ABC's Sunday Matinee Showcases The New Breed of "Do-It-All" Point Guard

But another statistic created by Hollinger is perhaps more telling. Assist ratio is an opportunity rate measuring how often a player gets an assist when they touch the ball. For the season, Bird’s assist ratio was 25.57, which is above average for point guards. In the last five games during Jackson’s absence, her assist ratio has been 14.09, which is well below average for point guards.

However, a low assist ratio doesn’t mean a player is bad – all-star caliber guards like Jia Perkins (14.87) and Diana Taurasi (13.96) are in about the same ball park and they are clearly not bad players -- they're just high scoring guards. So what the assist ratio does say is that Bird has transitioned from a combo guard who balances passing and scoring to a scoring guard who is passing much less.

And as it turns out, assist ratio tells us a lot about the type of point guard a player is according to the Sparks Playing Styles spectrum. From that player styles spectrum, we can derive five types of point guards: initiator, distributor, pure facilitator, scorer, and combo guards (for descriptions of each click here).

Players with high assist ratios tend to fall in what I have called the pure distributor end of the spectrum (e.g. Leilani Mitchell and Shannon Johnson) whereas players with low assist ratios tend to be what I call scoring guards.

Players across the spectrum can have all the skills of a traditional playmaker, but the mark of a great player (under a good coach) is the ability to play to her strengths while providing what the team needs. And fundamentally, that's a matter of decision making. And if you’re a good scorer, sometimes the best decision is to shoot.

Right now Sue Bird is playing more like a scoring guard because that is what her team needs. That’s not a bad thing at all and, in fact, it appears to be the best decision for her team -- in games that she's shooting more without Jackson, they're winning. But it's clear that has an effect on their team dynamics -- as a team there appears to be considerably less ball movement and they're turning the ball over more often (21.11% of possessions vs. 18.30%) with Bird operating as more of a scorer.

Where this will be even more interesting to watch in the playoffs. How sustainable is this adjusted style of play against the league's top competition? Can Bird carry the team to realize their championship expectations without Jackson?

What does this mean for the Storm’s chances against the Sun?

For true fans of basketball, it doesn’t get much better than watching Bird and Whalen run their teams. (Update: unfortunately, it looks like Whalen will be out due to an ankle injury). They are both exemplify the new breed of combo guard

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