I am curious how one can determine that the assisting player is determined after the decision whether there is an assist or not. This is not necessarily false, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the match report that suggests it.
i don't know if you're interested in programming or not, but i can't think of any other logic..
if you don't decide whether there will be an assist or not, it's meaningless to determine the assisting player..
of course there are some possible options but they are hard to implement..
for example:
a player takes the ball and decides what to do, he can pass, drive or shoot..
since the shotclock is not working so well, i'm sure that this system is not used..
the simplest and logical way to implement an offense is to decide what will happen first..
IMO..
Actually not really.
The situation is as follows: we have that each team gets a series of looks, which have a certain quality. They can be scored or missed.
However, the quality of the look is determined prior to when the shot is taken, and since the quality of the look depends on the quality of the pass, it is logical that if a look is assisted, the passer is known in advance. The shooter can choose between passing up on the shot, shooting, or driving to improve the quality of the look. Naturally, an assist is only recorder if the shooter takes the shot immediately.
From a programming point of view, it actually makes better sense to do it this way, since there will be less conditional statements.
So it goes like this:
look1(passer1, shooter1)
look2(passer2, shooter2)
...
lookX(passerX, shooterX)
My understanding is matchups in BB are treated invidivually (player vs. player), though the skills are modified by team ratings. So I see zero logic in assists being generated solely based on team ratings.
But of course, most of this is just speculation. I just want to point out that there are alternatives.
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."