Stockton or Nash - who was better

[colts18]

Stockton's data may be inflated by playing all the starters together, Nash's by playing starters out of position to create offensive mismatches deliberately sacrificing defense for offense.

I am not sure that's really the case, in particular after what we learned in the last 20 years.
That team was not offensively slanted, just Stoudemire was a very bad defensive center. But a guy like him at the 5 and Marion at the 4, something at the time was considered crazy, is not something you can build a good defense on.

The Suns were extremely offensively slanted. No one else was playing their style at the time. If you look at the Frontcourts for the Western Conference playoff teams, you would see no one played small except the Suns.

1 Seed: Phoenix

PF: Marion
C: Stoudemire

2 Seed San Antonio:

PF: Duncan
C: Rasho

3 Seed Dallas

PF: Dirk
C: Dampier

4 Seed Seattle

PF: Jerome James
C: Reggie Evans

5 Seed Houston

PF: Juwan Howard
C: Yao

6 Seed Sacramento

PF: Chris Webber
C: Brad Miller

7 Seed Denver

PF: Kenyon Martin
C: Marcus Camby

8 Seed Memphis

PF: Pau Gasol
C: Lorenzen Wright

[penbeast0]

Stockton's data may be inflated by playing all the starters together, Nash's by playing starters out of position to create offensive mismatches deliberately sacrificing defense for offense.

I am not sure that's really the case, in particular after what we learned in the last 20 years.
That team was not offensively slanted, just Stoudemire was a very bad defensive center. But a guy like him at the 5 and Marion at the 4, something at the time was considered crazy, is not something you can build a good defense on.

Again, modern offenses are different. Karl Malone would be a 5 and Ostertag/Spencer/Keefe, etc. would be bench bigs or not in the NBA. But Marion coming into the league at 6'6/6'7 was considered a 3/2. It was a bit of a shock when they played him at the 4, today it's common.

[dygaction]

Stockton's data may be inflated by playing all the starters together, Nash's by playing starters out of position to create offensive mismatches deliberately sacrificing defense for offense.

I am not sure that's really the case, in particular after what we learned in the last 20 years.
That team was not offensively slanted, just Stoudemire was a very bad defensive center. But a guy like him at the 5 and Marion at the 4, something at the time was considered crazy, is not something you can build a good defense on.

Again, modern offenses are different. Karl Malone would be a 5 and Ostertag/Spencer/Keefe, etc. would be bench bigs or not in the NBA. But Marion coming into the league at 6'6/6'7 was considered a 3/2. It was a bit of a shock when they played him at the 4, today it's common.

Don't see why Malone needs to be a 5. He is 6'9 and play a 4 style. He is certainly strong enough and likely be asked to defend 5s, like Embiid or Jokic.