I'll start with a huge disclaimer that I'm sure we don't have enough information on historical players to implement this. Heck, it might be hard to implement even with recent players.

But while waiting for my turn to draft and procrastinating work, I was listening to the Bob Ryan/Bill Simmons NBA 75 podcast, and they made an interesting point along the lines of 'Paul Pierce is the greatest pure scorer in Celtics history; Bird was amazing but he needed screens and help at times to get his shot.' My frame of historical NBA reference is relatively small, and does not include much love for the Celtics, but it got me thinking about how cool (and more accurate) it would be to be able to differentiate between players that could 'create their own shot' vs. those that couldn't.

An example: peak Harden needed basically no help to get his own shot. But Capela without a good passer? He'd be significantly worse. Similar thing with Steph being less impacted by team passing than Klay, for example. So maybe you could have players that were more impacted by team AST%, and others who would be relatively impervious. Ideally this would come as part of an overall AST% revamp....

Like I said I don't think it's very implementable... just a thought! Maybe someone has more practical implementation theories.

1) do not listen to Bill Simmons lest you find yourself espousing labored silliness (Bird needed screens 'at times' to get his shot? 'at times' so did the Truth and 'at times' Bird literally told opponents 'I am going to walk over there and shoot over you and you cant do anything about it' - I don't think the Truth ever did that - Larry was just fine getting his shot where and when he wanted to the point that he even told his opponents he was going to do it and how and still made those shots in the crunchiest of moments)

2) Harden needed no help = pounding the ball into the ground and eating clock while enervating your own offense - also no help often = the refs

3) I get what you are saying role-wise but Bird wasn't Reggie or Rip - & Harden is not so much a shot creator as a rule exploiter (if you want to be adjacent you might go Kyrie who has mad handle and actually does create)

4) positive signs today on admin activism but if they are going to mess with assists priority #1 should be a cap (to counter the exploit) and they have never been particularly good at fiddling with smaller adjustment type things in the past so....?

Wish I'd see this sooner. I enjoy Simmons a lot and listened to that podcast. I do specifically recall the Pierce pure scorer vs Bird, but I don't recall hearing the reason being that Bird needed screens. I may listen to it again. On that point - I think the comment was situational and more about trying to give Pierce some credit as he is a bit underrated. In reality I'm not sure Pierce was better at any facet of basketball than Bird. Bird scored more, rebounded more, more assists and was probably a little bit smarter defender.