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Message: [QUOTE="44cuse, post: 2440791, member: 693"] This is partly true. And I'm not trying to pick apart your statement because in general I'm actually not in disagreement. Statistically speaking what you want is an exceptional AST to TO ratio with a high FG%. That's a pretty simple statement in itself as it just says: you want to value the ball and make a lot more shots than you miss. Anyone would take that. It is true that assists don't matter because they, literally, do not get you any points. But there is some statistical correlation to aggregate Team FG% being higher on assisted vs unassisted baskets. Another way this manifests itself is in 3pt FG effectiveness. As the game evolves (see: GSW, HOU as NBA examples) to a more perimeter or 3PT oriented game, the ability to move the ball to get a better a shot largely results in an assisted basket (and assisted shooting %'s are higher here). Point being...very few players receive a pass and dribble around the perimeter and then shoot a three. If the case of SYR, the players actually do take 3s off the dribble or off that high ball screen which is a pretty low % shot (from an already bad 3pt shooting team). So in this sense, the assist actually does matter (somewhat). And the question really isn't about assists. It is about potential assists because every assist has a 100% FG % associated to it by nature. 82games has done some analysis on this charting games using a definition of potential assist (a pass that leads to a possession event...foul, TO, make, miss, FT, etc) and found that there is an 8% (or so) improvement in FG% on assisted baskets. Pointing out the obvious, this years team is just a bad offensive team (265th in eFG%, 231st in assist per FGM, 139th in OFF ) which we all knew was going to be the case. So there is no news here. But per the 2nd post in the thread...obviously I can't read JB's mind, but I think he's pointing out that we need to be smarter with our shot selection by trying to get more assists rather than just relying on dribble drive. Anyhow, that's probably more than you/anyone wanted to read and just a too long way of saying that while assists don't get you points, there is some correlation to saying they do make you more effective from a FG% perspective. And when you don't shoot well, you want/need to do everything you can to improve your shooting % and therefore JB could be saying: we need more assisted buckets because we can't create off the dribble well enough (and drive and kick won't work when you are 328th in the nation in 3PT FG%). 44cuse [/QUOTE]

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