You failed to convince me that ball handling in any way lends itself towards hitting the open man. Passing is more mental than anything else. Being able to understand the flow of the game, where people are going to be, where you need to get the ball in order to capitalize on opportunities and understand the angles of the passing lanes. Being able to dribble between your legs, behind your back and around your defender does not equate in any way.
In fact being able to control the ball is not related to distributing the ball. It is true that most often players are good at both skills or bad at both skills but they are not parallel. I also don't think having good ball control or the ability to make the ball do what you want it to do will truly enhance passing much. Sure you might be able to make the perfect bounce pass but that is arguably the easiest single movement or action in the game of basketball. The physical ability to project the ball from your chest to the chest of the man standing five feet from you is assumed to be a necessary attribute in order to play the game. As mentioned before, the essence of passing takes its form from the mental aspects and understanding flow.
Any day of the week you can go to the courts and find a player who can dribble all day off to the side but when the game starts they can't do anything because they don't know how to play on a team and move the ball.