“Darren Collison. 16 points. They have him with 20 assists tonight… And this is a Hornet’s rookie record of 20 assists. I’m going to say this politely. They need to watch the video of this game because Darren Collison has about 13 assists in the game, not 20. The person keeping assists tonight is a little unclear on the rule. You’ve had balls thrown in and then guys making moves then scoring and still an assist will be credited. That’s up for the league to look at, eventually.”
This was a quote by Bob Fitzgerald towards the end of the Hornets victory over the Warriors Monday night. Bob Fitzgerald is the Warriors play-by-play man. When I was watching the game and saw the stat, it didn’t really seem correct to me either. I guessed that Collison might have around 15 assists. To hear 20 was sort of alarming.
We’ve heard about issues in the past with Nick Van Exel in Denver or what’s been assumed with Chris Paul in New Orleans in terms of his stats being inflated for the hopes of ending up on SportsCenter because of pretty round numbers. Well, 20 assists for someone that the Hornets are desperately hoping takes away some Rookie of the Year recognition from Tyreke Evans with his half of a season’s worth of brilliance is quite the round number to make people notice.
Since Fitz wanted someone to check out the video tape and see if 20 was a legit number for Collison tonight, I decided to cue up the old League Pass Broadband and go over each registered assist for Collison.
For clarification, we’re going by the generally accepted definition of an assist:
“In basketball, an assist is attributed to a player who passes the ball to a teammate in a way that leads to a score by field goal, meaning that he or she was “assisting” in the basket.”
Here is a break down of each assist credited to Darren Collison with my description of the play and the verdict of whether or not it should be an assist.
Assist 1: Fast-break pass to Morris Peterson on the wing for three
The first score of the game by the Hornets happened off a turnover in which Collison intercepted a horrible pass, took it the other way and threw a pass to Mo Pete on the wing that was offline too. Mo controlled the pass with a bounce, gathered himself and shot the three. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 2: Transition three by Morris Peterson
Collison quickly jogs the ball up the floor and finds Morris Peterson running with him all alone. He throws a quick pass to Mo Pete on the left wing again and Peterson rises up for his second three in as many attempts. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 3: Pass to Peja Stojakovic in the mid-post for a jumper
This is the first questionable one of the night for Collison. He dribbles up the right side where Peja has his defender in the post around 16 feet from the basket. Collison passes to Peja who isn’t even looking at the basket. He’s not really facing it so much as he’s facing the scorer’s table. He turns and takes a big jab step towards the baseline. When the defender recovers because he realizes he isn’t going anywhere, Peja makes one more small jab step and then fires up the jumper. I find it hard to believe that this pass led to the score in the spirit of the definition of an assist. Verdict: Invalid Assist
Assist 4: Alley-oop to Emeka Okafor
Completely legit here. It’s a lob into the center of the key, which Okafor catches and dunks in one motion. I like to call it the ‘ole alley-oop. It’s catchy (pun intended). Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 5: Morris Peterson three in the right corner
Collison gets the ball into the post on the left side of the floor. After the pass to West down low, he cuts into the middle of the lane. He catches the pass from West and the defense collapses to the middle. He kicks out to the right corner where Peterson catches and fires the three. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 6: Pass to West inside for a basket
Collison and Okafor run a pick-and-roll on the right side of the floor. Collison drives towards the middle, jumps in the air and then passes to a cutting David West on the baseline. West catches the ball and puts it up in one motion for an easy score. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 7: Pass inside to Okafor for a turnaround basket
In a pseudo-transition opportunity, Collison dribbles down the middle of the court and finds Okafor with good position in the paint around 10 feet from the basket. He dumps it into Okafor who takes a dribble while he fakes back to the middle of the lane with his right foot and then turns and gets fouled on a turnaround jumper that goes in. This one is kind of sketchy because by the rule he doesn’t really make a move toward the basket at first. But in the spirit of the rule, I think it’s a good assist call. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 8: Pass inside to Okafor for the dunk
Collison runs a pick play with Songaila on the left side of the floor. As he dribbles towards the middle, he finds Okafor in the center of the key, right in front of the basket. He quickly drops the ball into Okafor, who makes a strong drop-step to the basket and dunks it home immediately. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 9: Pass to Thornton off the screen for a jumper
Collison dribbles the ball on the right wing above the three-point line as Marcus Thornton comes off a screen on the baseline to the same side of the floor. Thornton pump fakes then dribbles the ball to his right before pulling up for a jumper. There’s no way this should count as an assist. The score was completely created off of Thornton’s fake and then dribble to free himself up for the shot. Verdict: Invalid Assist
Assist 10: Pass to Julian Wright in the Post who scores a layup
I will admit that so far, the majority of the assists are completely legit. However, this one is pretty egregious. Collison dribbles up the right side of the floor and finds Julian Wright in the post about 12 feet away from the basket. Wright catches the ball, faces up to his defender and then dribbles towards the baseline. He spins back into the lane before laying it up. This is in NO WAY an assist. This shouldn’t even be close. He took two dribbles and about five steps total after catching the ball with his back to the basket to begin with. I’m starting to think the league should have a team of guys to verify stats after the game. Verdict: Invalid Assist
Assist 11: Transition pass to Thornton on the right wing for a three
This is an easy one to call. Collison gets the pass in the backcourt from David West off the rebound and pushes it up the floor. He finds Thornton on the right wing, who catches the pass with one foot inside the three-point line. Without a dribble or hesitation, he slowly gathers himself behind the line and drains the three. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 12: Dribble handoff for the Peja three-pointer
Collison dribbled this one on the left side of the court just inside the three-point line as Peja curled behind him from the baseline. Collison dropped it off to Peja for the quick three. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 13: Pass into the mid-post for a Peja layup
Collison pushes the ball up the court after a Curry missed floater. He finds Peja in the post on the left side. Peja catches the ball and squares up. He jabs towards the baseline and back to the middle twice before taking it into the middle and making the layup. Five seconds and two dribbles after Peja catches the pass, he scores a layup and somehow Darren Collison gets an assist. This is inexplicable. Verdict: Invalid Assist
Assist 14: Pass to the right side for a Peterson three
Off a broken and wild play in which Collison saves the ball on the opposite end of the court, he brings the ball back up the middle of the floor, draws a double team as Morris Peterson sneaks to the right perimeter. Collison finds Mo Pete for a three on the right side. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 15: Alley-oop pass to Emeka Okafor for the dunk
Pick-and-roll play at the top of the key for Collison and Okafor that results in Collison drawing both defenders and Emeka rolling unabated to the basket. Collison throws a perfect lob and Emeka dunks it home. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 16: Transition pass to Peja for the layup
Collison pushes the tempo once again and catches the Warriors defense slow to set up or even react. He dribbles up the middle of the floor and find Peja right under the basket. Peja catches the ball and goes right up for the little reverse layup. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 17: Pass to Okafor in the middle of the key for the short runner
With the shot clock running down, Collison dribbles down the right side of the lane and kicks it back to a cutting Okafor in the middle of the paint. He catches and puts up a quick little runner. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 18: Pass to David West on the baseline for the step-back jumper
Collison dribbles from the right wing over the top of the three-point line towards the middle of the floor. As he drives into the foul line area, he passes off to David West who is fading towards the baseline from where Collison just was. West doesn’t catch the ball cleanly and by the time he corrals it, he shoots the jumper from the baseline. Even though the catch wasn’t clean, the pass clearly led him into that shot. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 19: Handoff pass to James Posey for the three
After a steal by Thornton, Collison catches the ball in the frontcourt on the right side of the floor. He has James Posey trailing right behind him and circling back to the three-point line. Collison takes the pass and dumps it off to Posey for the immediate three. Verdict: Valid Assist
Assist 20: Pass on the fast-break to Thornton for the layup
After the Curry turnover, Collison pushes the ball up the right side of the floor in a two-on-one fast-break with Marcus Thornton. Once he gets the defender to commit to his side, Collison shoots a pass across the lane to a streaking Thornton who lays it up on the right side of the hoop. Verdict: Valid Assist
Overall, it’s not quite as bad as Bob Fitzgerald made it out to be. There was one questionable assist, four assists that shouldn’t have counted and ultimately, 16 assists that I’m fine with Collison having. Did he ACTUALLY set the rookie record for the Hornets with 20 assists? Technically, he did. In reality, he didn’t.
Either way, it brings up the question of whether or not the league does need to monitor this. They go back and look at the tape for flagrant and technical fouls. For anything close that wasn’t called and actually should have been a flagrant or technical, they can reverse it.
So why not have a dedicated team of video watchers for each night to verify the game scorer’s findings? It doesn’t take much. If we’re going to base awards and All-Star appearances off of numbers, shouldn’t we be absolutely sure that those numbers are legit?
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Collison put up 18 in Memphis in January.
Someone did a numerical breakdown of Chris Paul’s assists at home vs. away and found they weren’t being inflated more than any other point guard’s totals are being inflated… think they also looked at Nash and Williams. I wish I could remember where this was.
Nice one, I was also kind of suprised when I heard the 20. If they are trying to get him ROY this way, it’s a pretty desperate tactic
I don’t know they took that rebound from Lebron to take away his 50 point triple double so…….. why not take away some assists from Collison
You have to be joking with this article. Do you do this breakdown of every stat that everyone puts up for every record? What about the rebound records that other players on other teams have set? Were they all “valid” rebounds? or did they just bounce to them and didn’t get the ‘spirit’ of a rebound stat? To analyze things like that is absolutely ridiculous. Every players stats have what you call ‘invalid’ stats.
If you do the action in the game, you get the stat. Plain and simple. He did it, other players didn’t.
What a stupid article…
None, you apparently didn’t read the beginning of this article. The reason I went back and checked the assists is because the Warriors play-by-play guy said someone at the NBA should do it. He questioned the validity of the assists. So I went back and did it. Don’t be mad that your team’s stat keeper tried to cheat. It’s okay.
[...] Harper did the heavy lifting over at Hardwood Paroxysm, painstakingly breaking down every single play where an assist was awarded to Collison. The summary [...]
And its not just Collison’s game. There has been a lot of talk around the league about Paul’s home assist numbers being slightly inflated… guess where he plays? That’s right, New Orleans.
Its like the clock problems in Atlanta. You know something is going to happen, but no one does anything about it.
I don’t see any discussion of the questionable Curry assists awarded here. On one Watson layup, Curry passed up court to Watson, who then dribbled from about midcourt to get to the hoop, put a few moves on a defender, and had a high degree of difficulty finish. Assist: Curry. Why no mention?
Curry’s also had COUNTLESS turnovers wiped from the record all season. He gets love in every arena.
Oh. Oh I see.
[...] Zach Harper of Hardwood Paroxysm goes on a assists Darren Collison’s assists. [...]
I am a hornets fan…..didn’t hear that announcement because I was watching the beat down of the warriors live at the hive.
Yeah, that epic “beatdown” of 4 points that went down to the wire against a team that was playing deavan george and a D leaguer at center for major portions of the game because of their injuries. Impressive!
I’m pretty impressed you did this by the way. I heard the same comment from Bob, and actually thought about doing this also. If Collison was on my OPPONENTS fantasy team rather than mine, I probably would have. The NBA should do two things. One, they should reserve the right to create a “strike” system for egregious mistakes in the tally of a stat (or lack of). Basically, they could randomly check games that they feel there may have been errors, and set up a warning/suspension/eventual fire if it was a consistent issue. TWO, if they aren’t already, the stat keepers need to be hired by the NBA, and report to the NBA, not the particular teams themselves.
I will say though, that an NBA assist is by far the hardest and most subjective stat to administer in the NBA. Especially since the shooter’s now allowed to dribble the ball and the passer can still get the assist, which wasn’t always the case. Oh well, whatever. At least they can’t alter points totals… right?
Go fuck yourself None.
Thanks for the work Zach
[...] comprendre, Zach Harper, du blog Hardwood Paroxysm, a regardé le match en entier, étudiant chaque passe du rookie de la Nouvelle-Orléans. Sa [...]
The website does not want anyone to read it. Or maybe it does not want me to read it. Sadness.
Why go fuck myself? To analyze the stats this way is just stupid. He got the assists, plain and simple. All other players get “invalid” assists and those aren’t docked from their stats.
http://20secondtimeout.blogspot.com/2009/04/charting-assists-for-chris-paul-and.html
57 of Paul’s 75 credited assists were deemed to be legitimate
Assists and rebounds and occasionally blocked shots, hell sometimes even turnovers are inflated/deflated by the stat guys. Usually it generally goes unnoticed unless somebody gets too happy messing with the numbers and catches another person’s attention.
The NBA Statistician’s Manual defines an assist as:
“An assist is credited to the player tossing the last pass leading directly to a field goal, only if the player scoring the goal responds by demonstrating immediate reaction toward the basket.”
also
“An assist may be credited on a pass to the pivot shooter, provided there is an immediate reaction on his part to score. If there is not an immediate reaction, the statistician must decide whether the pivot shooter made the score on his own initiative and, therefore, credit him with the score but do not credit the passer with an assist.”
It may not change your analysis, but it’s better to start with the same definitions the statisticians should be using.
The NBA actually does go back and review every game for accuracy in stats.
@ NBAer. If that were the case there was a Kings game I was watching when Tyreke Evana passed the ball to Jason Thompson for a dunk and was not credited an assist and still hasn’t…
[...] a big believer in striking while the iron’s hot. With Zach Harper’s breakdown of Darren Collison’s assists lighting a fire under the Hardwood audience, I thought I would [...]
A bit late Zach, but I think your point is this: The assist stat is stupid. It is stupid, but there’s a greater problem: How do you fix it?
Worse, what does it say about guys like John stockton, Magic Johnson and others who racked up dimes frequently in this system? Not to mention the current stars in the NBA like CP3 and Deron Williams.
I’m not saying John Stockton isn’t a HOF, or Williams/Paul aren’t All-Stars (or potential Hall inductees), but the assist stat is too often used to justify how valuable that player is. Way too often.
There is not a worse stat in all of sports than the “assist” stat. Not a single one. And it’s been this way for a long time.
Okay we want accuracy in our stats, but we also want consistency. Stats comparability between eras is already difficult, but if you start applying more rigorous standards now you throw an even bigger wrench into the mix (I hear people lament sometimes that free throws don’t get counted towards an assist, but Magic and Stockton didn’t get credit for those either, so why should Current Player X whose assist numbers we want to see inflated?)
So my question is has the rate of inflation of these stats changed over time? Were Magic’s assists as inflated as Collison’s were?
If so wouldn’t correcting today’s numbers without correcting the earlier numbers be unfair to today’s players?
The NBA actually reviews EVERY game afterwards to control that the stats are correct.
You don’t remember last year, when the NBA took away a rebound of LeBron’s when he scored 52 got 11 assist and 10 (then 9) boards in Madison Square Garden?
gotta be honest that it is sad to hear announcers such as those for the warrios (i watched this game on the computer online) be so biased in their coverage of games. i don’t care if you are from the city or not, why would u want to listen to a biased commentator? if you’ve ever watched a pistons game ( i know they suck now ) but the announcers would never make a comment like the one the warriors play by play guy made. its classless, immature, and petty. comes across like a sore loser to be honest. i love the warriors they are one of my fav teams but curry’s stats are totally inflated, i watch them cause he’s on my fantasy team and he gets TO’s that don’t go on his stat line and assists as well, it happens on EVERY TEAM. instead of going back on checking on collisons stats cause some old angry announcer said so, go check every game nash played in and every game curry has played in and present a balanced, unbiased article.
[...] Only two players (Nash and Williams) have assisted on more baskets at the rim. And only two (LeBron James and Nash again) have assisted on more three-pointers. (Note: Paul would almost certainly have more assists leading to threes than Rajon were it not for his knee injury, and that’s only sort of because the Hornets scorekeepers may be inflating assist stats). [...]
It is true that stats are inflated everywhere, but that isn’t the issue necessarily.
It’s the idea that Collison got a record out of it, right?
Hakeem Olajuwon had one of his QUADRUPLE DOUBLES not recognized by the NBA because they didn’t feel that one of his assists was an assist. They did this review AFTER the game.
OF COURSE THE WARRIORS commentator said something about it. He was watching the game! Would another team, who wasn’t even watching, be the one to speculate?
I’m guessing the N.O commentators should have said something? Yeah, right.
It isn’t being a poor sport when your team loses and you talk about an undeserved record. It’s being true to the game, regardless of who you work for.
[...] de trancher sur cette situation, Zach Harper de Hardwood Paroxysm a revu le match dans son intégralité et a décortiqué chaque action de passe. Au final, il [...]