Where would Peak John Stockton rank today?

[TrueLAfan]

Tbh, I think he’d pretty much be where he was during his career. Stockton was so consistent that a “bad” season was something like 1991, and a “good” season was 1995. The differences are, frankly, small

Code: Select all

                G  MPG   PPG   APG  RPG    FG%   3P%   FT%   TS%  TO   STL 
Stockton 91    82  37.8  17.2  14.2  2.9  .507  .345  .836  .604  3.6  2.9
Stockton 95    82  35.0  14.7  12.3  3.1  .542  .449  .804  .651  3.3  2.4


If your TS% is over .600, you’re doing fine in my book (and most others, I suspect). But this also highlights the issue with Stockton as a top player. In 1991, when he was “bad,” he was All-NBA third team with an MVP award share of .016, good for 12th in the league. I think that MVP share may overstates things a bit—but I think a “bad” John Stockton was around a top 20 or so player in the league. 1995 Stockton was first team All-NBA and got an MVP award share of .045—8th in the league and a career high for Stockton. And I think that’s probably right, or close to it. Stockton as his peak was probably a top 10 player—the bottom of the top 10, but in that 8-10 area.

The good thing with Stock is that his 10 year peak had 3 or so good years, 3 or so “bad” years, and the remainder in between. But all of them are probably between 7 or 8 and 25. That type of long term consistency is remarkable. 10 years in a row as a top 20-25 player in the league—not many players can say that.

It does not, however, make him what he isn’t. As AEnigma pointed out, Stock simply is not a scorer. He’s a third option. Nothing will make him different—no rule change, no defensive shift. Nothing. John Stockton was pretty much the most efficient shooter on the Jazz every year for a decade and a half… and still never averaged 17 points per 36 minutes in a season. He wasn’t stupid; he knew he could shoot. But he wasn’t a scorer; wasn’t then, wouldn’t be now. I think it’s disingenuous to say a player is a great shooter and criticize him for not shooting more.

So the question ultimately becomes—do the other parts of Stockton’s game improve in the modern NBA? He has more passing lanes with more spread on the court. But he can’t body up and tug and pull and push on D the same way. I guess he might get more steals now, which is saying a lot. But I’m not sure he’d be better defensively; he was a tug the shorts, handcheck guy. That stuff’s not around as much. I think he’d play less because players play less now. It has nothing to do with what John Stockton would want to do, or that he averaged around 3000 minutes a season for four straight years. He’d play 75-80 games a year now—which is a lot now. He’d play 34-35 minutes a game, which is a lot now. And he’d be among the league leader in court time … just like he was. My conclusion is just that; he’d be like he was—in the lower reaches of the top 10 a time or two, 10-20 a few times, and a few times a little below that. It’s a terrific resume.

At his absolute peak—maybe scratching into the top 10. Depends on the health of others that year more than anything else.

[SNPA]

Probably inside top 10, but definitely not top 5.,

Year in and out…this is correct.

[colts18]

Chris Paul has always had a scoring mentality. Haliburton is the best approximation, but a lot of people would balk at labeling him a top twenty player yet, and he is a substantially more dynamic shooter than Stockton (albeit also substantially worse on defence even with a stylistic penalty for Stockton).

Maybe you profile him as a median point between Jrue and Haliburton… but again, neither of them get treated as top fifteen players, so where does that leave us.

Chris Paul was definitely a Top 10 player in Phoenix his first season and he is very comparable to Stockton.

Chris Paul's MVP finishes:
2020: 7th (with OKC)
2021: 5th
2022: 9th

That's 3 straight Top 10 finishes. Nothing fluky about his run in Phoenix.

Let's compare 2021 CP3 to Prime 1990 John Stockton.

Chris Paul: 31 MPG, 16.4 PPG, 8.9 AST-2.2 TOV, 4.5 Reb, 50/40/93, +2.7 TS%, 4.6 BPM
Stockton: 37 MPG, 17.2 PPG, 14.5 AST-3.5 TOV, 2.9 Reb, 51/42/82, +7.0 TS%, 8.9 BPM

That's CP3 who had a Top 5 Regular season. Stockton was a significantly more aggressive player by that point with a 5.5 FTA/game compared to CP3's 2.6 FTA/game despite all of CP3's foul baiting. CP3's Usage Rate was only slightly higher (22.6% vs. 20.6%). That's a CP3 who barely went to the basket, just shooting 5.8% of his shots at the rim which is in the range of players like Danny Green and Davis Bertans.

If that 35 year old CP3 is a top 10 player in today's game, then prime John Stockton can easily replicate that feat.

[AEnigma]

Chris Paul has always had a scoring mentality. Haliburton is the best approximation, but a lot of people would balk at labeling him a top twenty player yet, and he is a substantially more dynamic shooter than Stockton (albeit also substantially worse on defence even with a stylistic penalty for Stockton).

Maybe you profile him as a median point between Jrue and Haliburton… but again, neither of them get treated as top fifteen players, so where does that leave us.

Chris Paul was definitely a Top 10 player in Phoenix his first season and he is very comparable to Stockton.

Chris Paul's MVP finishes:
2020: 7th (with OKC)
2021: 5th
2022: 9th

That's 3 straight Top 10 finishes. Nothing fluky about his run in Phoenix.

Let's compare 2021 CP3 to Prime 1990 John Stockton.

Chris Paul: 31 MPG, 16.4 PPG, 8.9 AST-2.2 TOV, 4.5 Reb, 50/40/93, +2.7 TS%, 4.6 BPM
Stockton: 37 MPG, 17.2 PPG, 14.5 AST-3.5 TOV, 2.9 Reb, 51/42/82, +7.0 TS%, 8.9 BPM

That's CP3 who had a Top 5 Regular season. Stockton was a significantly more aggressive player by that point with a 5.5 FTA/game compared to CP3's 2.6 FTA/game despite all of CP3's foul baiting. CP3's Usage Rate was only slightly higher (22.6% vs. 20.6%). That's a CP3 who barely went to the basket, just shooting 5.8% of his shots at the rim which is in the range of players like Danny Green and Davis Bertans.

If that 35 year old CP3 is a top 10 player in today's game, then prime John Stockton can easily replicate that feat.

Maybe you should have bothered dealing with the last response to that “Chris Paul’s MVP finish = his player ranking” idea rather than wasting my time with a reply repeating that vapid argument.
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2273962#p104835250

That said, trying to use MVP placements and voting shares to boost John “110th in career MVP shares” Stockton is one of the funniest instances I have seen of someone not bothering to consider the implications of their own argument.

[penbeast0]

Maybe you should have bothered dealing with the last response to that “Chris Paul’s MVP finish = his player ranking” idea rather than wasting my time with a reply repeating that vapid argument.
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2273962#p104835250

That said, trying to use MVP placements and voting shares to boost John “110th in career MVP shares” Stockton is one of the funniest instances I have seen of someone not bothering to consider the implications of their own argument.

Warning for attacking another poster.

[colts18]

Chris Paul has always had a scoring mentality. Haliburton is the best approximation, but a lot of people would balk at labeling him a top twenty player yet, and he is a substantially more dynamic shooter than Stockton (albeit also substantially worse on defence even with a stylistic penalty for Stockton).

Maybe you profile him as a median point between Jrue and Haliburton… but again, neither of them get treated as top fifteen players, so where does that leave us.

Chris Paul was definitely a Top 10 player in Phoenix his first season and he is very comparable to Stockton.

Chris Paul's MVP finishes:
2020: 7th (with OKC)
2021: 5th
2022: 9th

That's 3 straight Top 10 finishes. Nothing fluky about his run in Phoenix.

Let's compare 2021 CP3 to Prime 1990 John Stockton.

Chris Paul: 31 MPG, 16.4 PPG, 8.9 AST-2.2 TOV, 4.5 Reb, 50/40/93, +2.7 TS%, 4.6 BPM
Stockton: 37 MPG, 17.2 PPG, 14.5 AST-3.5 TOV, 2.9 Reb, 51/42/82, +7.0 TS%, 8.9 BPM

That's CP3 who had a Top 5 Regular season. Stockton was a significantly more aggressive player by that point with a 5.5 FTA/game compared to CP3's 2.6 FTA/game despite all of CP3's foul baiting. CP3's Usage Rate was only slightly higher (22.6% vs. 20.6%). That's a CP3 who barely went to the basket, just shooting 5.8% of his shots at the rim which is in the range of players like Danny Green and Davis Bertans.

If that 35 year old CP3 is a top 10 player in today's game, then prime John Stockton can easily replicate that feat.

Maybe you should have bothered dealing with the last response to that “Chris Paul’s MVP finish = his player ranking” idea rather than wasting my time with a reply repeating that vapid argument.
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2273962#p104835250

That said, trying to use MVP placements and voting shares to boost John “110th in career MVP shares” Stockton is one of the funniest instances I have seen of someone not bothering to consider the implications of their own argument.

What 10 players do you have as better than CP3 in 2021? You can't name 10 players better than him that year.

[Heej]

First player in a thread like this I'm comfortable voting outside the top 15. Very limited handles, even compared to guards of the time, didn't really try to pry and ask questions of defenses even with an absence of hedges making that alot simpler. Not an impressive athelete, and frankly for all the hype around his assists-per-game, I find his passing throughly unimpressive. Would also say he is one of the best examples of "colinearity" and contrary to rep, stockton was more of a playoff dropper than Malone.

I think NBA-Storyteller sums up the issue with stockton getting hyped based on his apg pretty well:
https://youtu.be/LsmVMIKWOSM?t=21
the rest of the video is an entertaining meme, but the malone analysis is on-point.

I agree with this and am frankly amazed that this league is so deep that my first reaction upon reading this thread was "top 15". But that's the league we're in now.

Just gotta disagree about his passing not being impressive. I mean Sloan was a top G coach with his flex offense, but you simply cannot be the all time assist leader without being a baller passer. His thing tho was that his passes were just purely technically sound and not flashy at all. He's not a wizard like CP was who is seen as his most common comp. He may not even have been a super savant like Bird, Jokic, or Magic.

But what I see him as was a hyper-Westbrook as far as pure technical passing goes with great but not legendary vision. Not the athleticism obviously. But just the pure technical accuracy, ability to do it with either hand, from any angle, in any situation. But his one superpower that I think you should check out compared to Westbrook is that he had that LeBron quality where he threw absolute HEATERS.

Lonzo had that too. Something about their tendons are built different. That's actually what gives LeBron his superpowers as a passer more than anything to me is that his arm talent is actually GOAT level. He can just get passes into spots half a beat faster than anyone else in the league can when throwing the same pass. And it's what keeps him on Pace with Jokic as a passer to me. Stockton's got that, and it's thoroughly impressive to me imo. But as far as what most people look at when it comes to passing he's not a wizard, but definitely give him a second look. Like I said you can't be the all time leader without having some aspect of your passing being legend status. And for Stockton it was the velocity of his passes while still being catchable. But yea he wasn't necessary an "eyes in the back of his head" kinda guy

I actually remember reading a Reddit story where a guy played pickup randomly with Stockton and he said the way Stockton flicked routine passes to him it basically took all his strength to not fumble them when they hit his hands cuz they were that sharp. Pretty neat to me, and I never see anyone talk about that with him. Also he threw it exactly where they needed to go. Perfect accuracy man. It was really just fundamental and consistent with a little bit of spice, which kinda sums up Stockton as a player haha

[TT8198]

Alot of great guards in today's game. Damn near over saturated. No sure if he's a HoFer but he'd still be All Star. Right now I'd take Steph, Luka(he's a PG), Ja, SGA, and Damian Lillard over peak Stockton and maybe Kyrie in the right situation. So that's somewhere right outside my top 5 PGs. Stocktons greatest attribute to me is his durability which in that specific area he's better than all these guys

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