When you think of the NBA assist, no doubt you think of the best point men in the history of the game, you think of players like Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, John Stockton, Jason Kidd, and Bob Cousy, yet it may come as a surprise to you that not all of those big name point guards are in the top five of all time.

That’s because NBA history has as much to do with how long a player plays as it does with pure point guard skills. Would anyone consider Dirk Nowitzki a better scoring than Wilt Chamberlain? As great as a player as Dirk is, he’s not as great as Wilt, but he had a much longer career than The Stilt. Dirk is playing in his 21st NBA season while Wilt played 14 seasons.

Not Just Talent: Longevity Matters

Same goes with assists and any other statistical category for that matter. What weighs as much as the ability to read defenses and thread the needle is the longevity of that players career. To illustrate the importance about how many games a player played impacting their assist totals, we expanded our list from the usual top ten or top twenty, to the top 50 players with the most assists in NBA history.

*Players in bold are still active

Point Guards Dominate

No surprise that the vast majority of this list is made up of point guards as their primary position. Out of the 50, 37 are point guards and the only non-point guard in the top 25 of this list is LeBron James, who has served as a point forward for at least half his career.

From there, it’s no shock to see shooting guards as the next position with the most played on this list, but only toward the second half: Reggie Theus, Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Jason Terry, Jerry West, Clyde Drexler, Dwyane Wade, Michael Jordan and Jason Terry. LeBron is joined by fellow passing forwards in Scottie Pippen, Larry Bird, Kevin Garnett and John Havelicek. And the one and only center to make the list is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who played 21 NBA seasons and averaged the lowest assists per game of anyone on this list at 3.6 per game.

Let’s Talk About Kevin Porter

To further talk about how longevity is a huge factor, let’s look at Kevin Porter. Porter was one of the best point guards of his time. He led the league in assists per game in four NBA seasons and his name is dotted all over the list of players that passed for the most assists in one NBA game. Still, Porter didn’t make the top 50 of all-time because his career only spanned ten seasons. Porter’s career game total of 659 games would be the lowest of all players in the top 50 list