It might seem obvious considering that he’s leading the NBA in assists for the first time in his historic 17-year career, but LeBron James is passing the ball more than he has before in his career. And to add to that, nobody in LeBron’s history of past teammates received more passes on a nightly basis than Anthony Davis currently does next to The King.
Bryan Kalbrosky dug into the numbers for HoopsHype earlier on Monday and discovered that Davis is receiving 25.2 passes per 36 minutes from LeBron James. That’s the highest average of any LeBron teammate since that data has become available on NBA.com.
Obviously, it’s still early in the season, so this could change slightly but Davis looks well on his way to surpassing Kyrie Irving’s high mark of 22.3 passes per 36 minutes in 2015-16.
If things continue going the way they are, even Kyle Kuzma could pass Irving’s high mark as well. Davis has been a well of assists for LeBron and that doesn’t figure to change anytime soon, but there are also a couple of other aspects at play when looking at this passing increase.
First of all, LeBron is playing point guard more than he ever has because of injuries and the Lakers general lack of point guard depth. Second, the pace of play (possessions per game) has been steadily increasing over the last five years which of course leads to a higher volume of shots and passes.
Still, the stat that Kalbrosky dug into indicates a big reason why LeBron is leading the NBA assists. Even though Davis hasn’t been his normally efficient self, he won’t be short on opportunities as long as he and LeBron stay on the court.
