Potential Assists tracks passes that directly led to a shot attempt — a pass qualifies as a Potential Assist if the recipient took a shot off the pass, whether or not it went in. A player receives credit for a regular assist only if the shot is made; Potential Assists captures the creation regardless of outcome.
Removes shooter variance from playmaking evaluation. A pass that creates an open corner three is a high-quality playmaking action regardless of whether the shooter converts. Tracks playmaking quality on bad-shooting teams more accurately than raw assists.
Available via tracking data from NBA.com, but not historically available before the tracking era (approximately 2013-14). Tracking data access involves NBA.com's paid API for bulk use.
Not currently scored in APEX. APEX's Playmaking pillar uses AST%, AST/TOV, and TOV% — all available historically — because the 40-season backtest requires pre-tracking era coverage. Potential Assists is an explicit improvement target for APEX's playmaking measurement in V2 when full tracking era coverage is available. A player's Potential Assists rate is a more complete measure of playmaking quality than raw AST%, which depends on teammates converting.