RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #18 (Dirk Nowitzki)

[iggymcfrack]

So basically you're telling me we could replace you with a computer formula and it would make no difference. You like watching games, but it's basically not relevant to your rankings so you could just as easily not watch them and your rankings would be the same.

Here’s a question for you, One and Done: what percentage of your analysis would you say is from the eye test compared to numbers. For me, I’d say it’s probably about 97% numbers and 3% eye test. Like yes, there are some gaps we can fill in that numbers don’t cover such as “how many high value assists does a guy throw in years before we can compare teammate FG% with them on and off the court” or “does Jokic really do enough little things to help the defense significantly more than he hurts”, but if you’re looking at say how good of a shooter or scorer someone is, using your eye test on that is completely pointless since the numbers cover it so well already. Furthermore, the guys where eye test will help us most are the ones who most of us have only seen a little bit of since they played before we were born. What percentage of your player evaluation would you say is due to watching games vs. looking at numbers?

[OhayoKD]

Reggie for his time strikes me as more impressive than Stockton when stacking up primes (same story when it comes to modern translation - though I’m not putting any stock into that). As a very scalable / team-friendly offensive lead guy, his playoff scoring & ramp up in such is impressive. I don’t think he’s anything that insane on defense, but not a bad one by any means either. I would prefer him as a 1st option (and really anything after that) compared to Stockton.

I don’t really care to theorize that Reggie wouldn’t be as outlierish today when assessing his career though. If he played today, perhaps a coach would be more strict on having his feet behind the arc . Anyhow, like everybody else - it makes sense to assess Reggie for the 90s era he actually accrued value in.

I don't really agree that Reggie would be worse in the current league where the things he was best at - shooting and off-ball movement - are valued more than they ever have been.

That only really matters if "optimized" reggie's raw production increase outpaces the increase in shooting we've seen from the field. This is also pretty reductive. Sure shooting has gone up. So has passing, and ball-handling. To the extent you are not a #1 on a solid offense if you aren't good at both or carrying a large size/height advantage. Reggie in his time was the #1 on historically great offenses. And then there's the matter of a vastly larger talent pool...

A scoring guard without great handling or passing might be the worst thing you can be for era-translation purposes. You bring up Durant, but Durant was probably a less valuable player today than reggie was in his time. And he's taller and bigger with better passing and ball-handling to go with it. If the comparison is Ray Allen you've pretty much conceded he's not going to be what he was.

And we can highlight his off-ball movement and "gravity" but that is not leading to significant creation without the on-ball package. Steph has that. Reggie does not. No one besides Steph is creating much off-ball and even then, he still creates alot more on.

Reggie was a career 39.5% and 39% 3P shooter in the RS and PO, respectively, having topped 40% 10 times in the RS and 9 times in the PO.

And now he's going to have to need to have that volume skyrocket(at least double, maybe triple) with more defensive attention and significantly more on-ball responsibility while also being hunted on the other end to a significantly greater degree. He's also going to be playing smarter defenders and attackers who are also being optimized with all the stuff Indiana ran for him not being ahead of the curve,

He is also going to need to cover more ground on both ends playing at a higher pace, find a way to average 30-32 with defenses not having to choose between hard doubles and leaving him on his own, and on top of all that, that trick he used to pull where he'd turn things up in the playoffs isn't so cool anymore. Now everyone coasts so whatever advantage he had holding back for the postseason is pretty much gone.

So yeah, he's worse. I don't know why we're trying to jump 400 hoops to say otherwise. Steve Kerr is not building a system around things he cannot do. "Shoot, cut, and drive" does not make you an offensive centerpiece these days.

He'll do better than Stockton FWIW.

[One_and_Done]

For all the talk of KD just being about stats and not winning, if you go through his career every year until 21 I think you can make a compelling case hus teams met or exceeded expectations given the circumstances.

[OhayoKD]

For all the talk of KD just being about stats and not winning, if you go through his career every year until 21 I think you can make a compelling case hus teams met or exceeded expectations given the circumstances.

2013. 2018, and 2019, 2022, and 2023 were all underperformances I think.

[70sFan]

For all the talk of KD just being about stats and not winning, if you go through his career every year until 21 I think you can make a compelling case hus teams met or exceeded expectations given the circumstances.

I won't comment 2008 and 2009 teams.

2011 isn't a massive black mark on Durant's resume, because he was still young but the team definitely underperformed against the Mavs in WCF.

I think 2013 is a tough call because of Westbrook injury, but the Thunder were dominated by solid, but unspectacular Grizzlies team that got destroyed by the Spurs in the next round.

2015 is a clear underperformance due to Durant's injury.
2016 isn't an underpeformance overall, but I guess you can make a case that the Thunder should have closed out the series leading it 3-1. In these last three games, Durant averaged 32 ppg on only 51.7 TS%.
2019 is another underperformance due to Durant's injury.
2020 is obvious.

Of course, both 2022 and 2023 are underperformances, but you didn't include it for some reasons.

I don't know, I guess it depends on how you look at Durant. If you legitimately think he's top 10-15 candidate, then most of these years should be called underperformances. If you view him closer to the high 20s, then I guess only a few of them don't look good.

[One_and_Done]

For all the talk of KD just being about stats and not winning, if you go through his career every year until 21 I think you can make a compelling case hus teams met or exceeded expectations given the circumstances.

2013. 2018, and 2019, 2022, and 2023 were all underperformances I think.

2013 Westbrook got hurt. 2018 they won the title. Not really being serious enough to bother responding to the rest.

It's not an underperformance if you get injured, you didn't have a chance to perform one way or another. I also wonder if people get how old KD was the last few years, and that his team context was turbulent.

[Colbinii]

It's not an underperformance if you get injured, you didn't have a chance to perform one way or another. I also wonder if people get how old KD was the last few years, and that his team context was turbulent.

But he signed up for and choose those teams.

[Colbinii]

You can't waive off 2022 and 2023 to KD being old but also count those seasons as MVP/High All-NBA.

Which one is it? That he was MVP/High All-NBA caliber and underperformed or that he was old and these weren't prime seasons?

You kookin like Gabby Douglas out here on Balance Beam.

[AEnigma]

2013 Thunder/Grizzlies, Game 4. Thunder trail 2-1 but are up 9 with 4:40 left in the third quarter. They end up losing this game in overtime, and then losing the next game by four points to end the series. Over the next 69:40 minutes of game-time, Durant went 7/35 (0/5 from 3) and 12/17 from the line, good for a blistering 30.6% efficiency. No, they were not beating the Spurs without Westbrook (guess his chucking had value after all!). However, they could have beat the Grizzlies if Durant played better — and if you take them at face value as a 9-SRS team, then even without their second-best player, they probably should have (but I suppose it would not be the first time you tried to portray the absence of a secondary all-star guard as massively swinging a team’s possible point differential).

2011, I also would not really expect a title run or Finals appearance. Nevertheless, tied 1-1, Durant’s scoring again slid, averaging 50.1% efficiency over the final three games as the Thunder lost by 6, lost in overtime, and lost by 4. In those latter two games, the Thunder had fourth quarter leads they let slip away. Finals trip on the line against a Heat team basically structured as the equivalent to the 2023 playoff Suns, and that is how he responded.

You dismiss the failures of the past two postseasons, yet if anything Durant’s raw scoring efficiency is more robust than it was on the Thunder, and he has more spacing, and you incessantly talk about how you expect a title from him this coming year. And while I tend to lean toward the idea that winning a title should matter more than whether the title was won in ugly fashion, it is interesting how you dismiss criticisms of 2018 when you railed against Kobe for series going long in 2009 and 2010.

I am not invested in whether you think Durant was “better” than these players in any absolute sense. It is a defensible enough position that Dirk would have looked comparatively worse today and Durant would have looked comparatively better in the 2000s. He is certainly aging better as a scorer than Dirk did even with help from rule changes. It is irrelevant to the majority of voters for the purposes of this project, and minimally relevant to most of us, but if that is your own standard, cool.

However, when you transparently skew your commentary like this, for as much as I agree that a lot of people on this forum seem to have lost some ability to watch the sport without a basketball-reference or RAPTOR page on standby, or without selectively treating on/off as an informal player ranking, you do kind-of feed into the other side’s stance that there is an “objectivity” to those numbers (lol) not present in someone watching Durant, describing his theoretical skillset, and ignoring how often that skillset fails to convey into what it might suggest should happen against players like Tony Allen.

[penbeast0]

If Stockton gets into TOP25, then Malone/Stockton as duo is the only one duo who won anything. And they played together whole career

Lebron/Wade 4 season 2 Chips
KAJ/Oscar 4 season 1 Chip
KAJ/Magic 9 season 5 Chips
Duncan/Robinson 6 seasons 2 Chips
O'Neal/Kobe 8 season 3 Chips
O'Neal/Wade 3 season 1 Chips
Wilt/West 5 season 1 Chip
Moses/Erving 4 season 1 Chip
Curry/Durant 3 season 2 Chips

Malone/Stockton 18 season 0 Chips w/o injuries

I'm not ready to nominate Stockton yet either but on the flip side, the guys he and Karl Malone played with outside of Hornacek and maybe Eaton were pretty weak sauce. (I'm not nearly as high on Eaton as some, to me he's more conventional version of Manute Bol, shotblocking and little else.)

Over those 14 seasons as a starter, Stockton had the following starters with him:

88 Eaton (career 6 points in 28.8 minute with negative assist/to), Iavaroni (career 4.4 pts in 14.8 minutes with negative assist/to, though Thurl Bailey played more minutes -- career 12.8 on .473 mainly as a post player with negative assist/to), and Bobby Hansen (career 6.9 in 19.3 min with 1.6ast/1.0to)

89 Eaton, Bailey/Iavaroni, Darrell Griffith (16.2pts/28.0 min on .509ts% with a negative ast/to ration)

90 Eaton, Bailey/Blue Edwards (10.8 pts/26.1min on .537ts% with 2.0ast/1.7to, Hansen.

91 Eaton, Bailey/Edwards, Jeff Malone (19.0pts/38.0min on .533ts% with 0.4 career 3's/game and 2.4ast/1.7to).

92 Eaton, Edwards/Ty Corbin (9.2pts/26.0min on .511ts% and 1.8ast/1.2to), Jeff Malone

IF you are sensing a theme of a non-scoring center, two wings who play defense but can't create for themselves and 1 scorer who doesn't pass or score with high efficiency, you are right. But, the combination of a great PF roll man and a great PnR point guard still consistently led them to above average league offenses.

93 Eaton/Mike Brown/Larry Krystowiak, Corbin/David Benoit (7.0pts/18.9min on .513ts% and negative ast/to), Jeff Malone/Jay Humphries (11.1 in 29.3min on .533ts% with 5.5 ast/1.9to) -- Utah tries to play another PG 20 minutes a game many next to Stockton.

94 Felton Spencer (5.2pts/19.2min with negative ast/to), Corbin/Tom Chambers/Benoit/Byron Russell (7.9pts/23.5min on .545 on 1.3ast/1.0to but only played 16.7 minutes as the rookie starter), Jeff Malone/Jay Humphries.

95 Spencer, Benoit, Jeff Hornacek (14.5pts/31.5min on .582ts%, 4.9ast/1.8 to). Utah FINALLY gets another decent offensive player in 31 year old Jeff Hornacek (he came in at the very end of the 94 season) and finished 4th, 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 3rd, and 6th in team Ortg for the rest of Hornacek's career despite continuing with the non-scoring C and SF combinations.

96 Olden Polynice (7.8pts/23.5min, negative ast/to)/Adam Keep (5.0pts/16.7min, negative ast/to), Byron Russell/Chris Morris (11.0min/25.1min on .513ts% with 1.6ast/1.6to), Hornacek

97 Greg Ostertag (4.6pts/19.6min, negative ast/to), Russell, Hornacek

98 Keefe, Russell, Hornacek

99 Ostertag, Russell, Hornacek

00 Polynice, Russell, Hornacek/Eisley (6.5pts/20.4min on .505ts%, 3.5ast/1.5to) in Hornacek's last season in the NBA

01 Polynice, Russell/Donyell Marshall (11.2pts/26.2min on .516ts%), 35 year old John Starks (12.5pts/27.2min on .513, 3.6ast/1.8to).

02 Jarron Collins (3.9pts/15.8min, 0.8ast/0.6to), Marshall/rookie Andrei Kirilenko (11.8pts/30.0min on .571ts% with 2.7ast/1.9to career), Russell

03 (Stockton is 40 years old!) Ostertag, Matt Harpring (11.5pts/26.4min on .545ts% with negative ast/to),Kirilenko, Calbert Chaeney (9.5pts/26.7min on .502ts% with 1.7ast/1.2to)

In his whole career, Stockton never anything approaching an average NBA offensive center, had very few years where there was even a mediocre NBA offensive 3 (Byron Russell was the best), and his only strong guard partner was an end of career Jeff Hornacek and in the Hornacek years, he had a top 3 offense every year but Hornacek's final one. He did have Karl Malone who was always an excellent scorer and improved his overall game throughout his career but those around them were as weak and usually considerably weak than any other great PG ever. He and Malone made those teams competent offensively and when they got a 3rd option, elite.

I am roughly as impressed with his ability to create an offense with the lesser talent around him than Nash's results with the generally offense minded Phoenix teams or Magic's consistently loaded Laker teams (though Magic adds scoring and rebounding that Stockton can't match).

[Joao Saraiva]

Stockton was an all-star/all-nba type guard, not a star. The stars are who we ahould be discussing now. If PJ Tucker had really high impact stats should I rank him top 100? The answer is pretty obvious. You can't build a contending team around Stockton as the best player.

If he had the record of assists in NBA history, steals in NBA history, high impact stats, a great win%, great longevity, fantastic shooting and all time series where he outplayed Magic for example... well then you might want to consider him in the top 30, let alone top 100.

Let's not pretend Stockton isn't an unique type of player. He's a 9 time assist champion. He lead the playoffs in APG 10 times. He was a 60ts% type of guy before guys jacked up a ton of 3s, so he was definitely efficient. He definitely belongs in the conversation.

If you can build a contender arround Nash you can definitely build a contender arround Stockton.

And you can argue Stockton was our best player from 88 to 92.

Alot of what you're citing is accolades, not ability. I don't care who the all-time assists leader is, or how many apg he had. Obviously if a guy can average 15.4 ppg and 13.4 apg in a season he's an incredible player, except that player was Kevin Porter and he was far from incredible.

Stockton was not considered to be a superstar by his contemporaries, as the award voting makes clear. Nor would he be today. His lack of ability to get to the basket and score, his lack of athletic gifts, renders him an all-nba type guard at best. I don't care what his advanced stats were, but if I did I would note that one reason his advanced stats might be good is due to him being ahead of his time in his play style. Today everyone uses pick and roll and shoots a tonne of 3s, so some of the things Stockton did are less special. Same issues I raised with Reggie Miller.

It would be historically anomalous for 2 top 20 all-time type players to be on the same team for so long, with good team mates and coaching, and have so little to show for it. They have so many bad postseason exits. If Shaq and Kobe has performances like these 2 we'd roast them.

People already replied your comparison lacks context.

Well, you can say you don't care about accodales. I care.

You can say you don't care about longevity. I care.

You have to accept not everyone ranks players the way you do. Obviously if you feel peak and prime are the only important things go ahead and vote based on that. It's your criteria and it's fine. It's not mine. As simple as that.

Stockton didn't shoot more 3s because basketball was not played that way in his era. He played the way he was asked as a playmaker at the PG spot. I don't like to translate into today's era or previous era, I can only judge him for the way he played in his own time.

And yes for me it is special for a player to remain very good for 15 years in the league.

[AEnigma]

I think there are strong indicators that those “offence-minded” Suns relied more on Nash offensively than the Jazz seemed to on Stockton — especially when keeping in mind that something like 87% of Stockton’s minutes were shared with Karl Malone, and that the Suns had better replacements for Nash than the Jazz did for Stockton.

2001-03 Malone: 32.4 points per 100 possessions on 54.2% efficiency with Stockton (6745 minutes) —> 30.2 (-2.2) points per 100 possessions on 52.2% (-2.0) efficiency without Stockton (2673 minutes)
2001-02 Bryon: 18.6 points per 100 possessions on 54.5% efficiency with Stockton (3220 minutes) —> 18.4 (-0.2) points per 100 possessions on 48.9% (-5.6) efficiency without Stockton (1588 minutes)
2001-02 Donyell: 25.4 points per 100 possessions on 58.3% efficiency with Stockton (3115 minutes) —> 24.1 (-1.3) points per 100 possessions on 50.5% (-7.8) efficiency without Stockton (1247 minutes)
2001-04 Ostertag: 13 points per 100 possessions on 52.1% efficiency with Stockton (2669 minutes) —> 12.5 (-0.5) points per 100 possessions on 48.7% (-3.4) efficiency without Stockton (2158 minutes)
2002-04 Kirilenko: 20.1 points per 100 possessions on 56.2% efficiency with Stockton (2415 minutes) —> 24.3 (+4.2) points* per 100 possessions on 56.4% (+0.2) efficiency without Stockton (2219 minutes)
2001-02 Starks: 16.4 points per 100 possessions on 46% efficiency with Stockton (1854 minutes) —> 18.5 (+2.1) points per 100 possessions on 46.2% (+0.2) efficiency without Stockton (1238 minutes)
2003-04 Harpring: 27.6 points per 100 possessions on 56.7% efficiency with Stockton (1846 minutes) —> 29.6 (+2) points per 100 possessions on 60% (+3.3) efficiency without Stockton (866 minutes)
2003 Cheaney: 15.9 points per 100 possessions on 52.2% efficiency with Stockton (1716 minutes) —> 16 (+0.1) points per 100 possessions on 47.8% (-4.4) efficiency without Stockton (759 minutes)
2002-04 Jarron: 16.3 points per 100 possessions on 50.9% efficiency with Stockton (1329 minutes) —> 17.1 (+0.8) points per 100 possessions on 56.7% (+5.8) efficiency without Stockton (584 minutes)
2001-03 Padgett: 19.8 points per 100 possessions on 53.4% efficiency with Stockton (1234 minutes) —> 19.6 (-0.2) points per 100 possessions on 52.2% (-1.2) efficiency without Stockton (1605 minutes)
2001 Polynice: 15.7 points per 100 possessions on 50% efficiency with Stockton (1216 minutes) —> 12 (-3.7) points per 100 possessions on 44.2% (-5.8) efficiency without Stockton (505 minutes)
2001-04 DeShawn: 14.4 points per 100 possessions on 41.7% efficiency with Stockton (953 minutes) —> 18.6 (+4.4) points* per 100 possessions on 42.7% (+1) efficiency without Stockton (1279 minutes)
2001 Manning: 24.9 points per 100 possessions on 56.8% efficiency with Stockton (669 minutes) —> 25.2 (+0.3) points per 100 possessions on 51.9% (-4.9) efficiency without Stockton (726 minutes)

*[will note the volume increase here is entirely expected given the accompanying absence of Malone]

And then in 1998 we can look at how the core quartet generally performs in games without Stockton, and personally, I do not see all-time shifts there either outside of Bryon Russell.

1998 Malone: 27.7 points per game on 60.1% efficiency in games with Stockton —> 24.9 (-2.8) points per game on 58.2% (-1.9) efficiency in games without Stockton
1998 Hornacek: 13.8 points per game on 58.9% efficiency in games with Stockton —> 15.8 (+2) points per game on 58.2% (-0.7) efficiency in games without Stockton
1998 Keefe: 8 points per game on 60.3% efficiency in games with Stockton —> 6.9 (-1.1) points per game on 61.7% (+1.4) efficiency in games without Stockton
1998 Bryon: 9.4 points per game on 59.2% efficiency in games with Stockton —> 7.7 (-1.7) points per game on 49% (-10.2) efficiency in games without Stockton

Yeah, the Bryon number is a nice roleplayer jump, but I am substantially more impressed by how Nash impacted volume scorers like Jason Richardson and Joe Johnson. This is not even a case of damning Stockton because Kirilenko and Hornacek could succeed on their own, because Grant Hill and Shaq did not thrive with Nash either. However, all-time great playmaking to me involves a lot more than whether some low value and low volume non-scorer can be made to more easily produce an extra point or two, and there we get back to Doc’s comments about not assessing Stockton off some assumed hypothetical that maybe he could have similarly aided volume scorers if he shot like Nash and scored like Nash and attacked like Nash and ran like Nash and pressured defences like Nash and passed like Nash and handled the ball like Nash and…

[rk2023]

For all the talk of KD just being about stats and not winning, if you go through his career every year until 21 I think you can make a compelling case hus teams met or exceeded expectations given the circumstances.

I've seen you consistently scapegoat Westbrook in this context. In the 14 and 16 PS, could you give me a run-down of the per 100 stats you like to use so much for each of them?

[OhayoKD]

For all the talk of KD just being about stats and not winning, if you go through his career every year until 21 I think you can make a compelling case hus teams met or exceeded expectations given the circumstances.

2013. 2018, and 2019, 2022, and 2023 were all underperformances I think.

2013 Westbrook got hurt.

"Westbrook got hurt" explains not winning a title as a +9 srs team ought to do. It does not fully explain losing to non-contender in a not very close series. That's where we look at Durant's scoring falling off a cliff.

2018 they won the title.

They won the title in spite of losing to a less talented team(and excepting a game of garbage time, being in a dead heat by mov) in the majority of games where said team had both of their superstars(to the Warrior's 3). If that injury does not matter because they won, then why we shouldn't care when injuries stop Durant from winning

It's not an underperformance if you get injured, you didn't have a chance to perform one way or another.

Very "serious" response to me mentioning a bunch of years Durant was healthy and a year the Warriors clearly underperformed with him in the lineup

[penbeast0]

...there we get back to Doc’s comments about not assessing Stockton off some assumed hypothetical that maybe he could have similarly aided volume scorers if he shot like Nash and scored like Nash and attacked like Nash and ran like Nash and pressured defences like Nash and passed like Nash and handled the ball like Nash and…

OF course he did shoot like Nash (Nash .605t% v. Stockton 608ts% in an era with lower efficiency and less 3's) score like Nash (career 23.3 pts/100 possessions in an offense focused system v. 21.0 in a system not designed for him to call his own number as much), attacked like Nash (actually better in terms of points in the paint with both a higher volume of getting to the rim and better efficiency if I remember), passed like Nash (better actually with a career assist% of 50.2, the best all time I think, v. Nash's 41.5), handled like Nash (better in the half court system though Nash was more likely to make something out of nothing) and ...

Nash was flashier and played with better shooters and a more offensively creative coach; Stockton was more reliable, more likely to created assisted baskets. Nash had better team offense results but a large part of that is the better shooters and offensive coaching as I tried to show in my previous post. The only thing that really stands up for Nash is greater playoff resiliency as the Utah system was pretty rigid and predictable allowing defensive scheming more than the more improvisational Phoenix (and Dallas) system.

And then there's defensive impact . . .

[AEnigma]

...there we get back to Doc’s comments about not assessing Stockton off some assumed hypothetical that maybe he could have similarly aided volume scorers if he shot like Nash and scored like Nash and attacked like Nash and ran like Nash and pressured defences like Nash and passed like Nash and handled the ball like Nash and…

OF course he did shoot like Nash (Nash .605t% v. Stockton 608ts% in an era with lower efficiency and less 3's)

Nash was better pretty much from every spot on the floor — and to that matter, no, Stockton did not play in the lower efficiency era.

score like Nash (career 23.3 pts/100 possessions in an offense focused system v. 21.0 in a system not designed for him to call his own number as much)

I know it has become popular to attribute all of Stockton’s scoring reluctance to Sloan, but until I see evidence that Sloan was openly pushing Stockton to shoot less in the postseason, no, I will absolutely say he was a lesser scorer in general, especially in their respective primes and especially especially in the postseason.

attacked like Nash (actually better in terms of points in the paint with both a higher volume of getting to the rim and better efficiency if I remember),

I was making more of a general stylistic statement but sure.

passed like Nash (better actually with a career assist% of 50.2, the best all time I think, v. Nash's 41.5),

Is that how you assess passing acumen?

handled like Nash (better in the half court system though Nash was more likely to make something out of nothing) and ...

Stockton was not a better ballhandler than Nash.

Nash was flashier and played with better shooters and a more offensively creative coach;

That does not mean he was not also better a better passer, playmaker, and creator.

Stockton was more reliable

In the sense of durability, sure.

more likely to created assisted baskets

Mmm, more likely to be awarded assists off passes, and separately more attuned to passing than to overall playmaking… but in volume of overall creation — including self-creation — I do not see him with any real advantage over Nash even before we get into the quality of those creations.

Nash had better team offense results but a large part of that is the better shooters and offensive coaching as I tried to show in my previous post.

A large part, but the other part is Nash being a better player. Everyone understands that he would not have equivalent results on offensively worse rosters, but what matters is the expectation he would have better results than Stockton (or whomever).

The only thing that really stands up for Nash is greater playoff resiliency as the Utah system was pretty rigid and predictable allowing defensive scheming more than the more improvisational Phoenix (and Dallas) system.

That does not make for a real Stockton point. I was more impressed offensively by Deron Williams under the same coach, and to the extent that was because of a rejection of the coach, if Stockton had more the mind for it, he should have followed suit (again, assuming Sloan was the responsible party for Stockton’s playoff volume scaling back).

And then there's defensive impact . . .

And the advantage there is never nearly as significant as people make it out to be for these short point guards. He was not Chris Paul, and Chris Paul is not Jrue Holiday, and Jrue Holiday is not Eddie Jones, and Eddie Jones is not Scottie Pippen, and so on.

If I gave Deron Williams the defensive mentality and “skill” of Patrick Beverley, that does not suddenly transform him into a top five point guard all-time.

[Doctor MJ]

...there we get back to Doc’s comments about not assessing Stockton off some assumed hypothetical that maybe he could have similarly aided volume scorers if he shot like Nash and scored like Nash and attacked like Nash and ran like Nash and pressured defences like Nash and passed like Nash and handled the ball like Nash and…

OF course he did shoot like Nash (Nash .605t% v. Stockton 608ts% in an era with lower efficiency and less 3's) score like Nash (career 23.3 pts/100 possessions in an offense focused system v. 21.0 in a system not designed for him to call his own number as much), attacked like Nash (actually better in terms of points in the paint with both a higher volume of getting to the rim and better efficiency if I remember), passed like Nash (better actually with a career assist% of 50.2, the best all time I think, v. Nash's 41.5), handled like Nash (better in the half court system though Nash was more likely to make something out of nothing) and ...

Nash was flashier and played with better shooters and a more offensively creative coach; Stockton was more reliable, more likely to created assisted baskets. Nash had better team offense results but a large part of that is the better shooters and offensive coaching as I tried to show in my previous post. The only thing that really stands up for Nash is greater playoff resiliency as the Utah system was pretty rigid and predictable allowing defensive scheming more than the more improvisational Phoenix (and Dallas) system.

And then there's defensive impact . . .

So first with regards to AEnigma's comment:

I want to be clear that I'm not saying as project runner that folks have to evaluate things like I am. There are fundamental constraints in place (career not peak, competitive achievement not influence, etc), but if someone wants to use a "time machine" approach, I'm the last person who has any right to say that that's wrong for this project because I've done this in the past. It's just that for me in this project, I'm focused on what was, not what might have been. I think it's a good approach, but it's not the only good approach.

To beast's:

I'd object to the assertion that Stockton shot like Nash simply because they were both efficient. I think we have plenty of indicators that Nash was a considerably better shooter (FT%, 3P%, consistent elite FG% across all distances, much lower % of FG Assisted, higher peak TS Add). Doesn't necessarily mean that Nash's shooting was more valuable in practice than Stockton's, but in terms of proof of shooting, I think it works.

I'd also object to attacking like Nash, I just see too many instances where he's not making the attacks that Nash would make.

And also I'd object to use of assist% as a statement like-passing. I think Stockton played in a scheme that generated lots of assists even before he was the starter.

But as I say all of this, while I think Nash in prime was a more valuable player than Stockton, I can see the argument for Stockton here and don't think those who believe this are remotely crazy.

[OhayoKD]

...there we get back to Doc’s comments about not assessing Stockton off some assumed hypothetical that maybe he could have similarly aided volume scorers if he shot like Nash and scored like Nash and attacked like Nash and ran like Nash and pressured defences like Nash and passed like Nash and handled the ball like Nash and…

OF course he did shoot like Nash (Nash .605t% v. Stockton 608ts% in an era with lower efficiency and less 3's) score like Nash (career 23.3 pts/100 possessions in an offense focused system v. 21.0 in a system not designed for him to call his own number as much), attacked like Nash (actually better in terms of points in the paint with both a higher volume of getting to the rim and better efficiency if I remember), passed like Nash (better actually with a career assist% of 50.2, the best all time I think, v. Nash's 41.5), handled like Nash (better in the half court system though Nash was more likely to make something out of nothing) and ...

Nash was flashier and played with better shooters and a more offensively creative coach; Stockton was more reliable, more likely to created assisted baskets. Nash had better team offense results but a large part of that is the better shooters and offensive coaching as I tried to show in my previous post. The only thing that really stands up for Nash is greater playoff resiliency as the Utah system was pretty rigid and predictable allowing defensive scheming more than the more improvisational Phoenix (and Dallas) system.

And then there's defensive impact . . .

This all seems to work on the premise that "creating assisted baskets" is the end goal...rather than

-> making looks significantly easier than they otherwise would be
and thereby
-> helping generate better offense

An assisted basket generated when you do not make your teammate's significantly easier is not really significant, even if it gets you an assist. What exactly is Stockton being relied on here for?

You bring up his higher ast%, but it was only higher in years jazz's offenses were mediocre. When the Jazz broke through the west in 97 and 98, Stockton's ast%:tov% was right there with what nash was posting on his contenders before his marks taper off in the playoffs.

And if we use advanced creation metrics...


...Nash has a pretty clear advantage in terms of both volume and efficiency

And that does not account for stockton's "assisted layups" often being simpler reads where Malone does most of the work. It also does not account for nash doing alot more to breakdown a defense pre-pass with those 'flashy" advantages of him that mysteriously translated to the greatest regular season and postseason offenses including Pheonix teams that weren't good without him(offensively and overall).

You bring up shooters but those team offense metrics nash kills are league-relative and the noteworthy teams of stockton's career were near the top of the league in terms of 3-point effeciency and attempts. Stockton also had the benefit of playing with a guy whose scoring game did not cancel assists, even when they were replacement level reads and that static non reselient system is what is allowing him to reliably generate assisted baskets with simple, often replacement-level reads, to typically wide-open targets.

Stockton was probably a better defender, but even all-time defensive guards are not leaving big imfluence on team defense over the course of a season and overall, while Nash's teams had the misfortune of running into eventual champions again before the finals(and often with unfortunate injury context playing a role), besides 1998, none of Utah's teams were the toughest out.

The end result is that they both were on similar teams with one as the clear lead seeing unprecedented turn-arounds on goat-level offenses while the other was probably a second banana on not goat-level offenses that got better as he scaled down rather than up.

Good for stockton he posts good apm marks with his minutes tied closely to Stockton. I'm more impressed with Nash's better real-world portfolio, and his ability to mantain high impact on different teams while also generating great offensive results that mantained in the postseason.

[penbeast0]

I don't think it's accurate to say they got better as he scaled down. I think it's accurate to say the offenses got better and assist % went down a bit when there was a second playmaker on the floor in Hornacek as opposed to the inefficient and non-playmaking 2 guards before him (Hansen, Griffith, Jeff Malone, etc.).

That's why I made the first post here. I don't think people realize just how weak the offensive personnel around Stockton and Malone were outside of the Hornacek years (and those were end of prime years for Hornacek from age 31 to 36). When Stockton had any help outside of Karl Malone, his offenses were consistently top 3 in the league and that's with the likes of Greg Ostertag, Olden Polynice, and Byron Russell still playing the main minutes at C and SF. Nash's MVP years he had Shawn Marion, Joe Johnson, and Quentin Richardson in 2005 in addition to he and Amare, then in 2006 with Amare injured, he still had Raja Bell, James Jones, and Leandro Barbosa for spacing and efficient off ball scoring, Boris Diaw who averaged 6 assists a game as a big man playmaker, and Kurt Thomas, who while not that impressive was better than the Utah centers offensively to complement Nash and Marion. While it's not Kareem, Worth, and Byron Scott and you can challenge how valuable the likes of Marion is compared to Karl Malone, it's certainly better than anything Stockton ever played with even when he ran the top rated offense in the league.

[HeartBreakKid]

The Nets certainly did not exceed expectations the last few years. They're going to be the biggest flop of the decade most likely.