes.

Passing Efficiency – This compares bad pass turnovers against expectations, considering the quality and versatility of shots created for teammates. Think of this as an advanced Assist-to-turnover ratio.

On-Ball Gravity: An estimate of the defensive attention an offensive player commands while they have the ball. An example of this would be a defender going over a screen in a pick and roll.

All of the components of Playmaking Talent are stabilized meaning they have a small amount of league average attempts added to their totals to make them more predictable and combat small sample size. The idea behind the metric is that it weighs the volume, shot quality created, versatility, passing efficiency, and defensive attention a player generates. This helps deal with the issue of a player racking up a bunch of low-quality Assists because they have the ball a lot. Attracting defensive attention and creating open shots for teammates on volume is hard to fudge.

 

Passing and offensive workload:

Assists are a decent starting point but new stats do a better job of capturing high-level passing ability. Opportunity is an important part of the equation. You need the ball to show you are a good passer, meaning you could be the next Nikola Jokic but if you barely play and only get a handful of touches a game your true passing ability could be masked. That’s why it’s important to look at all passing stats relative to how often a player has the ball. Comparing Ball Dominance% (The percentage of time a player has the ball on offense) to passing stats helps you understand how players are performing relative to their passing opportunities.  

 

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