say you have a guy who is an OK scorer and an elite passer...if you set his distro high, will he have the ball more often and thus make more plays by passing? or is it the opposite? that distro only governs shooting and that a high distro will cause him to shoot more often at the expense of passing?

distro only affects shooting.

I disagree; a player with low distribution will see more assists.  Whether it is worth changing distribution in order to get a player more assists is another question entirely.

udm and hannibal - in a sense, I think you both are right, I think guys with lo distro get more assists and I think distro only affects shooting - let me explain:

think of this extreme example, if I set a near 1000 rated PG with high everything to half my touches, he is only eligible for assists on only half the shots, his 0 distro running mate, is eligible for assists on 100% of the shots made while he is in, this might mean for the season, Mr Star player gets 1.5 assists per game, Mr passer gets 3.0.  Even if they have identical point guard like skills, the zero distro guy will get double the assists.  My experience says this is about how it works, although, I think the PG position by definition out assists the SG position, the SG position out assists the SF,  the SF out assists the PF, PF>C, even if all assist related ratings are equal.

IMO when double teams come to the guy with all the touches, the game does not differentiate his passing the ball out of the double, but he would take fewer shots, hence his assists would go up, but only slightly, the zero distro guy still will beat him over the course of the season.

OR explained what I meant in a far better way than I did.  Thanks   

my Q is: how much does passing effect scoring? how much does it effect TOs?

it's hard to "see" how much it means to have an elite passing PG. i've had some great passing PGs at d2/d3, but does having a great passing PG outweigh having your pg be another scorer? i mean, sure better passig means better assist/TO ratio, but does it mean better shooting % for the other 4 guys on the floor? has anyone had a team of GREAT passers and average scorers and seen what their shooting % was? would it matter what O they were running? (i would assume it means more in motion and flex and less in triangle and fastbreak)