For those who are interested in such things, I present to you: the most egregiously home-cooked assist of the 2016-17 NBA season! If you want, you can watch this video and try to figure out which one I’m talking about. Nikola Jokic only had 4 in this game, so it should be easy enough. I’ll wait, and you can let me know your answer.
Sorry, wrong answer. Did you even watch the whole vid or just the first minute? The assist to Jamal Murray at 0:30 is very obviously a legitimate assist. You guys really disappoint me sometimes. This one was handed to you on a silver platter basically and you still were incorrect. I’ll give you the real answer, and you can just sit there and wallow in your own stupidity. How does that sound? Good?
The horrible non-assist I was talking about occurs at the 2:45 mark of these highlights. Jokic plays some decent D on Zeller, grabs the missed layup, and quickly gets it to Will Barton. Barton then takes 6 medium-speed dribbles, going almost the whole length of the court, before getting the layup. In no way, shape, or form did Magic Jokson aid that basket. NBA assists are notably iffy at times, but this one is just way beyond anything I have ever seen. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they took this one away from him. In fact, if the NBA wishes to retain any credibility, they NEED to revise the stats from this game and take this assist out.
Don’t let Jokic’s spurious assist distract you from the 31 points (including two[!!!!!!!] dunks) he scored tonight, his third-highest total of the season. Actually, do let it distract you, because any fan of statistics in basketball should be outraged right now. How can we take any stat the league keeps seriously when it is so obvious that they can do whatever they want with them?