Comments on: Layups: More Disturbing Stories on the Book-Cooking Front

By: Jason J

Jason J — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:02:27 +0000

For comparison - here's Kidd's year by year home - road assists: '95 8.1 - 7.2 = 0.9 '96 10.2 - 9.2 = 1 '97 9.5 - 8.5 = 1 '98 9.6 - 8.6 = 1 '99 10.6 - 11 = -0.4 '00 10.6 - 9.6 = 1 '01 10.8 - 8.7 = 2.1 '02 11 - 8.7 = 2.3 '03 9.2 - 8.3 = 0.9 '04 9.1 - 9.4 = -0.3 '05 9.3 - 7.3 = 1 '06 9.2 - 7.6 = 1.6 '07 9.5 - 8.9 = 0.6 '08 10.2 - 9.9 = 0.3 '09 9.9 - 7.5 = 2.4 I don't want to take the time to total his home / away numbers right now, but this actually looks a little more home-biased than Stockton's list. We might want to check this against a great scorer too, just to see if a relatively objective stat like points swings like this.

By: Jason J

Jason J — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:06:28 +0000

I could be way off here, but it might be good to check Stockton's foul's per game and minutes per game home and away as well. It is my recollection that the Jazz tended to get away with more physicality in Salt Lake than away (which I'm sure is true of most teams), so playing time / ability to remain aggressive might have had something to do with his assist distribution being more prolific at home.

By: Mike G

Mike G — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:04:18 +0000

Luke, that's very interesting. Stockton in 1989-90 did have 70 more assists at home, or 1.8 per home game. But also note that the Jazz shot better at home, making 2.5 more FG per game:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/fc/tsplit.cgi?team=UTA&year=1990

The team got 1.8 more Ast/G at home, and Stock got all of them. Their ratio of Ast/FG was .666 at home and .662 on the road. Thus, they were actually one of the 5 _least_ home-friendly assist-giving crews that year.

As Mrparker says, one should consider actual (point differential) changes in home/away performance, before attributing all H/A difference to scorekeeper bias.

No one (we think) had an assist title taken away between 1987 and 2007. Read more here:
http://sonicscentral.com/apbrmetrics/viewtopic.php?t=1897

By: mrparker

mrparker — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:25:15 +0000

Wasn't Utah also notoriously better at home then on the road? Were the statkeepers cooking the actual score as well?

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:19:22 +0000

SO Luke, we conclude that Utah started handing out extra assists, until the rest of the league caught on / Stockton gained a "reputation" and then it balanced up with both home and Away figures having the extras :)

By: Luke

Luke — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:30:42 +0000

I forgot to mention this before but I didn't include Stockton's first two years in his assist totals since I couldn't find home/road splits for them. And the year by year breakdown should be read as 1986-87: 64 more assists in home games than road games, or 1.6 more APG.

By: Luke

Luke — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:25:39 +0000

I'd always heard Utah was notorious for doing this, so I decided to take a look at John Stockton's splits throughout his career for home and road games:
Home
Games - 669
Assists - 7644
APG - 11.4

Road
Games - 671
Assists - 7137
APG - 10.6

So, over Stockton's entire career, he played in almost the exact same number of home and road games (actually two more road than home) and had 507 more assists at home than he did on the road, or 0.8 more APG. I have no idea whether that's a high amount or not, but it seems like it. It would be interesting to see what the highest differential is between home and road assists for an elite point guard.

The actual year by year breakdown is: (Total/Per Game)
86-87: 64/1.6
87-88: 60/1.5
88-89: 30/0.7
89-90: 70/1.8
90-91: 88/2.1
91-92: 36/0.9
92-93: 15/0.4
93-94: 19/0.5
94-95: -29/-0.7
95-96: 12/0.3
96-97: -10/-0.2
97-98: 41/1.8
98-99: 32/1.3
99-00: 51/1.2
00-01: 13/0.3
01-02: 26/0.6
02-03: -11/-0.3

By: mrparker

mrparker — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:18:31 +0000

If it's a league wide phenomenon don't the effects get washed out?

By: KneeJerkNBA

KneeJerkNBA — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 04:45:42 +0000

I can see why this would offend the sensibilities of fantasy basketball enthusiasts. It would suck to lose a roto league because a homer scorekeeper gave Ramon Sessions 57 assists on the final game of the season.