tone wone wrote:ShotCreator wrote:
Old Stockton blows old LeBron on playmaking ability and creativity. He still had his quickness and natural body movements which LeBron does not anymore.
I could easily see Stockton topping LeBron on playoff impact if Reaves did it.
Just what was Oldman stockton creating while being such a non-threat as a scorer? The guy was taking about 8 shots a game. You can't possibly believe a player who barely shoots could actually be a high end playmaker?
Being the the trigger man in sets ain't playmaking. It's not difficult to rack up assist in that role when the teams primary scorer is a offball play finisher. We just saw Chris Paul do a better version of this in Phoenix.
Stockton still had his speed. He could pretty much get anywhere he wanted in a half court set.
Check his free throw rates of this time period too.
The late 90’s and early 00’s were post-Illegal defense and handchecking rules changes and extremely slow paced and low on offensive innovation.
Stockton was an all-star caliber on ability and productivity in any time period. And was playing both ends. This isn’t prime Rondo level play here.
8 shots is not really relevant.
But we are talking extremely subtle differences at this point. But between old man Paul, old man Stockton, and old man LeBron there’s subtle differences between the 3.
Phoenix Chris Paul absolutely could not do what Stockton was doing, the way he was doing it on either end. The speed and explosion difference is humongous. It’s a mistake to think Chris Paul and Stockton did the same things. Stockton really never changed his play style from prime. He just got a little worse at it.
Chris Paul wouldn’t even attempt half the things he’d do I say 2016, on either end, while playing for Phoenix.
Guards got into Chris Paul grill on the dribble, Bigs had no respect for his finishing game, and he was hidden off the ball as a defender in Phoenix.
Whereas in prime he was - as a great shooter still getting sagged off when on-ball because of his quickness and slashing threat - was a top PNR ball handler defender on volume and PPP allowed every year guarding the hardest tasks, and actually scored a ton at the rim when Jordan or Griffin would leave the court in those minutes. Now he plays in the space and pace era and can kind of boost up his stats to make his game seem like it’s higher substance than it was in PHX.
Very similar to LeBron. His 25/7/7 or whatever was very very limited and had many plays of stalling and not getting any pressure put on the defense. He had the game substance of a 18/5/6 guy.
But Stockton didn’t really struggle like this. He got old like Ginobili gold old. Still fast, still dominant on both ends. Just way lower minutes. I’m really anal about this stuff but this is really where the conversation should be. These super subtle non-box score factors.
LeBron was not at all higher impact than old Stockton to me for these reasons. Neither was PHX Paul.
Swinging for the fences.
