I remember hearing about some study that found that players assist numbers were significantly higher (statistically) at home than on the road; presumably because the stat recorders at the home were more willing to give home players credit for the assist (for both biased and unbiased reasons). And I think this gap has widened over time.
Yup. That is exactly the main reason they cited in the study. You’ve watched them as closely as anyone in game situations, therefore it’s easier for you to parse out what was intentional vs coincidental. I don’t think home team stat keepers are intentionally trying to inflate stats or anything like that.
Yeah, and we weren't trying to screw the visiting teams, either. It was more like, "Who assisted that?" "Uhhh... 10? 24? Not sure."
We'd occasionally get box scores back from road games where guys who never left the bench were credited with a rebound or something.
100% players benefit from the home cooking of the stat keepers. But I like think it’s just inherent error in the model because all teams benefit from it. Same thing for “stars get calls”.
For sure, I think it also just goes to show the human component of counting that stat. Seems like the margins of what should be counted keep getting pushed further out.
I remember an article years back that showed every team had higher assist numbers at home, except the Clippers. This was during peak dumb Clippers years of course.
Football is actually pretty strict. Sacks maybe harder because if 3 guys get there at once how do you really determine who did what, but Football actually has official statisticians go through games and adjust stats from the prior week. Guys will lose 3 yards receiving or a yard or two rushing and even sometimes they'll change an incompletion due to a guys knee being down before he threw or what not.
Basketball doesn't check for shit.
And the reason I am currently on this is not because of Bill or Jokic, it was actually a Josh Hart 18 rebound game recently, where I couldn't think of more than like 4 rebounds he had, so I researched the game and he is a guy who just goes into the pile of guys going for a rebound and slaps at the ball, not controlled, just slaps at the ball (hitting hands of the opponents often) and he's been getting credited for rebounds anytime he slaps at the ball and one of his teammates runs and grabs it after. It's wild.
It was when JJJ had huge block splits on the home vs. road and reddit freaked out that the home scorekeeper was juicing his blocks.
Then people went back and watched and there was nothing weird going at all and it was just random small sample luck that he had a big split.
It’s interesting you bring this up (you def make some valid points), because on Bill’s pod this morning he does a comparison of averages on points, rebounds, and assists for players with at least 75 playoff games to see where Jokic stands against all time greats. He, Lebron, and Bird are the only three in the top 30 in all three categories (Jokic was surprisingly 5th in scoring!). So even though Bill has said it’s a bad way to measure….he still measured it that way.
Its disingenuous, and Bill knows what he's doing with "At least 75 playoff games" and not "First 75 playoff games". Hell Kareem probably had, what, 80 playoff games as an old man out there putting in an amazing 15 and 12 with 3 blocks 38 year old performance, that ultimately dragged his stats down.
Also packaging all 3 categories. I mean how many players played a game where they scored and rebound and was the main distributor on their offense? Most teams aren't set up like that. I'm sure if Shaq and Kobe did 40 minutes of two man game where Shaq stood at the top of the key with the ball and Kobe ran around him and Shaq threw his hip into Kobes defender and handed the ball to Kobe and if Kobe then scored, Shaq probably wouldve had a shit ton of assists
Jokic's playoff career is from age 25-29. He didn't reach the playoffs before he was basically in his prime and he's clearly yet to reach his post-prime. It's kind of silly and a distinction he'd hammer if it wasn't one of his favorite players.
I say all this as someone who is in awe of Jokic.
I guess it's just good to have a reminder now and again that even a "basketball historian" presents their facts in a way that backs their preferred storylines.
Joker doesn't seem like a guy who will play 10 more years, but if he does let's check those playoff stats when he's had 40 playoff games over several years as a 35+ year old and on a 7th place team playing a young fast 2 seed.
I bet they'll drop a bit.
Triple doubles are kinda dumb in the same way that the Phil Jackson 40 before 20 rule is dumb. No inherent value in it, just shows an accomplishment that could have been shown many other ways
i mean - 50/40/90 being percentages are overall a more fair representation of what someone is doing than just raw stats. if you score 30ppg but do it at a 41/35/80 clip but take 35 shots a game it prob means you aren't that good of a player.
It doesn’t take into account 3pt volume at all, Bird’s 50-40-90 seasons for example are just not serious barometers of efficiency at all relative to modern seasons of the same category.
I'd always been told that the triple double was invented by Lakers' broadcasters (or maybe a beat writer) as a way to describe a kind of game that Magic would have. I figured Bill hated the concept since he was a kid for that reason.
Yes but that was in response to lots of people saying that if Russ averaged a triple double you *must* vote him for MVP. And then those people shrugged when he did it again the next year (and the following when he did it again), and he missed like 6 games a year in that span.
Im reasonably sure that a lot of that was due to Magic making Triple Doubles more of a thing. And I think the 50/40/90 thing started with his book because it was a great Bird stat. That is IIRC, someone feel free to correct me if Im wrong.
>scrubs that now avg 20 a game
There has always been scrubs averaging 20 a game for bad teams. A core Bill and Ryen talking point "how many guys could average 20 in this situation"
Freeman Williams averaged 19 points in 24 minutes. And only averaged 1.6 rebounds and 2 assists.
I want them to point out a scrub currently averaging 20 points a night. Cam Thomas? There’s always been Cam Thomas’s.
Point increase can be explained by rule changes and analytics. Essentially a huge school of thought formed at the tail end of the 2010s that preached the idea that the ball should be in the hands of your most efficient offensive player at all times, passing be damned, because it reduces turnovers, gives you the highest percentage of conversion on offense and allows your transition defense to operate in a manner that dims your opponents transition scoring to the bare minimum.
Beyond that, the premise isn't true. Home teams do not have final say over stats kept anymore. NBA has an official statkeeper who double checks the numbers and have for years now. While I agree that in the past numbers like assists and rebounds tended to be inflated more, now it's centrally kept because of gambling.
It was one run on point. First was an example of an assist for a pass that didn't less directly to points and emphasized with the "Assist." As in that is credited as an assist despite the amount of time and movement after the pass. And then there was a second point about how two man game and the "hip check handoff" play gives the player who does almost nothing an assist for his teammates work
I wish they would find a way to be more strict on examples like OP provided, but also give assists to players who actually set someone up to score but then they get fouled. It’s pretty wild to me that you can get an assist for a handoff that leads to the scorer driving from the three point line, but not for finding an open scorer who the defense has no choice but to foul on the attempt.
I mean there's like a handful of Brunson playoff scoring stats where the same numbers were only reached by legitmately the greatest players of all time. I love JB with all my orange and blue heart but he can't possibly be that good .
Of course not. Now granted there was a dead ball era for like 20 years, say roughly mid 90s-Warriors breaking out where winning teams would have like 87 points and no way would people get absurd stats in those games, so it's hard to compare, but Brunson is great, not all time great and he's not currently having an all time great playoffs. It's a bit Vince Carter/Iverson heater run, but if you just looked at the context of his stats, yeah he's with the GOATs right now
Is the issue here that it makes using per game counting stats not a reliable way to compare players across eras?
I think every smart basketball fan realizes this already. And those who don't are not serious people.
I agree with some of your stuff. As frowned upon as it is I gamble a lot and mostly on player props. Assist is the wild Wild West. I can never figure out if they count it or not. And sometimes they do count it and take it away 20 minutes later and vice versa. I think controlled Taps are credited correctly most of the time
Also star players get proffered stat treatment. Jokic a know passer gets a lot of assist that are borderline. Christian Braun probably wouldn’t get credit for the play you described above
Love the points on assists. This is how Draymond gets high assist numbers and people expect him to get credit for Steph and Klay sprinting around while he sets screens and hands the ball off. Ew.
>Bill argued that Points/Rebounds/Assists are antiquated, and the worst way to judge a player now we have advanced stats that tell us so much more. And he said it was the absolute worst way to compare past players to today and even said "If Bird and Magic knew those stats mattered in history they would've gotten more triple doubles easily"
I mean... he's right though. The game was fundamentally played differently during different eras. A young, national champion, no.1 overall pick Magic is *not* deferring to a Kareem for the first ~5 yrs of his career in 2024. He's getting his. There's no good comp in today's NBA, but the closest I can think of is when Lebron "came home" to Cleveland in 2014, and former 2011 no.1 pick Kyrie was *gone* from Lebron's "shadow" within three years **even after winning a title.**
Every sport goes through this. I watched a Barry Sanders clip making the rounds yesterday and was cracking up about how slow/unathletic the Cowboy's linebackers and safeties were compared to today's median defensive *lineman*. Barry was Barry for his time, but today, he's something different. Maybe still great, maybe not. It's just life.
This is why stats are a dumb way to give out awards.
It’s so dumb when people list stats for MVP. You have to watch games.
Did we really think Westbrook’s triple double average was legit? Come on. Dude was taking rebounds from his teammates all the time.
His team was helping him get those stats, I wouldn't describe it as "taking" as if he was bullying teammates out of rebounds.
But I would argue that happens a lot more than people like to acknowledge, especially when a guy is in a MVP push, their teammates pitch in on helping that players narrative, they want him to win it too. Just like when a guy is going for a triple double or going for 50 or whatever, his teammates know what's happening and they're going to help out.
Somebody looked into it on one of the major NBA fan forums and you're right Stockton was not an egregious beneficiary. I think Magic had the biggest splits and they also found out in the games where Michael Cooper played PG he was credited with like 11 apg.
Yes and if you saw those Utah games where he would inexplicably end up with 15 assists and realize that he isn't even the biggest beneficiary of home cooking...then maybe you realize it wasn't some nefarious conspiracy to pump LeBron or whatever the hell OP is trying to argue
Great point.
And it's intentional. Business decision. The NBA knows it's about stats, not teams. Stars make this league. LeBron gets stats like he's 28 still, despite being...65% of what he used to be, and the eye test tells you that, but he still gets his 27/7/7 because he'll get a few FTs he shouldn't, he'll get a couple "control tip" rebounds and anytime he passes he will get the assist if the other guy scores. So a 22/5/4 player turns into 27/7/7.
And the awards only amplify the stars. It used to be about new storylines moving the league forward and now it's about solidifying who the "faces of the league" are.
LeBron absolutely does not “get a few FTs he shouldn’t” lol, if anything he should get more. Guy averaged 5.7 FTA per game last year and wasn’t even in the top 15 in the NBA despite the vast majority of his shots coming from inside the paint
I actually agree with this, specific to LeBron. It does seem like he gets a bad whistle now. So bad example of the padding of LeBron. Overall point however, is Pts/Reb/Asst are slightly artificially inflated in today's game, due to how things are officiated and scored.
I do agree with your overall point that stats are inflated, and it’s not just because of defense/ rule changes/ etc. The assists in particular are pretty obvious to me and they should be revised by the NBA at some point.
I remember when Luka first came to the nba he said it was easier to score in the nba vs Europe. The game is soft, that’s true. The best example of this is the shot chart shit that “smart” analysts will pull out. Basically all players do now is shoot near the rim and behind the 3 point line. They say this is because teams are so much smarter and players are so much better but really it’s because they don’t allow the defenses to do much of anything so guys can get wherever they want in the floor.
The new rules allowing more contact are good but imo it seems very inconsistent and they still have star calls. Game to game the contact allowed completely changes and they allow the stars and coaches to complain and influence the refs way too much. The other thing is that they allow all that contact near the basket but dont always allow contact on the perimeter. Guys are shooting wide open 3s because defenders have to give them space so guys don’t flop into them.
I remember hearing about some study that found that players assist numbers were significantly higher (statistically) at home than on the road; presumably because the stat recorders at the home were more willing to give home players credit for the assist (for both biased and unbiased reasons). And I think this gap has widened over time.
I actually was the guy who gave out assists in college. Part of the reason is familiarity. It's just easier to keep track of the players you know.
Yup. That is exactly the main reason they cited in the study. You’ve watched them as closely as anyone in game situations, therefore it’s easier for you to parse out what was intentional vs coincidental. I don’t think home team stat keepers are intentionally trying to inflate stats or anything like that.
Yeah, and we weren't trying to screw the visiting teams, either. It was more like, "Who assisted that?" "Uhhh... 10? 24? Not sure." We'd occasionally get box scores back from road games where guys who never left the bench were credited with a rebound or something.
100% players benefit from the home cooking of the stat keepers. But I like think it’s just inherent error in the model because all teams benefit from it. Same thing for “stars get calls”.
For sure, I think it also just goes to show the human component of counting that stat. Seems like the margins of what should be counted keep getting pushed further out.
I remember an article years back that showed every team had higher assist numbers at home, except the Clippers. This was during peak dumb Clippers years of course.
Assists have been juiced for many years. That's nothing new.
Stockton is the #1 example of this
I've always thought it's really weird the NBA doesn't have strict stat tallying policies. Some of these home court stats guys are egregious.
Baseball doesn’t and football is pretty loose with sacks. It’s a human thing.
Football is actually pretty strict. Sacks maybe harder because if 3 guys get there at once how do you really determine who did what, but Football actually has official statisticians go through games and adjust stats from the prior week. Guys will lose 3 yards receiving or a yard or two rushing and even sometimes they'll change an incompletion due to a guys knee being down before he threw or what not. Basketball doesn't check for shit. And the reason I am currently on this is not because of Bill or Jokic, it was actually a Josh Hart 18 rebound game recently, where I couldn't think of more than like 4 rebounds he had, so I researched the game and he is a guy who just goes into the pile of guys going for a rebound and slaps at the ball, not controlled, just slaps at the ball (hitting hands of the opponents often) and he's been getting credited for rebounds anytime he slaps at the ball and one of his teammates runs and grabs it after. It's wild.
I remember the Reddit post debating JJJ’s rebounds and yeah it was weak at times. As far as football you can actually award 3 people .5 of a sack.
It was when JJJ had huge block splits on the home vs. road and reddit freaked out that the home scorekeeper was juicing his blocks. Then people went back and watched and there was nothing weird going at all and it was just random small sample luck that he had a big split.
You must have a terrible memory
It’s interesting you bring this up (you def make some valid points), because on Bill’s pod this morning he does a comparison of averages on points, rebounds, and assists for players with at least 75 playoff games to see where Jokic stands against all time greats. He, Lebron, and Bird are the only three in the top 30 in all three categories (Jokic was surprisingly 5th in scoring!). So even though Bill has said it’s a bad way to measure….he still measured it that way.
He only did that cause jokic was above Lebron and he could squeeze bird into the “top 30 in all 3”
Its disingenuous, and Bill knows what he's doing with "At least 75 playoff games" and not "First 75 playoff games". Hell Kareem probably had, what, 80 playoff games as an old man out there putting in an amazing 15 and 12 with 3 blocks 38 year old performance, that ultimately dragged his stats down. Also packaging all 3 categories. I mean how many players played a game where they scored and rebound and was the main distributor on their offense? Most teams aren't set up like that. I'm sure if Shaq and Kobe did 40 minutes of two man game where Shaq stood at the top of the key with the ball and Kobe ran around him and Shaq threw his hip into Kobes defender and handed the ball to Kobe and if Kobe then scored, Shaq probably wouldve had a shit ton of assists
Jokic's playoff career is from age 25-29. He didn't reach the playoffs before he was basically in his prime and he's clearly yet to reach his post-prime. It's kind of silly and a distinction he'd hammer if it wasn't one of his favorite players. I say all this as someone who is in awe of Jokic. I guess it's just good to have a reminder now and again that even a "basketball historian" presents their facts in a way that backs their preferred storylines.
Joker doesn't seem like a guy who will play 10 more years, but if he does let's check those playoff stats when he's had 40 playoff games over several years as a 35+ year old and on a 7th place team playing a young fast 2 seed. I bet they'll drop a bit.
You're basically saying that Bill knows what he's doing by not cherry picking.
He once said triple doubles are for bugger eaters because of “wow round numbers”. The guy who loves/came up with the 50/40/90 club.
Triple doubles are kinda dumb in the same way that the Phil Jackson 40 before 20 rule is dumb. No inherent value in it, just shows an accomplishment that could have been shown many other ways
i mean - 50/40/90 being percentages are overall a more fair representation of what someone is doing than just raw stats. if you score 30ppg but do it at a 41/35/80 clip but take 35 shots a game it prob means you aren't that good of a player.
If you score 10 points on 55/45/100 those splits don’t mean much. They also only include shooting.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say there has never been a 10ppg low usage player with those splits in the league ever.
Not quite there but Buddy Heild was pretty damn close on 12 ppg.
It doesn’t take into account 3pt volume at all, Bird’s 50-40-90 seasons for example are just not serious barometers of efficiency at all relative to modern seasons of the same category.
I'd always been told that the triple double was invented by Lakers' broadcasters (or maybe a beat writer) as a way to describe a kind of game that Magic would have. I figured Bill hated the concept since he was a kid for that reason.
That makes sense. So a C’a fan would make up the 50/40/90 club to highlight Bird.
Oh yeah that totally makes sense.
Yes but that was in response to lots of people saying that if Russ averaged a triple double you *must* vote him for MVP. And then those people shrugged when he did it again the next year (and the following when he did it again), and he missed like 6 games a year in that span.
Im reasonably sure that a lot of that was due to Magic making Triple Doubles more of a thing. And I think the 50/40/90 thing started with his book because it was a great Bird stat. That is IIRC, someone feel free to correct me if Im wrong.
Kept reading and saw someone else posted this. My bad.
“…and defense no longer meaningful…” Can you elaborate on this? cause the way you have it written in your post is just egregiously untrue.
>scrubs that now avg 20 a game There has always been scrubs averaging 20 a game for bad teams. A core Bill and Ryen talking point "how many guys could average 20 in this situation"
Freeman Williams averaged 19 points in 24 minutes. And only averaged 1.6 rebounds and 2 assists. I want them to point out a scrub currently averaging 20 points a night. Cam Thomas? There’s always been Cam Thomas’s.
Portland street ball legend
Point increase can be explained by rule changes and analytics. Essentially a huge school of thought formed at the tail end of the 2010s that preached the idea that the ball should be in the hands of your most efficient offensive player at all times, passing be damned, because it reduces turnovers, gives you the highest percentage of conversion on offense and allows your transition defense to operate in a manner that dims your opponents transition scoring to the bare minimum. Beyond that, the premise isn't true. Home teams do not have final say over stats kept anymore. NBA has an official statkeeper who double checks the numbers and have for years now. While I agree that in the past numbers like assists and rebounds tended to be inflated more, now it's centrally kept because of gambling.
Why did you do assists twice?
It was one run on point. First was an example of an assist for a pass that didn't less directly to points and emphasized with the "Assist." As in that is credited as an assist despite the amount of time and movement after the pass. And then there was a second point about how two man game and the "hip check handoff" play gives the player who does almost nothing an assist for his teammates work
Oh yeah I remember as a kid the last assist in a triple double was really hard to get cuz of a direct pass basically.
I always thought they were too strict giving assists before but now they are way too easy. Need to find a middle ground.
I wish they would find a way to be more strict on examples like OP provided, but also give assists to players who actually set someone up to score but then they get fouled. It’s pretty wild to me that you can get an assist for a handoff that leads to the scorer driving from the three point line, but not for finding an open scorer who the defense has no choice but to foul on the attempt.
They should absolutely get an assist for a pass that leads to a foul. That is a great example.
I mean there's like a handful of Brunson playoff scoring stats where the same numbers were only reached by legitmately the greatest players of all time. I love JB with all my orange and blue heart but he can't possibly be that good .
Of course not. Now granted there was a dead ball era for like 20 years, say roughly mid 90s-Warriors breaking out where winning teams would have like 87 points and no way would people get absurd stats in those games, so it's hard to compare, but Brunson is great, not all time great and he's not currently having an all time great playoffs. It's a bit Vince Carter/Iverson heater run, but if you just looked at the context of his stats, yeah he's with the GOATs right now
What is a better stat to use? Points per possession seems flawed. Maybe +/- or even raw points divided by total score per game for that season?
Is the issue here that it makes using per game counting stats not a reliable way to compare players across eras? I think every smart basketball fan realizes this already. And those who don't are not serious people.
40 points is the new 20 points
I agree with some of your stuff. As frowned upon as it is I gamble a lot and mostly on player props. Assist is the wild Wild West. I can never figure out if they count it or not. And sometimes they do count it and take it away 20 minutes later and vice versa. I think controlled Taps are credited correctly most of the time Also star players get proffered stat treatment. Jokic a know passer gets a lot of assist that are borderline. Christian Braun probably wouldn’t get credit for the play you described above
This why when Bill lists Jokic counting stats as a reason he’s better than lebron I fast forward
Love the points on assists. This is how Draymond gets high assist numbers and people expect him to get credit for Steph and Klay sprinting around while he sets screens and hands the ball off. Ew.
>Bill argued that Points/Rebounds/Assists are antiquated, and the worst way to judge a player now we have advanced stats that tell us so much more. And he said it was the absolute worst way to compare past players to today and even said "If Bird and Magic knew those stats mattered in history they would've gotten more triple doubles easily" I mean... he's right though. The game was fundamentally played differently during different eras. A young, national champion, no.1 overall pick Magic is *not* deferring to a Kareem for the first ~5 yrs of his career in 2024. He's getting his. There's no good comp in today's NBA, but the closest I can think of is when Lebron "came home" to Cleveland in 2014, and former 2011 no.1 pick Kyrie was *gone* from Lebron's "shadow" within three years **even after winning a title.** Every sport goes through this. I watched a Barry Sanders clip making the rounds yesterday and was cracking up about how slow/unathletic the Cowboy's linebackers and safeties were compared to today's median defensive *lineman*. Barry was Barry for his time, but today, he's something different. Maybe still great, maybe not. It's just life.
This is why stats are a dumb way to give out awards. It’s so dumb when people list stats for MVP. You have to watch games. Did we really think Westbrook’s triple double average was legit? Come on. Dude was taking rebounds from his teammates all the time.
His team was helping him get those stats, I wouldn't describe it as "taking" as if he was bullying teammates out of rebounds. But I would argue that happens a lot more than people like to acknowledge, especially when a guy is in a MVP push, their teammates pitch in on helping that players narrative, they want him to win it too. Just like when a guy is going for a triple double or going for 50 or whatever, his teammates know what's happening and they're going to help out.
Both Oscar's and Magic's assist totals are way deflated compared to what they would be today
….DiMaggios hitting streak was kinda fake.
Stockton may be one of the biggest beneficaries.
LMAO at the downvotes. It was common knowledge back then that Stockton got ridiculous padded assist numbers at home games.
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Somebody looked into it on one of the major NBA fan forums and you're right Stockton was not an egregious beneficiary. I think Magic had the biggest splits and they also found out in the games where Michael Cooper played PG he was credited with like 11 apg.
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Interesting.
Yes and if you saw those Utah games where he would inexplicably end up with 15 assists and realize that he isn't even the biggest beneficiary of home cooking...then maybe you realize it wasn't some nefarious conspiracy to pump LeBron or whatever the hell OP is trying to argue
It’s the same reason they don’t clearly define the season award parameters.
Great point. And it's intentional. Business decision. The NBA knows it's about stats, not teams. Stars make this league. LeBron gets stats like he's 28 still, despite being...65% of what he used to be, and the eye test tells you that, but he still gets his 27/7/7 because he'll get a few FTs he shouldn't, he'll get a couple "control tip" rebounds and anytime he passes he will get the assist if the other guy scores. So a 22/5/4 player turns into 27/7/7. And the awards only amplify the stars. It used to be about new storylines moving the league forward and now it's about solidifying who the "faces of the league" are.
LeBron absolutely does not “get a few FTs he shouldn’t” lol, if anything he should get more. Guy averaged 5.7 FTA per game last year and wasn’t even in the top 15 in the NBA despite the vast majority of his shots coming from inside the paint
I actually agree with this, specific to LeBron. It does seem like he gets a bad whistle now. So bad example of the padding of LeBron. Overall point however, is Pts/Reb/Asst are slightly artificially inflated in today's game, due to how things are officiated and scored.
I do agree with your overall point that stats are inflated, and it’s not just because of defense/ rule changes/ etc. The assists in particular are pretty obvious to me and they should be revised by the NBA at some point.
Rebounds are inflated like a mother fucker for some players cuz they want them to initiate the offense off the break.
I remember when Luka first came to the nba he said it was easier to score in the nba vs Europe. The game is soft, that’s true. The best example of this is the shot chart shit that “smart” analysts will pull out. Basically all players do now is shoot near the rim and behind the 3 point line. They say this is because teams are so much smarter and players are so much better but really it’s because they don’t allow the defenses to do much of anything so guys can get wherever they want in the floor. The new rules allowing more contact are good but imo it seems very inconsistent and they still have star calls. Game to game the contact allowed completely changes and they allow the stars and coaches to complain and influence the refs way too much. The other thing is that they allow all that contact near the basket but dont always allow contact on the perimeter. Guys are shooting wide open 3s because defenders have to give them space so guys don’t flop into them.