It seems to me that a common assumption is that point guards who rack up a lot of assists are generating offense for their team. In other words, a point guard who generates a lot of assists is usually running an efficient, productive offense. Seems like it ought to work that way, at least.
But the past few seasons for the Celtics have refuted that notion. How is it that Rondo piles on the assists, yet the Celtics have one of the worst offenses in the league?
I wanted to take a look at the offenses that other top assist-getters have run over the last 20 years or so. Does leading the league in assists always correlate with having a high powered offense?
The following is a table (sorry for the rough formatting) listing the season assist-per-game leaders for the last 20 seasons, including this season. Also listed are some of the key offensive stats for the teams the assist leaders played on, and how the teams ranked league-wide in each of those categories.
Seasons APG Leader APG Team Team ORtg Team EFG% Team PPG Team Record 2012-2013 Rajon Rondo 11.1 BOS 102.1 (27th) .493% (12th) 94.9 (23rd) 20-22 (17th) 2011-2012 Rajon Rondo 11.7 BOS 101.0 (26th) .496% (10th) 91.8 (26th) 39-27 (10th) 2010-2011 Steve Nash 11.42 PHO 109.5 (9th) .522 (5th) 105.0 (4th) 40-42 (17th) 2009-2010 Steve Nash 11.01 PHO 115.3 (1st) .546 (1st) 110.2 (1st) 54-28 (5th) 2008-2009 Chris Paul 11.04 NOH 108.7 (12th) .501 (13th) 95.8 (26th) 49-33 (10th) 2007-2008 Chris Paul 11.56 NOH 111.5 (5th) .512 (6th) 100.9 (9th) 56-26 (4th) 2006-2007 Steve Nash 11.63 PHO 113.9 (1st) .551 (1st) 110.2 (1st) 61-21 (2nd) 2005-2006 Steve Nash 10.46 PHO 111.5 (2nd) .537 (1st) 108.4 (1st) 54-28 (4th) 2004-2005 Steve Nash 11.48 PHO 114.5 (1st) .534 (1st) 110.4 (1st) 62-20 (1st) 2003-2004 Jason Kidd 9.22 NJN 100.8 (25th) .471 (16th) 90.3 (22nd) 47-35 (9th) 2002-2003 Jason Kidd 8.9 NJN 103.8 (18th) .468 (21st) 95.4 (14th) 49-33 (8th) 2001-2002 Andre Miller 10.9 CLE 104.6 (14th) .477 (12th) 95.3 (16th) 29-53 (24th) 2000-2001 Jason Kidd 9.8 PHO 100.3 (22nd) .460 (22nd) 94.0 (17th) 51-31 (8th) 1999-2000 Jason Kidd 10.1 PHO 104.6 (16th) .491 (7th) 98.9 (12th) 53-29 (5th) 1998-1999 Jason Kidd 10.8 PHO 105.8 (3rd) .481 (8th) 95.6 (3rd) 27-23 (14th) 1997-1998 Rod Strickland 10.54 WAS 105.2 (14th) .476 (15th) 97.2 (8th) 42-40 (16th) 1996-1997 Mark Jackson 11.4 DEN / IND 104.5 (24th) / 105.8 (15th) .486 (18th) / .490 (17th) 97.8 (13th) / 95.4 (20th) 21-61 (26th) / 39-43 (17th) 1995-1996 John Stockton 11.17 UTA 113.3 (2nd) .517 (5th) 102.5 (10th) 55-27 (5th) 1994-1995 John Stockton 12.33 UTA 114.3 (4th) .535 (2nd) 106.4 (5th) 60-22 (2nd) 1993-1994 John Stockton 12.57 UTA 108.6 (7th) .490 (10th) 101.9 (10th) 53-29 (8th) 1992-1993 John Stockton 12.04 UTA 109.6 (6th) .498 (11th) 106.2 (11th) 47-35 (10th)
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The results aren't entirely surprising. Steve Nash's teams are almost always near the top of the league in offensive categories. Whatever he does in terms of running an offense, he does it well. Even when he had crappy teammates his last two seasons in Phoenix, his teams were still in the top 3rd in the league offensively.
In fact, it looks as though the Celtics of this season and last are the weakest offenses among the twenty teams on the list -- the only team that comes close is the 2003-2004 Nets led by Jason Kidd.
I don't really have answers for this. I'm not saying that Rondo is to blame for the Celtics' offensive struggles (though he must play some part). But it has to be at least somewhat of an indictment on him that though he leads the league in assists, his teams are still very underwhelming offensively, right?