ESPN.com: Hollinger: Marginal Value of Assists

There's no basketball but John Hollinger, who might serve as a humbling example to others, hasn't let that stop him from writing his annual player comments (Insider). Because of the lockout, the fine editors of the NBA section at ESPN.com are doling Hollinger's player comments out one team at a time. The Mavericks and Heat are the only two teams revealed thus far, so it might be a couple weeks until we get a full set of comments about the Atlanta Hawks but, within the LeBron James comment, we learn that, among players with at least 300 assists last season, Joe Johnson's assists provided the lowest average marginal value. The league average assist during the 2010-11 season was worth two-thirds of point. The average Joe Johnson assist was worth .572 points.

The methodology:

Based on shooting percentages at each distance, I calculated that the marginal value of an average dunk/layup assist is about 1.329 points in 2010-11, whereas the marginal value of an assist on a long 2 was just 0.356 points.

As always, this is surely down both to Joe Johnson's particular skills and style of play and a generally dysfunctional Atlanta Hawks offense to which we were witness last season. Atlanta Hawks in long 2-point predilection shocker!

Perhaps more time for Johnson at small forward will make a positive difference whenever we resume regular operations.