Add prime AK47 to prime Stockton and Malone

[tsherkin]

That's the full extent of your quote. So the other angle seems to be regarding his rank in one season. I'm not sure how later health relates to this. That is what I assume you are responding to. Maybe you meant to quote more? I'm confused here.

That's your interpretation. My remark on his ranking was always about at any point. We did start having a discussion about 2004 in particular, to be fair, so I can see how it might have confused.

I don't know what you mean by "focal" player and "If you build with him as your focal player, you lose. That's fairly straightforward."
As covered he's not an alpha scorer, nor someone who required you to build "around" him.

I was trying to flesh out my discussion of him as a #3, since that seemed to be your focus.

Then too, I think you've erred in only seeing Kirilenko as a defensive addition. One could offer the passing and the cutting and the efficiency (drawing fouls especially) or some getting to the offensive glass for a 3 ... but on the box side you could just note his OBPM is better than his DBPM for the span in question and his offensive impact seems to be greater - eyeballing it - than his defensive for the 3 years span discussed ... and especially the two years the OP suggested are to be inserted here (cf: https://www.cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/2029/onoff#tab-team_efficiency).

I don't consider this an error. He's an efficient guy with a pretty well-rounded skillset. I just... don't care, because that wasn't the issue which Utah experienced in that series. They had a bunch of guys who did all that quite well. He wasn't an isolation scorer or a guy who was going to exert large offensive pressure on the defense. That just wasn't his game, nor did what he brought to the table on O address the issue which Utah had vs. Chicago.

In the broader strokes, and during the RS, though, I absolutely agree that he was a competent, valuable offensive player who benefited his teams with his play.

As you say, I think we're sufficiently divergent on this topic that we can lay it down there, but I appreciate your input and thoughts.

[penbeast0]

Kirilenko's defense would have been pretty awesome, but it's not like he was going to contain Jordan.

Why not? Especially 2nd 3-peat Jordan, slower and already "containable" in multiple series.

Because there was nothing that Kirilenko did which was going to stop what Jordan was doing, which largely comprised bombing fadeaways and jumpers to begin with. His length wouldn't be valuable enough in changing that.

Even if he doesn't "stop" Jordan, if he affects all the other Bulls with his length and shotblocking and makes Pippen a less sidekick while providing significantly more offense than Byron Russell, that's a significant swing in a reasonably close pair of series. No guarantees either way but it could be the difference between winning and losing one or both finals for the Jazz.

[tsherkin]

Even if he doesn't "stop" Jordan, if he affects all the other Bulls with his length and shotblocking and makes Pippen a less sidekick while providing significantly more offense than Byron Russell, that's a significant swing in a reasonably close pair of series. No guarantees either way but it could be the difference between winning and losing one or both finals for the Jazz.

Pippen was sufficiently useless in that 98 series that I don't think AK really does anything different to him, tbh. It's hard for Pippen to have been any worse.

In 97, they lost that series because Malone was useless. In 98, they lost it because no one could score enough EXCEPT Malone. An efficient 11 ppg from AK in the 98 series was not going to make the difference on that end, IMHO.

[Rishkar]

Easy threepeat

[DraymondGold]

For those saying the Jazz in 1996, do you really see 1997 Jazz + AK47 as a top 5 team all time? Because the 1996 Bulls are basically universally a top 5 team ever (whether asking for people's opinion around here, or looking at other analyst's lists, or watching film, or looking at the statistics). And they're probably not 5th. In fact, most people have them top 3 ever, often 1/2.

So if you're saying the upgraded Jazz beat them... do you see the Jazz as a new Top 3 GOAT Team contender, or do you think they become a bad enough matchup to make up for being a worse team than the Bulls, or think the Bulls would underperform vs their potential enough to let the Jazz sneak past them?

[SportsGuru08]

AK was with Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer for several years and they never even sniffed the Finals. Three losses in a row to the Lakers with an inferior version of Jordan as its best player.

[rafale]

AK was with Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer for several years and they never even sniffed the Finals. Three losses in a row to the Lakers with an inferior version of Jordan as its best player.

Karl Malone and John Stockton are much better than Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer, and AK47 was not in his prime anymore when they lost againt the Lakers (his prime was very short, i would say from 2004 to 2006)

[SportsGuru08]

I'd favor the Jazz. The problem is that in a lot of people's minds the floor of what it took to beat any of the Bulls title teams may be a lot higher than what it actually takes simply because we never saw them getting beat outside of 95 which is always glossed over. So no one knows how good of a team it takes for sure to beat those teams but I don't trust 96-98 MJ to hit the gear it takes to beat teams that may be better talent wise the way I would 90-93 MJ who could put up 35-40ppg at very high efficiency when required. Adding AK47 makes it even harder for him to do that.

This is probably the point to note that the 1998 G6 featured 2 wrong clock calls that - if holding all else equal - swung the game for the Bulls. WIthout them the Bulls go to game 7 in Utah with Pippen maybe still not in great shape.

It should also be noted that if Karl Malone hadn't been outscored by MJ by an average of 16 PPG in all of their close losses (Games 2, 4, & 6) then Utah probably wins in 5 games or, at worst, goes back home UP 3-2 instead of falling behind 3-1 and those calls don't even matter.

[Owly]

For those saying the Jazz in 1996, do you really see 1997 Jazz + AK47 as a top 5 team all time? Because the 1996 Bulls are basically universally a top 5 team ever (whether asking for people's opinion around here, or looking at other analyst's lists, or watching film, or looking at the statistics). And they're probably not 5th. In fact, most people have them top 3 ever, often 1/2.

So if you're saying the upgraded Jazz beat them... do you see the Jazz as a new Top 3 GOAT Team contender, or do you think they become a bad enough matchup to make up for being a worse team than the Bulls, or think the Bulls would underperform vs their potential enough to let the Jazz sneak past them?

I wouldn't particularly pick any (semi-modern) team to expect to three-peat. Even if they're the best team in given year that's very likely less than 50% and multiply that over 3 years ...

And I'm not particularly invested in where the Jazz come out ... I haven't looked closely enough.

But one could start some defense of the idea you discuss in terms of Utah needing to be great based on a couple of the ideas I mentioned earlier:

the obvious one in terms of how adding AK helps
1) peak Kirilenko is selected for the years in question and is highly productive and highly impactful

the less obvious one
2) less junk units. Less bad players. We don't have lineup data for 1996. So we can't be sure for the specific year in your question for you but looking at later trends included in the broader question ...
For '97 the Jazz are +10 or better when Malone is on and this is also when Hornacek is on and also when Russell is on and also when Ostertag is on. This would also be true for Stockton but he plays a bunch with some of the junk units. Those five together are +25.2 per 100 for nearly 1000 minutes.

They are -20 in the near 1000 minutes Chris Morris is on. -7.5 when Greg Foster is on and outscored with Shandon Anderson on and ditto for Antoine Carr.

It's a little less stark in '98. Foster (superficially at least) looks a bit less bad (though the team is still trending worse with him on than off) by playing with the better players more. This sort of thing pulls some of the better unit players below +10. Stockton is less with junk units now. Morris lineups are now "only" -14.7 with him on. Keefe seems effective with the good units and gets some run with them (Ostertag playing less with them and overall, Russell playing a little less too).

Adding a great player is great. That he could boot out one awful/deeply harmful player would be great ... he has positional flexibility and so does Malone so he can not just effectively eat all Morris's minutes but take a chunk out of Foster and Carr's too.


As I say apex Kirilenko's great (cf numbers presented in this thread) anyway and lifts their upside directly. But he could add more here than elsewhere by making playing what ... certainly appear to be deeply ineffective players (and lineups) see far less time.

cf: Reference e.g. https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/UTA/1997/lineups/
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/UTA/1998/lineups/

[DraymondGold]

For those saying the Jazz in 1996, do you really see 1997 Jazz + AK47 as a top 5 team all time? Because the 1996 Bulls are basically universally a top 5 team ever (whether asking for people's opinion around here, or looking at other analyst's lists, or watching film, or looking at the statistics). And they're probably not 5th. In fact, most people have them top 3 ever, often 1/2.

So if you're saying the upgraded Jazz beat them... do you see the Jazz as a new Top 3 GOAT Team contender, or do you think they become a bad enough matchup to make up for being a worse team than the Bulls, or think the Bulls would underperform vs their potential enough to let the Jazz sneak past them?

I wouldn't particularly pick any (semi-modern) team to expect to three-peat. Even if they're the best team in given year that's very likely less than 50% and multiply that over 3 years ...

And I'm not particularly invested in where the Jazz come out ... I haven't looked closely enough.

But one could start some defense of the idea you discuss in terms of Utah needing to be great based on a couple of the ideas I mentioned earlier:

the obvious one in terms of how adding AK helps
1) peak Kirilenko is selected for the years in question and is highly productive and highly impactful

the less obvious one
2) less junk units. Less bad players. We don't have lineup data for 1996. So we can't be sure for the specific year in your question for you but looking at later trends included in the broader question ...
For '97 the Jazz are +10 or better when Malone is on and this is also when Hornacek is on and also when Russell is on and also when Ostertag is on. This would also be true for Stockton but he plays a bunch with some of the junk units. Those five together are +25.2 per 100 for nearly 1000 minutes.

They are -20 in the near 1000 minutes Chris Morris is on. -7.5 when Greg Foster is on and outscored with Shandon Anderson on and ditto for Antoine Carr.

It's a little less stark in '98. Foster (superficially at least) looks a bit less bad (though the team is still trending worse with him on than off) by playing with the better players more. This sort of thing pulls some of the better unit players below +10. Stockton is less with junk units now. Morris lineups are now "only" -14.7 with him on. Keefe seems effective with the good units and gets some run with them (Ostertag playing less with them and overall, Russell playing a little less too).

Adding a great player is great. That he could boot out one awful/deeply harmful player would be great ... he has positional flexibility and so does Malone so he can not just effectively eat all Morris's minutes but take a chunk out of Foster and Carr's too.


As I say apex Kirilenko's great (cf numbers presented in this thread) anyway and lifts their upside directly. But he could add more here than elsewhere by making playing what ... certainly appear to be deeply ineffective players (and lineups) see far less time.

cf: Reference e.g. https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/UTA/1997/lineups/
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/UTA/1998/lineups/

Thanks for the response! A lot of that makes sense to me. I think those Jazz were underrated at times -- definitely among the best cores to never win a championship. I also agree they had trouble with depth. To me, some of their perceived lack of playoff resilience was because their stars were asked to do a little too much relative to their ability... which means if they did have a bit more depth or a 3rd guy like Kirilenko, the healthier team balance would cause them to regress less in the playoffs. Especially if you're adding a guy who fills a positional niche as an All star/sub-all star level wing, with some defense to help a team that was better offensively than defensively.

Me personally, I think I have the 1996 Bulls winning it all still, though it's close.
1997 is closer -- how much is the decline from 1996 health related (e.g. Rodman and Kukoc both played <60 games) vs actual decline from their top players?
By 1998, with everyone declining on the Bulls, I definitely would have this Jazz winning out. Like you say, it's very hard for a moderne team to three-peat. Teams get worn down, and those Bulls were definitely getting worn down. The decline of Pippen was especially limiting in those playoffs.