Recently, we’ve developed a model for predicting various box score stats. In this post, we deep dive into how many assists a player is likely to have, and what are the chances a player racks up a ton of assists in a game.
As an illustration, here’s how many assists Russell Westbrook and Dwight Howard are likely to have on any given night (assuming 36 minutes played, which is a stretch for Dwight).
At first glance, things are pretty obvious: Dwight isn’t getting many assists and Westbrook is. But there’s a few more details worth noting. Russell Westbrook has an extremely low chance of recording 0, 1, or 2 assists. If he plays a full 36 minutes, it’s almost guaranteed he’ll have at least 3 assists. The opposite is true for Dwight. If he plays a full game, he’ll almost never have more than 5 assists.
With this type of model, we can ask the question: How likely is it Westbrook records at least 20 assists in a game?
Our model predicts a 1.5% chance he’ll get 20 assists in a game. So over the course of this season, he might do it once. For the record, our model says it’s impossible for Dwight.
So when Draymond Green has a sensational stat line, was the 12 assists he put up an outlier, or just another day at the office for him?
Our model puts Draymond Green at a 34% chance of putting up at least 12 assists. So nothing out of the ordinary here.
On the other hand, when Domantas Sabonis puts up 10 assists, our model puts that at a 16% chance. So he’s only going to do that a handful of times this season.