MHSL82
Well-Known Member
Reason why I say assists is easier, is because if you look at assist %, Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Deron Williams, Rondo, and Jose Calderon are within striking distance of Stockton.
Paul, Nash, and Williams aren't as durable in terms of games played per year. They'll likely have long careers, but miss games per year.
But when they do play, they can assist like the best.
Rondo, probably got off to too slow of a start in his career to get total assists. He wasn't a polished player when he came out. It took him about 4 years to get going.
Jose, he is good, but his defense keeps him off the floor. He can't play huge minutes because of that. He's only averages 28.5 minutes in his career, which is not complete. Stockton averaged 31.8 minutes.
My point is that there are players every now and then that can rack up assists. Heck, most of the best guys in assist % are from the modern era. They just don't play as many games per year, or in Rondo's case, took a few years to develop, or in Jose's case, he starts to become a liability in certain situations.
None of them will play enough games and their assist percentages would go down the longer they play. I'll amend my statement to say "no one who is playing today will break the assists record," but I just don't see it happening in the modern era, even if the modern era has a lot of high assist percentages. I don't care about the assist percentages quite frankly, because we're talking about an accumulated stat, not a rate stat. If a player came in and averaged 8 assists in 25 minutes (higher than Stockton) but always played 25 minutes, he would not pass Stockton. If he got assists on 80% of his team's shots, but averaged 8 assists per game, he would not pass Stockton. I don't see anyone with the combination of assist percentage, length of career, or averages. I know I don't "know" length of careers yet, but that's the way I feel.