RealGM Top 100 List #26

[The Infamous1]

I'm surprised so many people have stockton over Pippen. To me he's the better franchise and complimentary piece. He was also considered better when they both were in their primes

[Ryoga Hibiki]

I'm surprised so many people have stockton over Pippen. To me he's the better franchise and complimentary piece. He was also considered better when they both were in their primes

well, Stockton is pound for pound a better player... too bad there are no weight classes in basketball!
seriously, I think it depends how people value longevity and how much credit you want to give Stockton as a scorer.
Just looking at season averages Stockton imo looks better than what he actually was, while Pippen worse because of his ts%.
Wat makes this rankings very complex is that, for instance, it's much easier to argue Stockton > Zeke or Frazier and then Zeke/Frazier > Pippen than Stockton > Pippen, leading sometime to paradoxes like this one, as we're all a bi biased and sometimes we change our ranking methods to push the player we like more...

[DQuinn1575]

Right now, my top 3 options are:

1. Stockton
2. Frazier
3. Pippen

Not sure who I'll vote for, to be honest, because I still don't know what to do with Gilmore...He seems to be a very strong candidate, as well, I just don't know nearly as much about him as I know about Stockton or Pippen.
Well, if Ewing is in since #22, Artis probably should already be in as well...In my mind, there's always that dilemma when I have two players strongly linked to each other, but when one of them gets selected a lot earlier than the other, I often start rethinking not only where those two should be ranked, but also (or rather mainly) those guys who get selected in between of the two (like Ewing and Gilmore - honestly, I have a feeling that we may all be underrating Artis).

I think this board overrates Gilmore greatly. He was limited offensively has he had poor hands - wasn't a good person to feed in post and couldn't run an offense around him.

Big strong (real strong) guy who jumped well too- good shot blocker and strong taking it to basket.

Dominated doughnut league aba / nothing in the middle other than artis.
Mcadoo cowens Lanier Walton reed jabbar wilt unseld-all the other good centers were in nba. Played for bulls who didn't do anything while he was here except good last quarter of 77 run to play well against trail blazers in mini series

Never really a top center in league.



Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[Quotatious]

I think this board overrates Gilmore greatly. He was limited offensively has he had poor hands - wasn't a good person to feed in post and couldn't run an offense around him.

Isn't it like you can criticize players like Ewing, Mourning or Howard for the same thing? All of them were mechanical, but very effective. Gilmore was still good enough as a scorer to average more than 20 PPG six times during his career (twice in the NBA) on great efficiency, +55% FG and 60% TS, and averaged almost 19 PPG on over 62% TS for his career, and didn't even decline that much in the playoffs. In the early 80s, as a 30+ year old player, he was putting up historically great scoring seasons, in terms of efficiency, 65% FG and 65-70% TS...And it's not like he was scoring in single digits - he was still averaging about 18 PPG at that point in his career. A lot like Wilt, when he accepted a more limited offensive role on the Lakers (actually Gilmore scored more on similar efficiency, than Lakers Wilt).

His numbers declined when he entered the NBA, but for example the same can be said about Dr. J. Gilmore was still an excellent defender and rebounder in the NBA, even if not as good as he was in the ABA.

Another thing - he had a very long career, in fact played like an All-Star (or superstar, in the ABA) for 15 seasons (played 48 in 1979-80 and 64 in 1983-84, but other than that, basically never missed any games, and averaged 37.4 minutes per game during between 1972 and 1986, averaging 20 points and 13 rebounds). That has to count for something.

He was a bad passer, and turned the ball over a ton. Also wasn't necessarily a good fit as your first option, but finished at rim extremely well.

I don't see how he's overrated, actually I'd argue the opposite.

[penbeast0]

If you look deeper, I think you will find (it surprised me), that the ABA wasn't really a donut league, they had about the same percentage of bad centers as the NBA or less from 71 on; their real weak area was at guard which logically would have been the easiest. Their strong spot, however, was definitely forwards.

If it's important I will try to find the analysis I did that set up this conclusion but generally, relative to contemporary NBA, the forwards are strong, their is no one at the level of Kareem in the NBA or Gilmore in the ABA, but there were a lot of good second tier centers (Mel Daniels would be the Dave Cowens equivalent, Billy Paultz, Caldwell Jones, Sven Nater, Zelmo Beaty, . . . even Moses Malone/Marvin Barnes).

[Texas Chuck]

I know I'm likely really alone here(tho drza stepped up on Kidd as well so maybe not) but Deke for me is the best big man on the board. I think we are still a couple spots too early with guys like Stockton, Pippen, Hondo, Kidd for sure deserving to be higher, but if we are talking about dominant defensive centers than Deke needs mention.

Elite shot-blocker.
Elite rebounder.
Elite defensive anchor

Was never a great scorer, but played well within his limits and 57% TS for his career. Came in and had huge impact as a rookie, led the Nuggets to one of the biggest upsets in playoff history over the Sonics, and was a huge part of that Finals teams in Philadelphia where he proved to be the missing piece and had a tremendous playoffs. And yeah peak Shaq put up big numbers in the Finals against him, but Deke was no slouch himself.

[ceiling raiser]

I know I'm likely really alone here(tho drza stepped up on Kidd as well so maybe not) but Deke for me is the best big man on the board. I think we are still a couple spots too early with guys like Stockton, Pippen, Hondo, Kidd for sure deserving to be higher, but if we are talking about dominant defensive centers than Deke needs mention.

Elite shot-blocker.
Elite rebounder.
Elite defensive anchor

Was never a great scorer, but played well within his limits and 57% TS for his career. Came in and had huge impact as a rookie, led the Nuggets to one of the biggest upsets in playoff history over the Sonics, and was a huge part of that Finals teams in Philadelphia where he proved to be the missing piece and had a tremendous playoffs. And yeah peak Shaq put up big numbers in the Finals against him, but Deke was no slouch himself.

Just wondering, who do you think the best 5 bigs still on the board are?

[Basketballefan]

Is it just me or are Baylor and Barry getting underrated here? I always thought those 2 along with Hondo were surfire 24-27 range players?

[penbeast0]

Depends on how much you love efficiency with your volume scoring, Basketballefan. Both are basically scorers, but not terribly efficient even for their day. Baylor gives you good rebounding, Barry excellent passing, Barry also gets points off for me for being one of the worst locker room presences that didn't do drugs in NBA history.

The trouble is, in addition to those two, you still have English, King, Aquirre and Dantley who were EFFICIENT volume scorers, Pippen (and to a lesser extent, guys like James, Worthy, Jamal Wilkes and Bob Dandridge) who are efficient volume scorers who play great defense, Havlicek who is similarly inefficient but brings superstar intangibles and great defense, Nique who isn't as efficient but was the most spectacular of the great scoring SFs, and even guys like Marion or Durant from the modern day or Paul Arizin from the 50s who may be considered better. SF has always been a great superstar scorer position in the NBA; it's hard to show how Rick Barry and Elgin Baylor separate themselves out from the pack in a positive fashion once you take pace effects out of the equation.

[ceiling raiser]

Is it just me or are Baylor and Barry getting underrated here? I always thought those 2 along with Hondo were surfire 24-27 range players?

I had both rated very high (teens) in my pre-draft list. Some of the conversation from a few threads ago about Baylor's inability to adapt to the situation/accept different roles has me a bit sour on him.

Barry I'm not sure about. I'd like to read more about his passing/ball-handling/defense/shooting range before commuting to him. Though it does seem we're in the midst of a run of PGs (I expect Stockton, Frazier, Kidd to come off the board pretty soon, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were the next three selected).

[ceiling raiser]

Depends on how much you love efficiency with your volume scoring, Basketballefan. Both are basically scorers, but not terribly efficient even for their day. Baylor gives you good rebounding, Barry excellent passing, Barry also gets points off for me for being one of the worst locker room presences that didn't do drugs in NBA history.

The trouble is, in addition to those two, you still have English, King, Aquirre and Dantley who were EFFICIENT volume scorers, Pippen (and to a lesser extent, guys like James, Worthy, Jamal Wilkes and Bob Dandridge) who are efficient volume scorers who play great defense, Havlicek who is similarly inefficient but brings superstar intangibles and great defense, Nique who isn't as efficient but was the most spectacular of the great scoring SFs, and even guys like Marion or Durant from the modern day or Paul Arizin from the 50s who may be considered better. SF has always been a great superstar scorer position in the NBA; it's hard to show how Rick Barry and Elgin Baylor separate themselves out from the pack in a positive fashion once you take pace effects out of the equation.

Just a comment (and apologies in advance if I'm misunderstanding you here)...

I'm not sure if I buy the pace argument for scoring volume. In general I'm not high on box scores, but just looking at the other counting stats:

rebounds - fewer missed shots, fewer available opportunities
assists - fewer teammate FG, fewer available opportunities
steals - fewer opponent possessions, fewer available opportunities
blocks - fewer opponent shots, fewer available opportunities

The thing about scoring though, is even though fewer shots are taken as a whole, the volume of shots taken by star players seems to have remained relatively constant over time. Now, you're not going to have guys taking 25+ shots in today's league (let alone much more, as was sometimes the case, due in no small part to questionable decisions by coaches), but if say a guy is taking 20-22, does it really make sense to adjust down to 16-18 if he's the best option in a high quality offense? Not saying this is the case with Barry and Baylor, since as you said neither guy had incredible efficiency. Just something I've been thinking about for a few spots now, and why I think adjusting scoring volume might not be a terrific idea.

[Texas Chuck]

Just wondering, who do you think the best 5 bigs still on the board are?

Deke
Cowens
Rodman
McHale
Howard

and of course Walton who I wouldn't rank ahead of any of the above probably because of the big longevity issue, but who was obviously the best player of them all at his best.

[colts18]

Using the RAPM data from 97-03, here is the top 11 in points above the average player:

Player Points above avg
Michael Jordan 907
Karl Malone 836
Tim Hardaway 802
Mookie Blaylock 776
Kevin Garnett 754
Alonzo Mourning 745
Shaquille O'Neal 734
Jeff Hornacek 696
John Stockton 638
Gary Payton 621
Scottie Pippen 601


Stockton makes it to the top 10 despite it being his late prime. Jason Kidd is at #31 despite this being his peak. Stockton was elite as an old player

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote for #26 - Stockton

Reasoning from last thread below:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/stockjo01.html

- 19 year career
- 11x all NBA (2 1st, 6 2nd, 3 3rd)
- 5x all defensive 2nd team
- 5x top 10 in MVP voting
- led league in APG for 9 straight seasons and AST% for 15 total
- 1st all time in career assists and steals

I know everyone values durability and longevity differently, but stockton was simply in a different stratosphere. In 17 of his 19 seasons, he played in 100% of possible games played. In the 2 seasons in which he missed games, he missed 4 and 18 respectively. While nash was pretty durable during his prime (played in 70+ games per season from 01-11), he really doesn't compare when looking at his career as a whole.

From 97-2000 and 2012-14 (7 seasons), Nash only played in 69% of possible games played. Given the length of their careers, I find this contrast to be significant. For those who point to the suns not being able to function without nash on the court, missing games could be thought of as more of a detriment than your average star player.

Nash is praised for his 50/40/90 seasons (that isn't to say people ignore stockton as an efficient scorer), yet both players are nearly identical in career TS% on similar output:

Stockton - 1504 games, 60.8% TS on 13.1 PPG, 21 PPG per 100
Nash - 1217 games, 60.5% TS on 14.3 PPG, 23.3 PPG per 100

Stockton is right there with nash, and the fact that he did this for nearly 300 more games and didn't fall off is really impressive.

On Stockton playing through injury and his standard for others:

“That was all it took,” former Jazz center Mark Eaton said. “A guy would come limping into the locker room and he would get that look from John. All the sudden, the limp would go away. He didn’t need to say anything. But you knew the way things were in John’s eyes. If you could walk, you could play, and if you could play, you were 100 percent.”

- - - - - - - - - -

He played through sore knees. He played through illness. He even played for the Dream Team in the 1992 Olympics despite a stress fracture in his leg.

“I will tell you, there was one year in the early’90s and we were playing Seattle in the playoffs,” said Jazz assistant coach Phil Johnson. “John had an elbow injury, and he could not lift his right arm. He spent most of the series dribbling with his left hand. He even considered shooting free throws with his left hand, but he did not want to let the Sonics know that he was hurt. He never told the press, never told anyone. After the season, he had surgery on his elbow. No one ever knew. We knew in the locker room only because he didn’t want to hurt the team.”

http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/story/2 ... ready-play

PRIME OFF/DEF RTG + WS/48 MIN:

Stockton (88-97)
Reg season - 122/104 (+18), .221 WS/48
Playoffs - 117/108 (+9), .163 WS/48

Nash (02-11)
Reg season - 120/111 (+9), .183 WS/48
Playoffs - 117/114 (+3), .142 WS/48

There's a lot of talk about nash's offense being other-worldly and his weak defense being relatively insignificant. Yet, stockton posts significantly higher net OFF/DEF ratings as well as WS/48 figures in both the reg season and playoffs. Does this tell the whole story? Of course not, but I think it's worth noting given the rather large sample sizes involved.

A few playoff series where PGs struggled against stockton and the Jazz (all series wins):

91 Kevin Johnson (4 games) - 12.8 PPG, 3.3 RPG, 9.8 APG, .5 SPG, 39% TS
Reg season - 22 PPG, 3.5 RPG, 10 APG, 2 SPG, 60% TS

94 Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (7 games) - 15.7 PPG, 2 RPG, 2.9 APG, .4 SPG, 49% TS
Reg season - 18 PPG, 2 RPG, 4.5 APG, 1 SPG, 52% TS

94 Vinny Del Negro (4 games) - 7.3 PPG, 1 RPG, 4.5 APG, .3 SPG, 49.7% TS
Reg season - 10 PPG, 2 RPG, 4.2 APG, .8 APG, 54.5% TS

96 Avery Johnson (6 games) - 10.8 PPG, 2.5 RPG, 7 APG, 2.5 SPG 44% TS
Reg season - 13 PPG, 2.5 RPG, 9.6 APG, 1.5 SPG, 53% TS

I know we have to take these "hardest to guard" quotes from players with a grain of salt, but I think this is noteworthy. Payton on stockton:

Q: Did John Stockton ever talk trash back to you?

A: "Never. That is the reason I really respected him because you never could get in his head. He's the hardest person I ever had to guard. I tried to talk to him, try to do something and he'd just look at me, set a pick and cause me [to get mad and] get a tech. And then all of the sudden it was over. There was much respect to him doing that to me. It taught me a lot."

Q: You say Stockton was the hardest to guard, but what about guarding Michael Jordan?

A: "Those battles were a little easier. I would have Jordan get mad at me and go back at me. He knew he was really talented and could do whatever he wanted to. But [Stockton] was more of a challenge to me than guarding someone that would talk back to me. When you talk back to me and say something to me it made my game go to another level. John was one who wouldn't say nothing and you couldn't figure him out. He'd keep going in the pick and rolls and he and Karl Malone would score a big bucket. At times I would guard Jordan and get him mad and into other things."

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba--gary- ... 19084.html

This exemplifies stockton's style of play as a guy who couldn't be rattled and had excellent decision making. You weren't going to throw him off course by getting into his head.

~

Stockton in series clinchers during deep playoff runs

92 vs. SEA - 18 PTS, 6 REB, 17 AST, 5 STL, 1 BLK, 3 TO, 52% TS, 132/100 OFF/DEF RTG

94 vs. SAS - 13 PTS, 18 AST, 3 STL, 1 BLK, 2 TO, 70% TS, 145/109 OFF/DEF RTG

96 vs. POR - 21 PTS, 4 REB, 11 AST, 2 STL, 4 TO, 80% TS, 137/78 OFF/DEF RTG

97 vs. LAL - 24 PTS, 1 REB, 10 AST, 1 STL, 4 TO, 70% TS, 138/114 OFF/DEF RTG

~

I know this has been semi-touched upon from a gameplan standpoint, and it's a pretty simple notion, but stockton played with a guy who averaged 27 PPG on 59% TS over a span of 13 seasons. I just don't know that stockton was ever asked to step up his game scoring-wise (even throwing out sloan's rigid system).

He spent his time facilitating to an elite volume scorer and scoring when the opportunities presented themselves. At the very least, it seems logical, especially for the time. And that isn't to say he would have equaled nash in scoring output in the playoffs, but I think he'd come closer if the situation was different.

Yes, a great point that is seemingly overlooked. Stockton was not asked to score, he was asked to get the ball to Malone. How can someone shoot as well as Stockton did for 19 years and people think he couldn't have scored if asked......

because in 19 years he never, ever, did it

Stockton averaged 13 PPG in the playoffs for his career. He scored 20+ in the playoffs 29 times, which is well over his career average. He also shot 50%+ from the field in 25 of those 29 games. Exaggerated blanket statements are unnecessary when trying to make a point.

Looking at stockton vs. frazier, there's a case for frazier being the more dynamic player and playoff performer, but I don't see that clearly giving him the edge. Frazier played in about half as many playoff games as stockton. Now granted, there were less series to play back then, so that's part of it, but clyde's playoff career spanned 8 seasons whereas stockton's spanned 19. It's just a huge gap.

I'm oddly putting my knicks hat on for a second arguing against frazier, which I never thought i'd be doing. As many of us know those early 70s knicks teams were the epitome of a "team", and featured a balanced attack of talent who put egos aside with winning being the primary goal. This was especially true with the additions of earl monroe and jerry lucas.

I'm not quite going for the "clyde had more talent" angle as much as his teammates maybe not getting appreciated enough here. I'm fine with acknowledging that reed got more credit than deserved accolade-wise, and there's some "big bias" with regards to his legacy. That said, he was still a major piece of those championship teams and held his own against the best centers of that time.

Team offense and team defense were major themes with those knicks teams. They often played an "option-less" offense where "hit the open man" was the only objective. Frazier obviously played a big role in these schemes on both ends of the floor, but he was still just 1 piece of that system.

[drza]

Anyone have a good modern-day comp for how Walt Frazier played on offense? Basketball-reference's similarity index had Chauncey Billups and Dwyane Wade as the two most similar players, but I know that's based on numbers. Makes sense, though, as far as all being big guards. But in terms of style and impact (offense only), are there any current-day players that you think would be reasonable comps for Frazier?

[Quotatious]

Anyone have a good modern-day comp for how Walt Frazier played on offense? Basketball-reference's similarity index had Chauncey Billups and Dwyane Wade as the two most similar players, but I know that's based on numbers. Makes sense, though, as far as all being big guards. But in terms of style and impact (offense only), are there any current-day players that you think would be reasonable comps for Frazier?

I don't think Billups or Wade are really that similar to Frazier. Clyde was a midrange shooter, 18 feet was really his longest effective range, most often used a 15 footer, or tried to get to the basket, from what I've seen. Billups is similar in terms of size and leadership, but he's much more of a 3-point or long midrange shooter. It may be an era specific thing, but it's still a fact that Frazier rarely took shots from today's 3 point land, based on what I know. Wade's ball hawking defense in his prime would be a decent comparison for Frazier, but I'd rather compare Walt to Kidd, on that end of the floor. Not as aggressive as Payton, but very solid positionally, like Kidd.

Andre Miller reminds me of Frazier, a bit, as far as primarily being a midrange shooter, and making good use of post up situations...But Frazier was less ball dominant (again, that may have to do with team strategy), and obviously a much better player than Miller (defensively, too).

[Narigo]

My candidates are Drexler, Pierce, Pippen, Frazier, Baylor, Kidd, Stockton and Barry

Very tough to decide.

[E-Balla]

Just wondering, who do you think the best 5 bigs still on the board are?

Deke
Cowens
Rodman
McHale
Howard

and of course Walton who I wouldn't rank ahead of any of the above probably because of the big longevity issue, but who was obviously the best player of them all at his best.

Rodman over Zo and Gilmore? I want to get into that one...

Decent top 5 outside of that though. I'd say I agree with everyone else (maybe Gilmore instead of Rodman and I'm not so sure about Dwight vs Zo).

[Quotatious]

My candidates are Drexler, Pierce, Pippen, Frazier, Baylor, Kidd, Stockton and Barry

Very tough to decide.

Vote for the Truth man.

Seriously though, I'm pretty shocked to see his name being mentioned so early. I would think he'll start getting traction around #35, but to mention him as a possible top 30 candidate is IMO too high.

[Texas Chuck]

Rodman over Zo and Gilmore? I want to get into that one...

I imagine down the road we will get our chance.

Couple things:

I don''t buy in to the narrative that Rodman was a mere stat-padding rebounder.
I think Rodman was a positive factor on the offensive side of the ball especially in his Bulls years.
I think Rodman was an elite defender whereas I think many around here believe him to be overrated in that regard.