Its an interesting topic.
For example, if a player gets brought down in the box, gets up and takes the penalty themselves, are they assisting themselves.
they could have received the last pass as a throw out from the goalkeeper and then run the length of the pitch, but you wouldn't necessarily put down the assist to the goalkeeper in that scenario.
Same with the pen, could it be the defender is actually making the assist by fouling (directly before the pen).
It's like own goals, I hate when deflections are awarded as own goals as without the striker hitting the ball, there would have been no effort towards the goal.
I think in those situations the attacker should be rewarded for the goal.