NBA.com's John Schuhmann gets you ready for the 2017-18 season with a key stat for each team in the league and shows you why it matters. Today, we look at the Toronto Raptors, who were historically bad at assisting one another.

THE STAT

The Toronto Raptors assisted on just 47 percent of their field goals last season.



THE CONTEXT

That wasn't just the lowest assist percentage last season. It was the lowest assist percentage of any team in the last 27 years.

The Raptors' two All-Stars, DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, along with third guard Cory Joseph, dominated the ball again. The trio was assisted on just 26 percent of their buckets and accounted for 62,861 dribbles, 77 percent of the Raptors' total and almost as many as the Golden State Warriors had as a team (64,174).

DeRozan and Lowry did the bulk of their work off the dribble, and they were generally good at it. The Raptors led the league in the percentage of their possessions that were pick-and-roll ball-handler possessions, and their 0.95 points per possession on those were tied for the league's best mark.

DeRozan took 160 more pull-up, 2-point jumpers than any other player in the league. He was one of *four players who took at least 100 pull-up jumpers and 100 catch-and-shoot jumpers and had a higher effective field goal percentage on the pull-ups (43.2 percent) than on the catch-and-shoot attempts (42.0 percent). Both of those numbers are well below the league average effective field goal percentage (51.4 percent), but DeRozan's ability to get to the line put him right around the league average in regard to scoring efficiency.

* The others: Paul Millsap, Elfrid Payton and Evan Turner.

Lowry, meanwhile, shot 42.2 percent on pull-up 3-pointers, the best mark among 11 players who attempted at least 200. Yes, better than Stephen Curry (36.6 percent).

It guard-heavy, off-the-dribble stuff worked fine in the regular season, when the Raptors ranked sixth in offensive efficiency. They're one of only three teams (the Clippers and Spurs are the others) that have ranked in the top 10 on that end of the floor in each of the last four seasons.

But in the playoffs, Toronto has consistently taken a huge step backward offensively. As playoff defenses have loaded up on their guards, the Raptors have been unable to adjust. They've ranked 15th, 12th and 14th in offensive efficiency in the last three postseasons, scoring 9.1 fewer points per 100 possessions than they have in the regular season over that time.

Over the last 20 years, there hasn't been much of a correlation between a team's assist rate and how much its offense improves or regresses in the playoffs. There have been low-assist teams that have improved and high-assist teams that have taken a step backward.

But after three straight years of significant drop-off, the Raptors believe they need to make changes to the way they play.

"We need [Lowry and DeRozan] both to take the pressure off themselves with the pass and trust the pass," Raptors coach Dwane Casey told NBA.com's Ian Thomsen this summer. "And it is not a head-knocking thing. Kyle understands."

The Raptors tried to give their ball movement a boost the season before last. But their extra passes were generally inconsequential stuff at the beginning of a possession, leading to the same stuff from their guards off the dribble.

Through their first three preseason games, they've recorded assists on 54.5 percent (55/101) of their buckets, a rate which would have ranked 23rd last season. Some habits can be tough to break.