Assists have been tracked as a stat for years, and they are a category dominated by guards.  As part of the advanced stats boom going on in the NBA, a new type of assist is being looked at where the big man could start getting more offensive props: the pick assist.

The idea behind a pick assist is that if a screen directly springs a player for an open shot, the person that set that screen should also get some credit similar to the way a passer gets an assist for setting up a score.

I've toyed with this concept for years myself, though I never did anything with it.  I always thought it unfair that a good big man might set a bunch of good screens that makes the offense function, but never get any mention for their hard work.  A lot like how in football the skill players get the credit, but there is no such thing as a great offense without good offensive line work.

Well, I just read an article about how the Celtics (and presumably other teams) are now keeping track of 'pick assists'.  In this article, one observer kept track of all of the picks set by the Celtics in the recent Celtics/Cavs game, and noted how many of those assists led directly to open shots.  The article has a couple of video clips as well, illustrating exactly what he was talking about.

My question to you is: do you buy this as a useful stat?  Do you think that it makes a good balance to the traditional assist, allowing us to see why some bigs are known as good "intangibles guys" even though their box score stats might look sparse?  Or do you see it as just another attempt by the eggheads of the world to over-think a game that you can only understand by "watching the game"?