I've always believed that a player should be awarded an assist when a pass leads to a teammate being fouled in the act of shooting and results in one or more made free throws. If this was the case I believe DJ would have had another 5 or more assists last night. Since we're on the topic, how about an assist for a pass that sets up a a pass fora bucket?

Agreed!

Let's also keep track of +/-, refer to time both forwards and backwards in the period, and put down a new topcoat on the surface at every intermission!

I appreciate the concept, but I also don't want to see a bunch of great players lose their standing by changing the definition.

That has long been discussed in this house. Unfortunately, the official book does not allow that. I know Tommy kept track of those in his head,  almost every game the first thing he would talk about was the assists that ended up in trips to the FT line instead of finishes or and ones.

assists are by definition only credited when leading to a feild goal, short of knowing if the FG would have been good I am not sure how you can credit an assist for leading to the foul....of course if the guy you passed it to went ahead and finished for the and 1 you always get the assist.

I agree, JSF.  The issue is baseball, much more than any other sport, is easily able to hold each specific player accountable for their impact in the way of stats.  Other team sports have so many moving pieces that influence individual performance and it becomes harder to isolate and remove things that the individual player cannot control.  I think basketball can and has improved a lot of the team stats (turnover/rebounding rates, etc.) and has a few untapped individual stats out there...But for the most part, it is just an inherent advantage baseball has over other sports.