How Good Was John Stockton?

[og15]

He was a complimentary star, that is why people don't talk about him as much, but there are a lot of similar guys to him who don't get talked about much as well as better players, so that's just what happens.

Great player, great to have on any team, but the guys who are more complimentary stars aren't going to get mentioned much in the greatest player of All-Time lists, and also remember that guys like Nash, Kidd, Payton etc aren't brought up in greatest player of all time discussions, so there's no surprise that Stockton isn't either.

Someone mentioned it, but I agree that he didn't have the second gear that some of the other great PG's had/have and/or didn't peak as high as them, and when you start getting compared to other greats, those things become differentiating factors. We do have to credit him for durability though, durability is something players can't fully control, you can do everything right, but if your body is a certain way or you get a freak injury, etc, it is what it is, but that's no different than height, speed, length etc, which we use to distinguish between players; so that's certainly something we can't discount when talking about him.

[og15]

#1 all time in the NBA in assists and steals by a wide enough margin. An all time great who was efficient all around player. Sneaky dirty with his elbows and such.

Whenever a guy reached Stockton would hook that players arm with his off arm to make sure the ref saw the foul.

Everyone in that era was sneaky dirty at times.

The current players who have all their different techniques to draw fouls, get separation, finish, etc, many learned this or that extra little trick either from watching other players before them or from a coach, etc, so of course his era had sneaky guys, and in previous era's there were guys with their own tricks too.

[Pukovnik]

Glorified Lonzo Ball

You should be banned from this forum for making the stupidest statement of the year...congrats...

[Pukovnik]

John Stockton was a whole lot better player then Nash and Kidd. He wasn't as flashy as those guys, but he was one of the toughest competitors of his generation, a generation that is considered the best that ever played the game. He played the right way, he was unselfish, he was a tough defender, he could shoot, make plays and so forth. A true legend of the game.

[Thundershock88]

An all time great. People don't realize how good those Jazz teams truly were. Stockton did everything with extreme efficiency. He would still be a top point guard in today's game.

[og15]

Top-3 PG all time. Could only put Curry & Magic ahead of him. Don't think anyone else has a case.
CP3 is a very similar player and perhaps a better scorer, but doesn't have anywhere near the durability Stockton had.
Also people knocking Stockton for his scoring numbers should consider that the pace of the game has changed. For example, Curry's best Offensive rating per 100 possessions is 125, which he has done twice. Stockton reached that same number four times, and had an Ortg per/100 of 124 in another season.
In a Mike D'Antoni offense I think Stockton absolutely could have scored at Steve Nash levels (Steve Nash best Ortg per 100 possessions in a season was 124 and 123).

Just curious here, but I'm not understanding why you cite Ortg in relation to their scoring. Ortg is an estimate of points generated per 100 possessions, it includes a players FG, assists and Oreb, it's not telling us anything about a players ability to score more or less points just estimating how efficient they are per possession on offense. A bit confused on that one.

[Kabookalu]

People are going to rip apart this comparison, but at the time he was essentially seen as a super rich mans Jose Calderon who played defense. He's a better scorer than Calderon, but sometimes it was more out of necessity since the Jazz always lacked scorers outside of himself and Malone. If he could Stockton would have been a career 10ppg efficient scorer who only shot when open or saw an opportunity to. He was nowhere near as aggressive looking for his shot as say Steve Nash, who by modern standards is pretty conservative. I thought this was unwarranted, but he was also accused of being someone who racked up a lot of cheap assists, and that his assists would be halved if it weren't for Malone.

Again, it's why I thought he was underrated during his time in the league. But the years following his career, all of a sudden he's being propped up as one of the greatest PGs of all time, arguably the best with only Magic being above him. I admit I didn't really start following basketball too closely until the 90's, and he had some of his best years in the 80's, but I don't recall anyone ever bringing up Stockton and Magic in the same sentence for all time greatest players, let alone Isiah Thomas. He was more in that Mark Price and Kevin Johnson mold.

[12footrim]

In his last season at age 40, he played all 82 games; per 36 minutes, averaged 14 and 10; and had a 2.3 VORP, .190 WS/48, 21.0 PER making one wonder how long he could've played and continued to be a net positive player.

I'm glad you mentioned this season. This is what has always stood out to me the durability and just how good he was still even at 40 years old. Statistically he was just about as good at 40 as he was at his peak per minute at least. I can't find another player that had as such a level stead 21-24 PER type career season in season out.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=single&type=totals&per_minute_base=36&per_poss_base=100&season_start=1&season_end=-1&lg_id=NBA&age_min=40&age_max=99&is_playoffs=N&height_min=0&height_max=99&birth_country_is=Y&as_comp=gt&as_val=0&pos_is_g=Y&pos_is_gf=Y&pos_is_f=Y&pos_is_fg=Y&pos_is_fc=Y&pos_is_c=Y&pos_is_cf=Y&order_by=per

I think he had the greatest age 40 season ever and it's not really even close. Could have probably played 3-5 more years and for a 6' point guard that's incredible. You don't think of those guys as aging well.

[planetmars]

I have him as the 3rd best PG ever behind Magic and Steph. Best PG in the pick and roll. Underrated defender.. elite shooter. Iron man (never really missed a day). And smart. One of the smartest PG's to play the game.

I have Oscar at 4th and Paul at 5th to round out my top 5.

[Big Joke Line]

I think people assume he wouldn't survive in today's game going up against bigger, more athletic guards like Westbrook. But I think he'd be okay.

There were big guards in the 80s and 90s, too.

And way more physical then too. Playing Stockton/Malone was always a slugfest. I remember either Kobe or Shaq saying something like "we always knew we'd finish a game against them with a few bruises".

David Robinson was about as ripped a physical specimen as I've ever seen at 7' and got knocked out cold twice by (allegedly) unintentional Karl Malone elbows.

[Cavsfansince84]

People are going to rip apart this comparison, but at the time he was essentially seen as a super rich mans Jose Calderon who played defense. He's a better scorer than Calderon, but sometimes it was more out of necessity since the Jazz always lacked scorers outside of himself and Malone. If he could Stockton would have been a career 10ppg efficient scorer who only shot when open or saw an opportunity to. He was nowhere near as aggressive looking for his shot as say Steve Nash, who by modern standards is pretty conservative. I thought this was unwarranted, but he was also accused of being someone who racked up a lot of cheap assists, and that his assists would be halved if it weren't for Malone.

Again, it's why I thought he was underrated during his time in the league. But the years following his career, all of a sudden he's being propped up as one of the greatest PGs of all time, arguably the best with only Magic being above him. I admit I didn't really start following basketball too closely until the 90's, and he had some of his best years in the 80's, but I don't recall anyone ever bringing up Stockton and Magic in the same sentence for all time greatest players, let alone Isiah Thomas. He was more in that Mark Price and Kevin Johnson mold.

I agree with some of if not a lot of what you are saying. He was never really considered to be on the tier of the very best players in the league. He only made first team all nba twice and that was when MJ retired the first time. Part of that is him playing in Utah but he was just very solid and consistent for many years. Almost like what Al Kaline was to baseball if people know who he was. I don't fully agree with him being in the Price/KJ mold though because I think they were more score first than Stockton was. Especially KJ.

[Dan Z]

People are going to rip apart this comparison, but at the time he was essentially seen as a super rich mans Jose Calderon who played defense. He's a better scorer than Calderon, but sometimes it was more out of necessity since the Jazz always lacked scorers outside of himself and Malone. If he could Stockton would have been a career 10ppg efficient scorer who only shot when open or saw an opportunity to. He was nowhere near as aggressive looking for his shot as say Steve Nash, who by modern standards is pretty conservative. I thought this was unwarranted, but he was also accused of being someone who racked up a lot of cheap assists, and that his assists would be halved if it weren't for Malone.

Again, it's why I thought he was underrated during his time in the league. But the years following his career, all of a sudden he's being propped up as one of the greatest PGs of all time, arguably the best with only Magic being above him. I admit I didn't really start following basketball too closely until the 90's, and he had some of his best years in the 80's, but I don't recall anyone ever bringing up Stockton and Magic in the same sentence for all time greatest players, let alone Isiah Thomas. He was more in that Mark Price and Kevin Johnson mold.

People knew how good he was. He was selected to be on the Dream Team for a reason. Mark Price and Kevin Johnson weren't even considered for it.

[Nate505]

Only two things I'd add to what's already been said:

-- How inflated were his stats from friendly score-keeping?

Not that much. His home/away splits aren't that spectacularly different, especially when one keeps in mind that the Jazz during his era were a dominant home team and an average road team.

[Kabookalu]

People are going to rip apart this comparison, but at the time he was essentially seen as a super rich mans Jose Calderon who played defense. He's a better scorer than Calderon, but sometimes it was more out of necessity since the Jazz always lacked scorers outside of himself and Malone. If he could Stockton would have been a career 10ppg efficient scorer who only shot when open or saw an opportunity to. He was nowhere near as aggressive looking for his shot as say Steve Nash, who by modern standards is pretty conservative. I thought this was unwarranted, but he was also accused of being someone who racked up a lot of cheap assists, and that his assists would be halved if it weren't for Malone.

Again, it's why I thought he was underrated during his time in the league. But the years following his career, all of a sudden he's being propped up as one of the greatest PGs of all time, arguably the best with only Magic being above him. I admit I didn't really start following basketball too closely until the 90's, and he had some of his best years in the 80's, but I don't recall anyone ever bringing up Stockton and Magic in the same sentence for all time greatest players, let alone Isiah Thomas. He was more in that Mark Price and Kevin Johnson mold.

I agree with some of if not a lot of what you are saying. He was never really considered to be on the tier of the very best players in the league. He only made first team all nba twice and that was when MJ retired the first time. Part of that is him playing in Utah but he was just very solid and consistent for many years. Almost like what Al Kaline was to baseball if people know who he was. I don't fully agree with him being in the Price/KJ mold though because I think they were more score first than Stockton was. Especially KJ.

I'm more talking about perception than actual impact, tiers so to say, like how in today's league you could say "in that Lillard/Lowry/Wall/Kyrie mold", though some of those players are convincingly above the others and not exactly equal to each other. However there's also a clear gap between them and Curry, just like there was with Stockton and Magic.

[ProcessMeUpFam]

He is the GOAT PG, there are no players like him anymore.

and he's officially overrated.

[Cavsfansince84]

I'm more talking about perception than actual impact, tiers so to say, like how in today's league you could say "in that Lillard/Lowry/Wall/Kyrie mold", though some of those players are convincingly above the others and not exactly equal to each other. However there's also a clear gap between them and Curry, just like there was with Stockton and Magic.

Well I agree on the tier basis. Mold generally speaks more to how someone plays though. Stockton has become something of a pet stat darling on here though. He's one of those players whose impact is hard to gauge though because people have a tendency to always say he didn't score more because he wasn't asked to though I would say that most years the Jazz didn't have a lot of great scorers and Stockton could have scored more. His career high in fga was only 11.9.

[Kabookalu]

People are going to rip apart this comparison, but at the time he was essentially seen as a super rich mans Jose Calderon who played defense. He's a better scorer than Calderon, but sometimes it was more out of necessity since the Jazz always lacked scorers outside of himself and Malone. If he could Stockton would have been a career 10ppg efficient scorer who only shot when open or saw an opportunity to. He was nowhere near as aggressive looking for his shot as say Steve Nash, who by modern standards is pretty conservative. I thought this was unwarranted, but he was also accused of being someone who racked up a lot of cheap assists, and that his assists would be halved if it weren't for Malone.

Again, it's why I thought he was underrated during his time in the league. But the years following his career, all of a sudden he's being propped up as one of the greatest PGs of all time, arguably the best with only Magic being above him. I admit I didn't really start following basketball too closely until the 90's, and he had some of his best years in the 80's, but I don't recall anyone ever bringing up Stockton and Magic in the same sentence for all time greatest players, let alone Isiah Thomas. He was more in that Mark Price and Kevin Johnson mold.

People knew how good he was. He was selected to be on the Dream Team for a reason. Mark Price and Kevin Johnson weren't even considered for it.

I don't think that's a good indicator of things, since Laettner was a part of those teams and was picked over O'Neal. Isiah himself wasn't on that team, but there might have been some politicking going on there. And Bird by all means probably shouldn't have been selected, but was anyways.

Regardless as I said in my last post, I'm not saying they were equal to each other, but how people viewed them in tiers. Magic was on a level to himself, with Isiah Thomas being in the next tier to himself, and then everyone else followed.

[Kabookalu]

Well I agree on the tier basis. Mold generally speaks more to how someone plays though.

Yeah my mistake then, should have used better terms. I've seen it used in that way in other sports, but I may have missed out on the usage of its context.

[babyjax13]

I think people assume he wouldn't survive in today's game going up against bigger, more athletic guards like Westbrook. But I think he'd be okay.

There were big guards in the 80s and 90s, too.

Big and athletic? Like who? Magic and Stockton only had 4 good years or so against each other.

Throwing down tomahawk dunks like Wall and Westbrook?

I'm not saying they are right, but I can see why it's hard for people to imagine a guy that looks like John Stockton being a top PG in today's league.

He was 6'1", 175 lbs. That's tiny. Even Curry is bigger than that. Lillard is significantly bigger than that too.

Penny Hardaway (6-7), Gary Payton (6-4), Derek Harper (6-4), Sam Cassell (6-3), Robert Pack (6-2, ridiculous athlete), Stephon Marbury (6-2, incredible athlete), Allen Iverson, Magic Johnson (6-9), Jason Kidd (6-4), Isiah Thomas, Kevin Johnson, Tim Hardaway, etc. etc.

Lots of big guys, lots of athletic guys. Stockton would be fine in the NBA now. Yes, point guard is probably as strong as it's ever been, but Stockton's career overlapped with a huge amount of all-time greats.

[birdlives_ma]

Best pick and roll technician ever. I don’t think anyone will ever even come close to his assist record. The 2 best guys of the last era, Nash and Kidd, didn’t even sniff the record, but people talk about them before Stockton as best pure passer. It’s a shame he doesn’t get his due


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