NBA 2020-21: 5 Players with the most assists in the season so far
Most fans tend to overlook the natural talent needed to be a great passer in the NBA. However, General Managers and members of a team's coaching staff understand the impact that great passers have on an offense. In the 2020-21 NBA season, we have seen just one player average more than 10 assists per night, but several others driving their teams forward with their court vision.
5 Players with the most assists so far in the 2020-21 NBA season
In this report, we rank the five players who have the highest tally of assists in the current NBA campaign. Even though the per-game average has determined the assists champion of an NBA season since the 1969-70 NBA campaign, we have only considered the total assists for this piece.
#5 LeBron James - 150 assists
LeBron James is the reigning assists champion after leading the NBA in assists per game in the 2019-20 NBA season, with an average of 10.2. In the 2020-21 NBA campaign, James' average has dropped to 7.5, but his total of 150 assists through 20 games ranks fifth in the league.
James is the best passer in basketball regardless of where he ranks statistically. Many analysts are quick to point out that his best skill is assisting his teammates rather than his scoring.
'The King' has recorded 9496 assists in his NBA career and might be a year removed from achieving his 10,000th career assist. That will make the LA Lakers' player the first forward in NBA history to reach that mark. Until now, only five players in NBA history have achieved 10,000 assists in their careers.
#4 Trae Young - 155 assists
Trae Young ranks fourth in Usage Percentage in the NBA. Even though his numbers are slightly down from last year, he ranks 12th in points and fourth in assists with 155 in 18 appearances.
Young is a volume scorer (he averages 27 points per game with 18 field-goal attempts per game) and is a good distributor of the basketball.
His assists average of 8.6 is a tad under the 9.3 he recorded last season. However, through his first 18 games of the 2019-20 NBA campaign, he was averaging 8.4 assists per night, which rose to 9.3 by the end of the year.
More importantly, the Atlanta Hawks have a 10-8 record in his first 18 games, while they were 4-14 through Young's first 18 appearances last year.