19 assists! Holy cow! Sounds like a lot of dimes, right? That’s because it IS a lot. A lot for 2016, a lot for 1995, a lot for any era of NBA basketball. 19 is a nice sounding total, an impressive number that is almost 20. But how impressive is this performance, really? Let’s find out.
Oh, before we find out, I’m just gonna put out there that the points part of this video is really good. He makes a bunch of threes. A+ scoring performance. Good work Timmy. Okay. Here we go.
Assist 1: An entry pass to a posting Rony Seikaly, who quickly executes a move and scores. Fine. That’s an assist to me, if not a particularly inspiring one.
Assist 2: Chris Gatling flashes to the paint, and Hardaway hits him underneath the basket for the tough layup. Better than the first one.
“Assist” 3: A pass to Latrell Sprewell at the elbow, who stands there, and stands there… he’s still just kind of standing there, not really moving… oh, there he goes, takes a couple of dribbles and hits a tough baseline jumper. Now, this is straight up not an assist. There were like two or three more potential assists before this one that Hardaway didn’t get credit for. I can only think of a few DownToBuck-highlighted assists as bad as this one.
Assist 4: Assist 2 part deux. They could call this play the “Gatling Gun”.
“Assist” 5: A transition pass to Sprewell, who then uses a crossover to get into the paint for a crappy floater. Remember: floaters are what you do when you suck on offense. Also, not really an assist either.
Assist 6: Now we’re talking. Tom Gugliotta cuts baseline, the Suns ignore him, and Hardaway finds him for the white-guy slamjam.
Assist 7: A sort of crappy pick-and-roll thing results in a one-dribbled sidestep jumper by a lumpy mass named “Victor Alexander”.
Assist 8: Alley-oop! Alley-oop! Gugliotta dunks it again, bringing his career dunk total to 2.
Assist 9: The broadcast team was too busy showing Paul Westphal’s confused face to show on-court action. Some things never change.
Assist 10: Gatling posts up, receives the ball from Hardaway, and gets right to the rim as Charles Barkley desperately backpedals. Barkley was in foul trouble at this point, which only partially excuses his laughable defensive effort.
Assist 11: Another alley-oop to Gugliotta, who fails to throw it down because he’s so tired from his previous two explosive dunks.
Assist 12: Hardaway surveys the entire court from behind the long line, then fires a perfect pass directly in front of the rim to Carlos Rogers who catches it, lands, ponders the mysteries of the universe, then puts it up and in. DeAndre Jordan definitely would’ve dunked this one without wasting any time thinking about the absurdity of existence.
Assist 13: Dan Majerle’s ankles receive the VIP treatment from Hardaway’s slick crossover. Unselfishly, Hardaway then passes out of the resultant shot to David Wood, who was so surprised to receive the ball that the only thing he could do was fling it away from himself as fast as he could.
Assist 14: Sprewell blatantly travels as he scores in the paint, then heads over to Warriors head coach Bob Lanier and chokes him out.
“Assist” 15: Assist 10 part deux, except A.C. Green actually tries to play some defense instead of just giving up like Barkley.
“Assist” 16: Assist 10 part trois, except Gatling took way longer this time and it’s just not assist, okay, it’s just not. No no no. The only reason I can tell this thing got counted as one is the faint “from Tim Hardaway” from the P.A. dude way in the background. That dude is the real MVP of this video.
“Assist” 17: Another sick lob for Gugliotta, who crushes the rim with a devastating monster-mash! Just kidding! In reality, it’s assist 10 part quatre, and also assist 16 part deux, because this one is total BS, total stinky BS, what the heck man.
Assist 18: A risky skip pass to a cutting Gatling, who moves quickly enough this time that I’m not mad about calling this an assist.
Assist 19: Hardaway craftily eludes the double-team with a stepthrough, finding Carlos Rogers who posters the crap out of some poor soul. A pleasing conclusion to the video, almost but not quite enough to make you forget about all those crappy Gatling postups.
Final verdict: Hardaway should have probably only had like 13 or 14 assists on the game. Alternatively, he could have had as many as 22 or 23 if the scorekeepers had been as liberal early in the game as they were later. Average those two numbers, and you get… 19-ish assists? Dammit. Fine. Whatever. I’m done.