Is This Nate Robinson Dime The Assist Of The Year?

The degree of difficulty here is why we’re wondering if this might be the assist of the year. Nate Robinson is a scoring dynamo, so it was kind of shocking to watch him ignore a shot right at the rim to instead find JaVale McGee for the layup plus the foul. Except, it’s how Nate made it happen that’s so magnificent.

First thing we have to mention Darrell Arthur setting a monster screen that wiped out Robinson’s man (Austin Rivers) and prevented Arthur’s own man (Ryan Anderson) from blocking Robinson’s path to the paint.

But once Nate Rob turns the corner, he sees Luke Babbitt hedging off Danilo Gallinari to cut him off. Robinson fakes the behind-the-back pass to Gallinari (and he doesn’t have Rajon Rondo‘s alien hands, so he can’t cup the ball — making it doubly as impressive), and that freezes Babbitt.

Even after all that he’s still got Alexis Ajinca jumping to contain the easy lay-in. So, Nate fakes like he’s gonna try a tear-drop over Ajinca before swiveling a pass around him to the cutting JaVale.

All that in around a second of actual time.

Is this the assist of the year?

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