A backup who only played a few minutes a game with Malone. He played more minutes in that one season in NY where he averaged more assists a game. Also, that's a weird example. Take Nash/Stoudemire. Do you think if Nash didn't have such a perfect PnR partner he'd average as many assists? Of course not. I'm not making a divine proclamation. There is no physical law that says if you have a good PF, your assists will skyrocket. But if you're a good passing PG, then a good scoring PF (as it was defined until very recently) is perfect to accumulate assists. You can lob to a center, but most of the time, you feed it inside and the center will battle in the post to score. Having an elite perimeter scorer is not as good because of the lower % on the shots. Having a PF who can roll and pop is amazing.