Muggsy Bogues or B.J. Armstrong?

[SelakStreet]

Better peak? Better prime? Better career?

[penbeast0]

You know I'm picking Muggsy over anyone not named Stockton, Paul, or Magic . . . ok, an exaggeration but BJ was far from a needle mover. He's a PG who maxed out at 4 assists a game. Better shooter than Muggsy (it's tough to shoot over a defender a foot taller than you, even if his name is Steve Nash) but not even vaguely in the ballpart in terms of playmaking. Muggsy had Chris Paul level ability to get the ball wherever it needed to be while avoiding turnovers. And, while BJ's height gives him an advantage in contesting shots, Muggsy's great motor and quickness made other PGs fear his attacking their dribble. Kenny Smith said Muggsy was the toughest defender he ever faced.

So, yeah, Muggsy should take this.

[prolific passer]

Muggsy was one of the most popular players of the 90s despite not being an all star.
Not so much for BJ despite having 3 rings and an all star appearance.

So I'll take Muggsy.

[ronnymac2]

Super interesting comparison. Maybe the most impressive aspect of Bogues in a vacuum was his durability and ability to play big minutes in the physical 90s despite his size. He has a 318-game stretch where he's playing 34.6 MPG. That' insane to me.

Great A:T ratio. It's kind of interesting because in my head I'm thinking a guy his size HAS to be a 90% FT shooter, but he's under 83% for his career. Like, you'd think a guy with that size disadvantage would need to be the most skilled player on the planet in every facet to compete. Just surprising to me.

Armstrong's TOV% and excellent shooting, particularly in the playoffs, is very valuable on good teams. The guy basically takes nothing off the table, and he proved to have solid offensive efficiency with or without MJ in the postseason. Bogues...it's rough with the small sample sizes unfortunately, but he didn't exactly elevate his game come playoff time.

We actually have a 4-game head-to-head in the playoffs in 1995, and by the box at least, it is not favorable to Bogues. Fair play to bring up the greatest perimeter defensive duo in history being on BJ's side.

I don't know...depends what you value. Ultimately, if I'm building a team to win in the playoffs, I probably go with BJ as one of my ancillary players over Bogues. I like the take-nothing-off-the-table guy, not just with a megastar like MJ, but even with more normal star players like an Embiid, Booker, Nique, McAdoo, etc. If we're taking the gate into account, it's Bogues all day.

[AEnigma]

I think BJ was pretty useful in his role, and I can much more easily envision him maintaining that role today than I can with Muggsy.

Muggsy was a significantly better lead playmaker, and in that sense he made for a significantly more notable point guard, but I completely agree with Ronnymac here; a league average lead playmaker plus BJ Armstrong probably would have produced a better Hornets team than Muggsy Bogues and a league average complementary guard.

[Owly]

So..... hoping not to look anything up here so some wrongness is very possible ...

I would really be happy starting either.

Armstrong: great shooter ... good guy I think I heard ... maybe not a natural point ... wanted to do more than the Paxson role (and wanted to be starter) but I don't recall otoh signs that he could create a bunch, not reputationally a great defender.

Bogues: good, pesky defender ... good fast break point. Hard to get him to turn the ball over. Quick. Limited sample to assess "shooting" (as in outside). FT percentage is getting towards very good otoh, for a guard it's good. Think shot location data for first handful of bpb years is a little janky, plus that's only a small sample for his career, plus '97 long twos is a shorter range. So otoh there was a great 15ft to 3pt percentage but the sample ... might not be reliable. There's suggestions he wasn't aggressive enough looking to take that shot (if he didn't have big airspace) and that probably hurt. And my sense is that he had an ego about being the starter. In an ideal world I think he's a great sparkplug, change of pace, look at the matchups option but not as good as the more planned for first option. I wonder if he benefited from home cooking on the scorekeeping for assists in Charlotte but would have to look closer. I think he's an extreme type of player and at the margins I think they benefit more from being unusual in the RS, whilst losing a bit when planned for ... I can't say if the evidence justifies that numerically in this case.

If one agrees that his hustle, speed on D is more of an add than size is a downside; if one thought he could and would shoot and one were convinced by the raw passing numbers perhaps one could see a really good point guard. I think I'm one for three though.