Scott Skiles Has Held Assist Record for 35 Years

Published on May 28th, 2024 1:59 pm EST
Written By: Dave Manuel


If you had to guess which player held the single game assist record in the NBA, you'd probably pick names such as John Stockton, Bob Cousy or maybe somebody like Jason Kidd.

These are all great choices, as all three men are in the top 10 when it comes to most assists in a single game.

The record, however, belongs to Scott Skiles.

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It was the day before New Year's Eve in 1990, and the terrible 6-23 Denver Nuggets were travelling to Orlando to play the equally bad Orlando Magic.

The Magic were a new expansion team, and they were still a few years away from landing Shaquille O'Neal and Penny Hardaway.

At the time, Scott Skiles was probably the best player that the Magic had. In fact, on December 30th, 1990, he played 44 minutes of the game - 16 more minutes than any of the other starters on his team.

Skiles was feeling it that day, as he was seeing things clearly and distributing the rock with precision. As the game went on, the assists kept piling up.

The assist record is different from the points or rebounds record, as you need help from your teammates. On this day, the Magic were shooting the lights out, as they ended the day shooting 57% from the field.

This helped Skiles to pile up the assists.

The Magic hammered the Nuggets 155-116, but the Magic coaches left Skiles in the game so that he could break the assist record, which had been set 12 years prior by Kevin Porter.

To make things more impressive, Skiles also added 22 points and 6 rebounds.

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Since Skiles set the record back in 1990, the closest that anybody has come to breaking it has been Rajon Rondo, who put up 25 assists against the New Orleans Pelicans on December 27th, 2017.