How many assists and rebounds is the equivalent of a 20 point game?

[fpliii]

Well, there are two ways to look at it.

1. Rebounds and assists are simply tools to use to achieve a goal. The goal is of course, points. Rebounds and assists mean nothing if they don't translate to points.

So you could try to find the average amount of points scored that were the direct or indirect result from a rebound or assist.

Then use that to judge how many rebounds or assists translates to points.

Or..

2. How do they compare in terms of difficulty. (this is more of what I was going for). For example... there was a thread on here yesterday talking about a game where John Stockton had like 20 points and 28 assists. Now, how difficult is it to get 28 assists in a game? Is it easier or harder than scoring 50 points?

How difficult is it to grab 25 boards in a game compared to scoring X amount of points in a game?

This is more of what I was going for.

situation 2 is interesting, but I can't imagine that there's any reasonable objective way to come up with those numbers

gun to my head, maybe something like

20 points = 7 assists = 9 rebounds

[pauk]

I disagree. It's the opposite when comparing rebound and assists.

It's usually just one guy(PG or ball-handler) who gets more than 6 assists on a team. For rebounds, you can have numerous guys with 6 or more. In a way, you're competing with for rebounds even within your own teammates.

Plus, you often hear people say championships are built on defense and rebounding. You don't often hear it with assists.

Another reason to why getting assists is much harder than rebounds....

[bmd]

situation 2 is interesting, but I can't imagine that there's any reasonable objective way to come up with those numbers

gun to my head, maybe something like

20 points = 7 assists = 9 rebounds

I guess one way to figure it out is to look at rarity.

Say 60 points is only scored 3 times in the NBA in a season. Then I guess you'd look for an amount of assists that were achieved a similar number of times. So maybe 20 assists were scored only 3 times in the NBA in that season.

So in that case you could say 20 assists in a game is as difficult for a player to achieve as 60 points.

[pauk]

Well, there are two ways to look at it.

1. Rebounds and assists are simply tools to use to achieve a goal. The goal is of course, points. Rebounds and assists mean nothing if they don't translate to points.

So you could try to find the average amount of points scored that were the direct or indirect result from a rebound or assist.

Then use that to judge how many rebounds or assists translates to points.

Or..

2. How do they compare in terms of difficulty. (this is more of what I was going for). For example... there was a thread on here yesterday talking about a game where John Stockton had like 20 points and 28 assists. Now, how difficult is it to get 28 assists in a game? Is it easier or harder than scoring 50 points?

How difficult is it to grab 25 boards in a game compared to scoring X amount of points in a game?

This is more of what I was going for.

28 assists is a career high, almost an NBA history assist record...

28 rebounds? You see that much more often... hell people averaged that back in the day....

[fpliii]

I guess one way to figure it out is to look at rarity.

Say 60 points is only scored 3 times in the NBA in a season. Then I guess you'd look for an amount of assists that were achieved a similar number of times. So maybe 20 assists were scored only 3 times in the NBA in that season.

So in that case you could say 20 assists in a game is as difficult for a player to achieve as 60 points.

good idea, not sure how we'd get that total though...we could search on BBR, but they only list totals for each individual players at best with a search

[AK47DR91]

Another reason to why getting assists is much harder than rebounds....

From an individual stance, yes, mainly because only one guy on a team will get that opportunity. If there's no injuries to the starting PG.

Even if assists is harder, I still think rebounds have more value and are worth more for a team.

[bmd]

28 assists is a career high, almost an NBA history assist record...

28 rebounds? You see that much more often... hell people averaged that back in the day....

This is my point. What amount of rebounds would be = to 28 assists?

If a standard could be worked out, this would help with judging individual performances.

For example, if 20 points = 7 assists = 9 rebounds = 2 steals = 2 blocks

Then you can judge an individual performance between people who have different strengths.


Player A:

10 points, 14 assists, 18 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks

Player B:

60 points, 7 assists, 9 rebounds, 3 steals, 0 blocks


^^Those games would be identical based on points.

And the point amounts can be worked out... I just made up 20 points = 7 assists = 9 rebounds = 2 steals = 2 blocks.

[bmd]

good idea, not sure how we'd get that total though...we could search on BBR, but they only list totals for each individual players at best with a search

Yeah I'm not sure how to find that information, either.

[fpliii]

Yeah I'm not sure how to find that information, either.

okay, so I did a search on BBR, exported as csv, and then summed in excel (well, numbers, on a mac)

here are the totals for 2012:

0+: 11238
10+: 8628
20+: 2265
30+: 347
40+: 29
50+: 3
60+: 0

I guess the next step is to reverse engineer totals for assists and rebounds for whichever markers we need (I'll start with 20 points)

the rarities are going to change from year-to-year, so this tedious process needs to be done for each season (unless you're only interested in ballpark numbers, in which case only this year should suffice)

[blood yes]

Id say 20 points=9 rebounds=7 assists

It makes sense, multiply this by 2

40=18=14
60=27=21
80=36=28

That is near perfect imo. 80 points has only been twice, 36 rebs has been done a handful of times, 28 assists is 2 away from career record

100=45=35

This is where it gets messy. Once you go past 80, it gets bad... soo..

100=60=33

Even tho no one has gotten 60 rebs or 33 assists, you have to remember that even Wilt himself never got more than 80 points more than once. the 100 was a lucky day for wilt.

100=60=33 is perfect

[fpliii]

just checked assists...here are the amounts corresponding to the point totals from before (in terms of frequency)

assists • points
0+ (11238) • 0+ (11238)
2+ (9163) - 3+ (7107) • 10+ (8628)
5+ (2680) - 6+ (1661) • 20+ (2265)
10+ (419) - 11+ (254) • 30+ (347)
15+ (40) - 16+ (21) • 40+ (29)
18+ (3) - 20+ (3) • 50+ (3)
21+ (0) • 60+ (0)

I'll do rebounds a little later

[bmd]

okay, so I did a search on BBR, exported as csv, and then summed in excel (well, numbers, on a mac)

here are the totals for 2012:

0+: 11238
10+: 8628
20+: 2265
30+: 347
40+: 29
50+: 3
60+: 0

I guess the next step is to reverse engineer totals for assists and rebounds for whichever markers we need (I'll start with 20 points)

the rarities are going to change from year-to-year, so this tedious process needs to be done for each season (unless you're only interested in ballpark numbers, in which case only this year should suffice)

Since it changes, I guess a range of data would be better. But that would be too much work, so ballparking it is fine.

And I would help with gathering data but I have no idea where to find it or how to do anything with it in excel.

[fpliii]

Since it changes, I guess a range of data would be better. But that would be too much work, so ballparking it is fine.

And I would help with gathering data but I have no idea where to find it or how to do anything with it in excel.

the assist numbers appear to be roughly the same over the past 10 years, from a cursory check

all fall within the listed ranges, except at the very top (since those are all outliers, you can't really draw many conclusions)

[Owl]

Well, there are two ways to look at it.

1. Rebounds and assists are simply tools to use to achieve a goal. The goal is of course, points. Rebounds and assists mean nothing if they don't translate to points.

So you could try to find the average amount of points scored that were the direct or indirect result from a rebound or assist.

Then use that to judge how many rebounds or assists translates to points.

Or..

2. How do they compare in terms of difficulty. (this is more of what I was going for). For example... there was a thread on here yesterday talking about a game where John Stockton had like 20 points and 28 assists. Now, how difficult is it to get 28 assists in a game? Is it easier or harder than scoring 50 points?

How difficult is it to grab 25 boards in a game compared to scoring X amount of points in a game?

This is more of what I was going for.

There is no absolutely fair measure of difficulty. As people have said it depends on the context, how the points are scored (and on how many shots), whether the assist created the shot opportunity or merely happened to precede it etc.

But the nearest thing to difficulty we can accurately measure is frequency/scarcity.

fpliii has already covered this, at least for the 2012 season

well, if we're talking about in terms of frequency:

in 2012 the average team scored 96.3 points a game, grabbed 42.2 rebounds, and 21.0 assists

source

meaning that, roughly:

20 points * (42.2 rpg / 96.3 ppg) = 8.76 rebounds

20 points * (21.0 apg / 96.3 ppg) = 4.36 assists

if you're talking about in terms of 'value', you'd have to run a regression on the entire dataset of individual games to come up with the matching points at which rebounds and assists equate the correlation to a win as 20 points (but that wouldn't be a true relationship or have any predictive value, just a summary of the results)

So interms of how often it happens for all players not point guards
20 x 2.5 = 50 (points)
4.36 x 2.5 = 10.9 (assists)
So for an average player (including but not exclusively pgs) a 10.9 assist game in 2011-12 was as probable as a 50 point game. But the uneven distribution of assists between pgs and non-pgs scews this. For a point guard the number would be substantially higher.


In terms specifically of 28 assists (or better) that has been done by:
Stockton (Utah) versus the Spurs in January 1991, 28 assists
Scott Skiles (Orlando) versus the hyperpaced Nuggets in December 1990, 30 assists
Guy Rodgers (Philadelphia Warriors) versus the St Louis Hawks in March 1963, 28 assists
Kevin Porter (New Jersey Nets) versus Houston February 1978, 29 assists
Bob Cousy (Boston) versus Min. Lakers February 1959, 28 assists

Because I got pre-1985-86 numbers from team records, there is a possibility (albeit a slim one as Porter played only 74 games for them) that Kevin Porter or other Nets have had games of 28 assists for the Nets (if so they would have to be between their founding as the New York Nets in the ABA and 1985).

Anyhow that's substantially rarer than 50 point game.

[fpliii]

finished rebounds

rebounds • points
0+ (11238) • 0+ (11238)
4+ (9181) - 5+ (7368) • 10+ (8628)
8+ (3040) - 9+ (2255) • 20+ (2265)
14+ (385) - 11+ (266) • 30+ (347)
20+ (31) - 21+ (17) • 40+ (29)
25+ (5) - 26+ (2) • 50+ (3)
31+ (0) • 60+ (0)