Rondo Passes Russell on All-Time Assist Leaders List

Russell was a center and Rondo is a point guard so this shouldn't be exactly mind-blowing stuff.  Still, congrats to Rondo for passing the greatest Celtic of all-time in anything.

Cousy.....6955
Bird........5695
Pierce.....4305 (as a Celtic, 4453 total and counting)
Rondo.....4101
Russell....4100




bob



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Keep in mind in Russ's day assists were scored a lot closer than they are now. No dribble or "move" by the scorer was allowed to credit an assist to the passer back then.

Still impressive though.

beat

Found this on assists............. interesting read


The NBA's Most Misleading Number
How the Assist Became a Matter of Interpretation -- and Why NBA Alumni Say the Kids Get Too Many
By
David Biderman
Updated April 1, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET
There are only three players left in the race: Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Steve Nash. That troika, in that order, is vying for the National Basketball Association's assists-per-game crown, a title many fans and analysts equate with passing savvy and on-court leadership. But good luck finding someone around the league who cares.
Assists in basketball are comparable to errors in baseball. They're decent indicators of performance -- but they're also splashed with a healthy dose of subjectivity. Fluctuations in the way assists are recorded in different arenas, not to mention the league's bare-bones description of what an assist actually is, make them difficult to interpret.

The NBA statistician's manual says an assist should be "credited to a player tossing the last pass leading directly to a field goal, only if the player scoring the goal responds by demonstrating immediate reaction to the basket." It sounds simple enough. As assist is a pass made to a shooter who scores. But when you try to apply this definition during a game, it gets murky. There are no details about how many steps shooters can take after receiving a pass; nothing about shot-fakes, head-fakes or pivot moves and no hard guidelines on how much time can elapse between the pass and the shot.
"You follow the rules," says David Einspahr, a statistician with the Denver Nuggets, "but there's going to be a lot of judgment calls."
But Who's Counting?
The subjective nature of assists shows up starkly in the record book. The rate at which a team collects assists can vary wildly depending on who does the counting. For every game, the home team's statisticians record assists for both sides. So at home, a team might get more assists per field goal made than the average NBA team. On the road, however, they may be awarded fewer. For nine of the NBA's 30 teams, the gap between road and home assists performance is at least 8%. Denver's spread was the biggest: more than 17% at home.
Teams employ statistician crews of five to eight people. The official scorer, game clock-operator and 24-second clock-operator are guaranteed courtside seats, but the three to five people who enter information -- including assists -- into a league-wide computer program, often aren't. The Los Angeles Lakers, for instance, place their statisticians at center court, 18 rows up. "it's the perfect location." says Lakers spokesman John Black. "Our stats crew has never sat courtside." An NBA spokesman said statisticians always have good line-of-sight at games.
Jon Glesing, a statistician with the Indiana Pacers, says the thought of not sitting courtside is "crazy." Pacers statisticians sit on the floor, and Mr. Glesing said he's "just stopped short of getting on my hands and knees, making sure they don't move us."
Whether statisticians see well enough or have clear enough guidelines to properly credit assists are two matters. Another is: Why are there more assists per field goals made now than 50 years ago?
Until the early 1970s, most teams were awarded assists on about half of the field goals they made in a given game. That number jumped to 60% by the end of that decade and has hovered around that level ever since. (Last season, the average team was given assists on 58.4% of their made field goals.)
Dave Berri, an associate professor of economics at Southern Utah University and lead author of "Wages of Wins," a sports analysis book, says the uptick in assists is a function of players improving their shotmaking over the years. He says players in the 1950s and '60s shot poorly, so more baskets came after offensive rebounds, where no assists are awarded.
Justin Kubatko, a statistics analyst with the Portland Trail Blazers and vice president of Sports Reference LLC, couldn't pinpoint why the increase occurred, but says "at some point along the line, the way a scorekeeper viewed an assist dramatically changed."
An NBA spokesman said league officials review every game to make sure statistics are credited properly.
Oscar Robertson has a thought. The Hall of Fame point guard played from 1960-74 and is fifth all-time in the NBA in total assists. During his career, 53% of made field goals were assisted, on average. For the first three seasons of Chris Paul's career, that figure is 58%. Adjust Mr. Robertson's numbers to Mr. Paul's era, and Mr. Robertson moves to second place all-time in total assists behind John Stockton of the Utah Jazz, who played from 1984 to 2003.
"These guys want to promote the game and make it about new stats and new records," Mr. Robertson says. "They don't want yesterday's stars to be today's stars."
Several general managers and player agents say assists can be arbitrary, so they're never used as an end-all to determine a player's ability. Jeff Bower, general manager of the New Orleans Hornets, Mr. Paul's team, considers assists, but says "if you only look at that you're going to miss a lot."
Players widely agree that assists can be subjective and are not the first number they care about. Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James says "assists don't define who you are as a basketball player...I want people to look at the wins and losses."
Fewer Assists at Home
Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns is one of the few players who might prefer to be judged by assists. The two-time NBA Most Valuable Player has averaged double-digit assists per game over the past four years and is regarded as one of the NBA's best passers.
But for the past three years, he's averaged fewer assists per game at home (10.2) than he's recorded on the road (11.9). In other words, he's taking a 14% haircut on assists when he plays at home.
"Assists are an indicator of what someone's contributing to their team. They're not a science, though," Mr. Nash says. "During the game you don't know if you're getting credit or not, so I don't really care."

My apologies, I left out Havlicek (freaking duh!).  The list should have looked like this:


Cousy.....6955
Havlicek..6114
Bird........5695
Pierce.....4305 (as a Celtic, 4453 total and counting)
Rondo.....4101
Russell....4100



bob


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Well done by Rondo, but what strikes me most is how impressive that stat is for Russell.