Fast break points is a junk statistic

Nobody agrees on when a break ends, so the number changes depending on which scorer is sitting at the table.

Fast break points appears on television graphics as though it were a measured quantity. It is not. It is a judgment call made in real time by a human being with no written definition to work from, and different humans make it differently.

Here is the problem in one question. A guard pushes off a rebound, nobody is back, he pulls up for a three at the top of the key with eighteen seconds on the clock. Fast break points? Some scorers say yes because the defence was not set. Others say no because there was no numbers advantage and the shot was a jumper. Add a swing pass first and the disagreement widens. Add a dribble handoff and it becomes hopeless.

Because the definition floats, the number cannot be compared between arenas, and comparing it across a season is comparing a mixture of judgments. Yet coaches quote it, teams set targets on it, and I have heard a broadcast attribute an entire result to a fast break points gap that could plausibly have been six points smaller with a stricter scorer.

The replacement is available and nobody has to invent anything. Use the shot clock. Points scored on possessions where the shot went up within a fixed number of seconds of the possession beginning. Pick seven, pick eight, I do not much care which, as long as it is written down. That number is mechanical, reproducible, and it captures the thing everyone actually means, which is the advantage created before a defence organises itself.

You lose something, admittedly. Early clock possessions include some where the defence was perfectly set and the offence simply took a good early shot, and those are not really breaks. Fine. Split them by whether the defence had four players back at the time, which tracking data answers directly.

What I want is for the phrase to stop carrying authority it has not earned. When a coach says we lost the fast break battle by fourteen, he is quoting a scorer's opinion with a decimal point stapled to it.

Use a clock. Clocks do not have opinions.