How many finals should the Jazz have made from 88-99’?

[Cavsfansince84]

2 is the only right answer to me. No other years other than 97-98 do I think they should have made the finals to where it seems egregious that they didn't.

[lessthanjake]

So there’s a few things to get into here.

The first and foremost is that the NBA is a star league. Stars can and have carried bad teams in the past. Of course, there are limits to that also, but if a team has two top 10 players who fit well together then the other 3 role players shouldn’t matter too much. Those role players will hold them back against the best teams sometimes, but they shouldn’t matter against a 43 win team in the 1st round. I struggle to see the historical precedent for a team with two top 10 players who fit well together getting swept in the 1st round by a team that is barely above 500. If this had happened to other superstars we’d rightly be questioning their actual impact. Shaq and Kobe’s 5th best player didn’t much matter, at least not to determine if they’d get out of the 1st round. So that’s the first point to consider.

I just want to note first and foremost that you are still not providing anything actually concrete, even after I specifically asked you to be specific. Everything you say is just inferences, and it seems incredibly unlikely that you even watched the series.

Anyways, if two top 10 players who fit well together have a supporting cast that all plays awfully, then yeah they could definitely get swept by a mediocre team, especially when it’s only a best-of-five series. Stars matter a lot more than any individual player, but most of the guys on the court are the supporting cast and if they all play awful then the result is going to be bad. Of course, we wouldn’t expect that when two stars play pretty well, but that’s also because we really wouldn’t expect a supporting cast to have a 44% TS% while having a +7 rDRTG after the team was the #1 defense in the league. The supporting cast obviously collapsed into complete awfulness. It’s not enough to say that you’d expect two top 10 guys to avoid a result like this, because we also would never expect a supporting cast to do this badly.

The second point is that the Jazz support cast around those 2 stars wasn’t even bad. Mark Eaton was DPOY that very year. That’s 3 of the 6 guys the Jazz played covered. Ok, Thurl Bailey only shot 353 from the field, and Griffith only shot 408, but those guys weren’t taking a tonne of shots and only shot 5-12% better in the regular season. Bob Hansen didn’t shoot great either, but again he’s a small part of their offense. The Jazz were a lot bigger than the Warriors, and unsurprisingly outrebounded them by a large margin (38% more offensive rebounds). Those second chance points should have made up for off shooting nights quite a bit. Malone and Stockton were on the court for almost every minute of the series too. It feels weird to look at a team whose top 3 players are defensive specialists, and who were killing the other team on the boards, and say “well, the other team shot better so what could Malone and Stockton do?” Like, guard them better maybe? It also feels like if Stockton is ‘one of the GOAT point guards of all-time!!’ then he should be putting his team in a position to play better offense.

You say Mark Eaton was DPOY that year, but the team was the #1 defense in the league that year but had a +7 rDRTG in that series. For all the inferences you are trying to draw about how the team’s best players must’ve played badly in the series if the team as a whole did badly, apparently no negative inference should be drawn at all about how the DPOY played defensively when the team had a complete defensive collapse? This is the type of clearly inconsistent reasoning that people use when they really just want to get to their preferred conclusion.

To me it seems like there are several possible explanations:

1) Stockton and/or Malone’s impact isn’t as big as it looks on paper

2) Mullin and Richmond are apparently much better than is commonly believed

3) The coaching for the Jazz failed them

I don’t think see many people claiming Sloan was a bad coach, so my inclination is to dismiss the idea that he just couldn’t cope with the small ball Warriors. Option 2 doesn’t seem too likely, because the Warriors won only 43 games this season and then followed that up with a 37 win season the next year despite upgrading their talent considerably. That leaves option 1. My long held view has been that while Stockton was an all-star then, he was not a superstar and would not be an all-star today, for reasons that I have elaborated on at length before. That seems to help explain series like these, where the Jazz losing is utterly inexplicable if both Stockton and Malone were legit MVP candidates. For mine, only Malone was. None of this is to say Stockton is bad, but I feel like his impact is very overrated by advanced stats and this series underscores that.

The idea that this is the limited world of possible options is just obviously silly, as are the attempts to hand wave away the possibilities you mention.

For one thing, the Jazz supporting cast just being awful is obviously not only a possibility, but is actually the one staring you in the face. It goes unmentioned. Of course, this would never go unmentioned by you if the supporting cast was for someone you like, such as Tim Duncan. When it’s a player you like, you are very happy to put full blame on a supporting cast, so I know you don’t just ideologically believe stars are all that matters.

Second of all, the idea that three games tells us anything about any player’s “impact” in general is obviously silly, so option #1 is just not a general conclusion any reasonable person would come to based on this series. Overall impact is really never exemplified by a three-game span, and need I remind you that John Stockton’s impact looks extremely good over large samples. I’m sure you know that, which is why you’re stuck talking about three games.

Third, you handwave away the possibility that the Warriors actually played really well by saying they only won 43 regular season games. But you apparently fail to acknowledge the obvious possibility that they played significantly better in that series than they had in the regular season. This is something that happens all the time. In fact, the assumption that a team played exactly at its average level in any given three-game span is just a really obviously bad assumption. It will usually be very wrong. And yet you take that as a given and ask only if their general level was better than we think. The idea that they simply played better than their general level is not only a possibility but is a likelihood staring right at us in the box score. You don’t entertain it, likely because that wouldn’t be something you could handwave away with “but they only won 43 games.”

Fourth, you handwave away the idea that Sloan was outcoached by saying “I don’t see many people claiming Sloan was a bad coach.” Again, this ignores that any coach can be outcoached in a single series (particularly a best-of-five series). Notably, you don’t provide any discussion of any actual coaching decisions in that series, likely because you do not have any idea what any of those decisions were. You’re just coming up with a specious reason to downplay any potential explanation that isn’t “John Stockton is to blame” without really knowing either way whether the reason you’ve dismissed really is valid or not.

Overall, the reasoning here is just really really faulty. I don’t actually feel particularly strongly either way about John Stockton, but it’s just really obvious that you wanting to come to a specific conclusion and are doing a whole lot of gymnastics to get yourself there.

[eminence]

Game 3 from Warriors vs Jazz if folks wanted to appreciate:

Watch on YouTube

Eaton really showing off that alltime bad touch in the intro.

Game starts a bit before 15:00

[ronnymac2]

My gut tells me zero, simply because I honestly don't think Utah or Salt Lake City is a big enough market for the NBA. They should have never been a franchise. The way the ABA's Utah Stars went out of business in 1976 should have told everybody that.

The way they built their teams doesn't help. From 1980-2000, their "stars" were three of the most boring and selfish players in history in Dantley, Malone, and Stockton. The franchise's greatest claim to fame was that Michael Jordan was so bored in SLC that he got hammered the night before a high-stakes NBA Finals game and still scored 38.

Honestly, they've been cannon fodder for their entire history, a franchise with a role for jobbing to legitimate great teams and players. Magic's Lakers, Drexler's Blazers, Hakeem's Rockets, Jordan's Bulls, Kobe's Lakers, through to the teams who destroyed those fraudster Gobert/Mitchell cores.

Utah is such a beautiful place in terms of nature. Why even waste your time going to a Jazz game? Nobody even listens to jazz in Utah.

[lessthanjake]

Game 3 from Warriors vs Jazz if folks wanted to appreciate:

Watch on YouTube

Eaton really showing off that alltime bad touch in the intro.

Game starts a bit before 15:00

I watched this entire thing. This game was really not Stockton’s fault. If we’re being critical, he had two or three turnovers that could’ve been avoided, and he got blown by on defense a few times and had one or two fouls he could’ve/should’ve avoided. And he didn’t start great in the first couple minutes. But honestly he was otherwise great. He scored really well. He got teammates good looks both in the half court and in transition (both of which they mostly missed) and got Malone plenty of post ups in the positions he wanted (though Malone started slowly this game). The Warriors started double teaming Stockton in the fourth quarter but that mostly got the Jazz open shots or dunks. I don’t always love the slow, deliberative nature of the Sloan offense, but that’s not on Stockton, and he got out in transition as much as he could. The issue for the Jazz on offense was that guys just were missing good looks all game. On defense, while Stockton did get blown by a few times particularly in transition, he made a handful of really great defensive plays (he had 6 steals and 2 blocks and they were all pretty big plays), and his opposing number shot badly for the game. I think Stockton was overall a defensive positive in the game (and I’ll note that DPOY Eaton seemed to have virtually no defensive impact, and was predictably very bad offensively). And Stockton played the entire game until being taken out when the game was out of hand at the end. In terms of the chronology of the game, when the Warriors started pulling away, he made some plays to get it within like 6 points. And when the Warriors started pulling away again, he made more baskets, including a big three. But the Jazz kept fouling people so they couldn’t make up the deficit. Eventually, Stockton ended up slipping down and turning the ball over when they were down 10 with like a minute or so left, and that sealed it, but by that time the game was pretty much over.

So yeah, while Stockton wasn’t perfect, this was a good performance absolutely worthy of a top 10 player. He played really well but his team just happened to lose.

[giberish]

The Jazz supporting cast in the late-80's early 90's was terrible.

Eaton balanced elite defense with historically terrible offense to just be a low-end starter quality player.

Their SF might have been fine in a different fit but a post=up based offense is a bad fit next to a star PF.

Jeff Malone was the biggest problem though. A bad defender and inefficient scorer. It's not much easier to win with him starting at SG than with Rickey Davis. No FT's, no 3's, just a bunch of long 2's at a rate that didn't scare anyone (and again, bad defense).

There's a reason why Utah started winning 60+ games each year after swapping in Horny for Jeff Malone despite Stockton and Malone aging past typical peak ages. If Utah had Hornacek in place of Jeff Malone that whole run they're the best team in the WC from 89-92 and probably win a title at some point (in addition to several more finals losses). And it's not like Horny was wildly better than many other top 3rd guys like Grant or Scott.

[FuShengTHEGreat]

They shouldn't have went out the way they did vs Houston in 94. Two 1st team all NBA players couldn't beat a team led by one in Hakeem. Positionally overall they were arguably as talented if not slightly more than Houston. They ended up being the easiest of Houstons 4 opponents that title run

Oh yeah, yet another playoff year Stockton (14ppg and 41% fg) couldn't get any significant degree of separation from a PG (Kenny Smith) he was more talented than. Even more sad considering in the other 3 series they played that season Strickland, KJ and Derek Harper all ran Kenny Smith ragged.

I personally would've rather seen Stockton be a PG that could give Utah a legit 2nd option that could give them 20ppg and average less assists/slightly worse efficiency than being the all time assists leader that didn't shoot enough and efficiency was above average for a PG.

I was a Rockets fan and it hurt to lose in 97, but I'll always admire how he played in that series, especially in game 6. He went absolutely bezerk in the 4th quarter. He should've been able to aggressive like that game imho.

[f4p]

2 is the only right answer to me. No other years other than 97-98 do I think they should have made the finals to where it seems egregious that they didn't.

1994 seems bad. Hornacek has a pretty good/great argument as the being better than the rockets 2nd best player and the rockets were only a +4.1 team. It's hard to see how malone and Stockton couldn't do better than a 4-1 WCF loss.

[Cavsfansince84]

2 is the only right answer to me. No other years other than 97-98 do I think they should have made the finals to where it seems egregious that they didn't.

1994 seems bad. Hornacek has a pretty good/great argument as the being better than the rockets 2nd best player and the rockets were only a +4.1 team. It's hard to see how malone and Stockton couldn't do better than a 4-1 WCF loss.

It seems bad because they got crushed. Hakeem went off, Karl got his points but was inefficient and the Rockets made way more 3 pters. That Rockets team was really about 20 years ahead of its time though it was due in part to a shortened 3 pt line.

[f4p]

2 is the only right answer to me. No other years other than 97-98 do I think they should have made the finals to where it seems egregious that they didn't.

1994 seems bad. Hornacek has a pretty good/great argument as the being better than the rockets 2nd best player and the rockets were only a +4.1 team. It's hard to see how malone and Stockton couldn't do better than a 4-1 WCF loss.

It seems bad because they got crushed. Hakeem went off, Karl got his points but was inefficient and the Rockets made way more 3 pters. That Rockets team was really about 20 years ahead of its time though it was due in part to a shortened 3 pt line.

That's actually the year before they shortened the line.

[Cavsfansince84]

That's actually the year before they shortened the line.

Still ahead of its time. They had so many guys who could knock down clutch 3 pters when they needed it(on top of Hakeem making plenty of clutch shots as well). I do think a criticism of Stockton having a limited upside compared to other top 30 players of all time is somewhat warranted.

[theonlyclutch]

They shouldn't have went out the way they did vs Houston in 94. Two 1st team all NBA players couldn't beat a team led by one in Hakeem. Positionally overall they were arguably as talented if not slightly more than Houston. They ended up being the easiest of Houstons 4 opponents that title run

Oh yeah, yet another playoff year Stockton (14ppg and 41% fg) couldn't get any significant degree of separation from a PG (Kenny Smith) he was more talented than. Even more sad considering in the other 3 series they played that season Strickland, KJ and Derek Harper all ran Kenny Smith ragged.

I personally would've rather seen Stockton be a PG that could give Utah a legit 2nd option that could give them 20ppg and average less assists/slightly worse efficiency than being the all time assists leader that didn't shoot enough and efficiency was above average for a PG.

I was a Rockets fan and it hurt to lose in 97, but I'll always admire how he played in that series, especially in game 6. He went absolutely bezerk in the 4th quarter. He should've been able to aggressive like that game imho.

Arguably even more egregiously in '95 when they were a near 8 SRS team getting bounced in the first round (The highest SRS opponent the Rockets played that year). This was a team that played .500 basketball post all-star break/Drexler trade, which should have no business beating an experienced and cohesive team like the Jazz was at that point.

[IlikeSHAIguys]

I feel like calling the team that wins everything .500 to make the team they beat look bad isn't really uh honest

[theonlyclutch]

I feel like calling the team that wins everything .500 to make the team they beat look bad isn't really uh honest

That's viewing at it from a 2025 lens where we know the actual results.

In 1995 before the playoffs started HOU was not viewed as a contender to go deep. Either through their overall record, record post ASB, or bookmaker odds (https://www.sportsoddshistory.com/nba-main/?y=1994-1995&sa=nba&a=finals&o=r(+1800 at playoff start) despite being defending champs). D-Rob gets plenty of flack for being outplayed in that series and losing but the Spurs frankly didn't assemble much talent around him. The Magic had very young stars and much of their core's only PO experience pre-95 was getting swept in the first round. But Utah? 2 all-NBA 1st teamers in the middle of their primes, good supporting cast (Hornacek's already on board), plenty of playoff experience in a familiar system, so the pieces to go deep into the playoffs were all there. It feels disingenuous to give them a pass for losing when they were the highest SRS team the Rockets faced that year in the playoffs.

[lessthanjake]

I feel like calling the team that wins everything .500 to make the team they beat look bad isn't really uh honest

That's viewing at it from a 2025 lens where we know the actual results.

In 1995 before the playoffs started HOU was not viewed as a contender to go deep. Either through their overall record, record post ASB, or bookmaker odds (https://www.sportsoddshistory.com/nba-main/?y=1994-1995&sa=nba&a=finals&o=r(+1800 at playoff start) despite being defending champs). D-Rob gets plenty of flack for being outplayed in that series and losing but the Spurs frankly didn't assemble much talent around him. The Magic had very young stars and much of their core's only PO experience pre-95 was getting swept in the first round. But Utah? 2 all-NBA 1st teamers in the middle of their primes, good supporting cast (Hornacek's already on board), plenty of playoff experience in a familiar system, so the pieces to go deep into the playoffs were all there. It feels disingenuous to give them a pass for losing when they were the highest SRS team the Rockets faced that year in the playoffs.

For purposes of evaluating how good an opponent the Rockets were, we should obviously take into account subsequent information that we got after the playoffs had started. The Rockets were obviously better than people thought when the playoffs started, since they went on to win the title, beating several good teams along the way. Assessing the quality of an NBA title winner based on what was clearly an underestimation before the playoffs started seems obviously wrong.

As for whether the Jazz should get particular flak because they were the best team the Rockets played, I think that’s very debatable. The Spurs had a better record and had better betting odds for their series against the Rockets than the Jazz did—despite the Rockets having already proven by the WCF that they were better than they’d been in the regular season. And the Suns had the exact same odds against the Rockets as the Jazz. Basically, the Jazz did have the highest SRS of any of the opponents, but they weren’t really considered a tougher opponent than the Spurs or Suns. Maybe we could say in retrospect that we think they were better (after all, we saw what they later did in 1997 and 1998), but I think it’s basically splitting hairs. Every team the Rockets faced was good, and they all had superstar talent. They were all favored to beat the Rockets (and were favored to a similar degree). And, aside from the Magic, they all lost in a close series.

The other piece to remember here is that getting upset in a best-of-five series is inherently less bad than being upset in a best-of-seven series, because best-of-five series are just more prone to randomness. The Jazz may well have beaten the Rockets if their series was best-of-seven like the others were.

[sp6r=underrated]

1-3 with their actual rosters.

More if their team around Stockton and Malone was any good from 88-94.

The team around Malone had plenty relative to the results he produced. Some people act like he was losing to the Bulls and Lakers every year. He lost in 1989 in a 1st round sweep to a 43 win team.

I created a thread on this years ago and I'll try to dig it out. I'm sure I don't agree with everything I wrote back then but the central premise is One and Done's premise which I agree with. If Stockton and Malone were as great as their backers allege the Jazz should have accomplished a lot more from 88-95 than they did.

It is of course possible to argue strictly for one but if you're going to argue for both you really need to explain why the two couldn't accomplish that much

[sp6r=underrated]

For purposes of evaluating how good an opponent the Rockets were, we should obviously take into account subsequent information that we got after the playoffs had started.

I agree with this but any way you slice the data that Rockets team was weak for an NBA champion.

1. Only Counting post-Drexler trade, post-season games counted twice.

Code: Select all

Location   Wins   Losses    MOV   Opp SRS   Adj MOV
Home         21     17     2.68     3.05     5.73
Road         26     15     1.22     3.42     4.64
Total        47     32     1.92     3.24     5.16

The other piece to remember here is that getting upset in a best-of-five series is inherently less bad than being upset in a best-of-seven series, because best-of-five series are just more prone to randomness.

This is the best defense. But for me my central issue with the Jazz is the preceding years.

As an aside, I wish the NBA had best of 5s not best of 7s. The NBA playoffs are too low in randomness.

[lessthanjake]

For purposes of evaluating how good an opponent the Rockets were, we should obviously take into account subsequent information that we got after the playoffs had started.

I agree with this but any way you slice the data that Rockets team was weak for an NBA champion.

1. Only Counting post-Drexler trade, post-season games counted twice.

Code: Select all

Location   Wins   Losses    MOV   Opp SRS   Adj MOV
Home         21     17     2.68     3.05     5.73
Road         26     15     1.22     3.42     4.64
Total        47     32     1.92     3.24     5.16

I don’t think this is inherently a bad approach to take, but in this particular case I think we have a lot of reasons to think that the Rockets’ regular-season results post-Drexler were not representative of how good they were in the playoffs.

For one thing, they won the title. And that required beating multiple very good teams besides the Jazz. It’d be one thing if the Rockets got a really fortunate route through the playoffs (whether due to upsets, weak conference, opponent injuries, etc.) and the only genuinely good team they played was the Jazz. Then we might say that we’re not really sure how good they were in the playoffs and maybe the Jazz just choked against a relatively weak team. But that’s not what happened. The Rockets beat multiple other teams that had had really good regulars seasons and who were led by all-time great players. Seems reasonable to think the Rockets were just playing really well in the playoffs, rather than that their opponents simply choked.

Secondly, the Rockets had won the title the year before, and, if anything, had a stronger roster in 1995, after Drexler was added. That seems like a very important fact for assessing how good we think the Rockets were. The 1995 regular season is not the only information we have on this team, and it was a team that was actually repeat champions.

Third, Hakeem is a noted playoff riser (or perhaps regular-season coaster—two sides of the same coin), so it’s definitely arguably a pretty murky proposition to downplay the quality of his teams in the playoffs based on their regular season results.

Overall, I look at this and see a Rockets team that were repeat champions and beat several really good teams along the way, so it definitely strikes me as wrong to act like they were a relatively weak opponent for the Jazz just based on a regular-season snippet. I think the most likely explanation for their mediocre regular season even post-Drexler is a combination of regular-season complacency after winning a title, Hakeem just generally not being as good in the regular season as he was in the playoffs, and the team taking some time to adjust to Drexler. Whatever the reason, though, it seems to me that they were clearly a very good team in the playoffs. Were they some unstoppable juggernaut that the Jazz could not possibly have beaten? No. But they definitely weren’t some weak opponent that it’s embarrassing for the Jazz to have lost to. This was just a garden-variety example of two very good teams facing off in the playoffs and one of them winning in a close series.

[lessthanjake]

1-3 with their actual rosters.

More if their team around Stockton and Malone was any good from 88-94.

The team around Malone had plenty relative to the results he produced. Some people act like he was losing to the Bulls and Lakers every year. He lost in 1989 in a 1st round sweep to a 43 win team.

I created a thread on this years ago and I'll try to dig it out. I'm sure I don't agree with everything I wrote back then but the central premise is One and Done's premise which I agree with. If Stockton and Malone were as great as their backers allege the Jazz should have accomplished a lot more from 88-95 than they did.

It is of course possible to argue strictly for one but if you're going to argue for both you really need to explain why the two couldn't accomplish that much

I think this position has some appeal to it. And, to some degree, it’s probably right. I think I probably fall in the “maybe Karl Malone is a bit overrated” camp, but I still think he was a really great player.

I don’t think it’s completely implausible that Malone and Stockton could be just as good as people think and still have only gotten those results, though. IMO, their supporting cast was genuinely pretty bad in almost all of those 1988-1995 years. While Eaton was a very good defender, he was one of the worst offensive players in NBA history, and in the timeframe we’re talking about, even his defensive impact was much lower than it had been earlier in his career since he was leaving his defensive prime (and even in 1989, when he won DPOY, he was bad on defense in the playoffs—watch the full game posted from those playoffs for an example). I think Eaton probably was a significant negative in this timeframe we’re talking about. Jeff Malone was probably the only other notable player they had in that timeframe prior to Hornacek, and he was a decent player, not really positive impact IMO. The rest of the team was pretty bleak. Honestly, I think it was pretty akin to the Garnett Timberwolves, except you had two superstars instead of one, so the team could often win a playoff series or two, instead of losing in the first round or missing the playoffs.

And what I think is telling here is how good the Jazz became when they had a passable supporting cast. Hornacek was actually a good player. The rest of that late 1990s Jazz supporting cast was nothing to write home about, but guys like Bryon Russell, Greg Ostertag, and Antoine Carr were actually slightly positive impact guys IMO. It was a solid supporting cast. And suddenly the Jazz put up several great regular seasons, made two finals (only losing to an all-time-great dynasty), and were extremely close to making another Finals (they lost in the WCF in 7 games in 1996, in a series that they outscored their opponent by a decent bit). They have the highest three-year playoff relative net rating of any team in history that did not win a title during that timespan. They were really good. And I don’t really think Malone or Stockton were better players in that timespan than they previously were. We certainly wouldn’t expect that they were based on their age, and their individual stats don’t suggest they were (if anything, for Stockton it’s the opposite). I think the Jazz became a lot better essentially entirely as a function of their supporting cast improving. And since the late 1990s Jazz didn’t exactly have some notably stacked supporting cast, that further leads me to conclude that the prior years’ supporting casts were really bad.

Another potential factor here is Jerry Sloan. I don’t feel strongly about this, but it is true that the Sloan offense was pretty predictable. It’s plausible to me that it is an offense that is better in the regular season than in the playoffs, because teams can adjust to it and get comfortable defending it over the course of a playoff series more than they will in the regular season. If that’s the case, then it’s not really on Malone or Stockton. This potential factor doesn’t really explain everything, though, since their regular season results also became a lot better in the late 1990s, not just their playoff results.

[One_and_Done]

When the argument is that Stockton and Malone had at most 1-2 all-stars next to them, that's when you know they were overrated. They shouldn't have needed any all-stars next to them, but at various points they had Hornacek, Jeff Malone & Eaton, plus other solid role players like T.Bailey, Ostertag, B.Russell, etc.

Who were Tim Duncan's all-stars in 02 or 03? Or Lebron in 09 & 10? It's fine if you think Duncan/Lebron type guys are more impactful than Stockton/Malone combined, which I certainly do, but there are people who think these two were both top 20 all-time players. Even less lofty names than Duncan/Lebron managed to carry meh support casts better than these guys seemed to from 88-95, if you operate on the premise they were secretly both legit MVP candidates.