RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #20

[pandrade83]

I'm not sure what data you're using to make the judgment. It would be good if you shared.

APM/RAPM data in my experience puts Nash as the top offensive player of his generation and better than Stockton appears to be in the limited data we have.

On the other hand, the defensive data for Stockton if memory serves was actually spooky strong. Like, the type of impact you just can't have as a point guard nowadays.

Regardless, rating Stockton ahead based on cumulative impact is a pretty unassailable position.

I think you're speaking to my offensive impact comment - if not, let me know & I can address for sure.

Because of the limited sample size (and we're looking at 38-40 yr old Stockton), I stayed away from RAPM for Stockton vs. Nash

Stockton's advanced stats I'm looking at on the offensive end from '88-'97:
ORtg above League Average: 14.81
Cumulative OBPM: +52.1

Nash's from '01-10:
Ortg above League Average: 14.38
Cumulative OBPM: +48.9

That looks really close to me - and slight edge for Stockton if anything.

Looks to me like you're using box score-based stats here, and box score stats just don't properly capture the impact of players for me to use them as more than a first pass analysis. I don't ignore them by any means - they are useful, but they are not enough.

Your comments are fair - but the traditional stats don't give Nash a big edge either over those time frames as the two are close in points (Stockton listed 1st) (15.7 vs. 16.8), TS% (61.9% vs. 61.3%), TOV% (20.9% vs. 18.9%) - with Stockton having a major edge in assists (12.9 vs. 9.7).

If you want to say Nash is better on the offensive end, I think it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to come to - stats that we have for Nash but not PRIME Stockton certainly augment that argument, especially if you narrow the time window. But I don't think the gap is particularly large and that's why I picked the word "comparable".

I don't think it off-sets either the longevity edge that Stockton has or the large defensive edge that he has.

[penbeast0]

Gilmore v. McAdoo and Reed. You can argue peaks, I have it McAdoo, 75 Gilmore, Reed but Artis could easily be last. You can't argue longevity; compared to those two Artis has a massive longevity edge and was more effective post prime as well.

Gilmore v. Cowens. Closer. Gilmore has a major statistical/efficiency edge and was a rim protector but Cowens's hustle and outside shooting are in another league. I have Gilmore over Cowens, behind Ewing. I have Gilmore over Dwight Howard too but then the Colonels were my favorite teams behind the Bullets growing up. (I do think you overrate Louie Dampier a bit, he was a terrific shooter, made himself into a good playmaker, but never was a good defender and was not that quick or strong. On my all time favorites ABA team but I'd take Jimmy Jones or Brian Taylor over him at PG for all around game though neither were as good at playmaking or shooting. Carrier was a purely one dimensional shooter and his last full year was before Artis entered the league. IN his only year playing with Artis, he played 23 games.)

Artis's big plus was his size/strength/athleticism combination which was pretty much unmatched outside of Kareem. His game was very similar to Dwight Howard's (slightly more advanced post moves, bigger but not as quick) and he was more effective in the ABA partially because of the competition (Jim McDaniel should NEVER be on any top center list, he was a useless player except for shooting a lot and his own team was almost glad he jumped to the NBA where he bombed) but also because they played him further away from the basket on both ends. Offensively, that meant appreciably lower fg% but more movement and more of a chance to use his athleticism; also easier to get him the ball as his big flaw (unlike Dwight) is that he was a very passive, shy personality off and on the court. Defensively, that meant more of a threat to opposing midrange shooters (but more often burned/more fouls). OVerall, it forced him to be more aggressive which was, to me, a major advantage and his biggest flaw in the NBA where his more stationary game next to the basket eventually got him nicknamed Rigor Artis.

Still, flaws and all, he was a player who could dominate the game on both sides of the ball with his sheer size and natural ability.

[Bad Gatorade]

I think you're speaking to my offensive impact comment - if not, let me know & I can address for sure.

Because of the limited sample size (and we're looking at 38-40 yr old Stockton), I stayed away from RAPM for Stockton vs. Nash

Stockton's advanced stats I'm looking at on the offensive end from '88-'97:
ORtg above League Average: 14.81
Cumulative OBPM: +52.1

Nash's from '01-10:
Ortg above League Average: 14.38
Cumulative OBPM: +48.9

That looks really close to me - and slight edge for Stockton if anything.

Looks to me like you're using box score-based stats here, and box score stats just don't properly capture the impact of players for me to use them as more than a first pass analysis. I don't ignore them by any means - they are useful, but they are not enough.

Your comments are fair - but the traditional stats don't give Nash a big edge either over those time frames as the two are close in points (Stockton listed 1st) (15.7 vs. 16.8), TS% (61.9% vs. 61.3%), TOV% (20.9% vs. 18.9%) - with Stockton having a major edge in assists (12.9 vs. 9.7).

If you want to say Nash is better on the offensive end, I think it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to come to - stats that we have for Nash but not PRIME Stockton certainly augment that argument, especially if you narrow the time window. But I don't think the gap is particularly large and that's why I picked the word "comparable".

I don't think it off-sets either the longevity edge that Stockton has or the large defensive edge that he has.

Okay, so the issue with looking at Nash vs Stockton's offensive impact and using OBPM is that Steve Nash is ridiculously underrepresented via OBPM. The actual OBPM equation employs the following term -

Individual TS% - Team TS%

The principle behind this is that a player with poorer teammates reduces spacing/faces more double and triple teams, so a player such as 2003 T-Mac or 2009 Wade receive boosts in order to compensate for facing a tougher scenario in which to score. Now, OBPM and DBPM are calibrated against their respective RAPM stats, so this helps OBPM replicate them on a wider scale, but it sometimes struggles with elite playmakers (whose Team TS% is higher because of them... and this type of player can be underrated heavily by OBPM).

Nash is the example for this. In fact, in Engelmann's study on teammate effect on eFG% (kind of like RAPM for eFG% only, but ignoring the shooter), Nash actually finished first by such a high amount (5.6) that the difference between him and 2nd place (4.2) was higher than the difference between 2nd place and anybody else in the top 20! Heck, looking at the gargantuan drop offs faced by players like Stoudemire (1 season after Phoenix), Marion (the same season in Phoenix, pre and post trade) showcases just how much influence Nash had. Plus, he also ranked 2nd to LeBron in the 2008-2014 "teammate turnover" statistic. Basically, Nash had a lot of impact not showing up in the box score.

We've only got post-primeish ORAPM for Stockton, and he fares well there, but he actually seems to be a bit better through OBPM than ORAPM, whereas Nash appears to be either highly overrated by ORAPM, highly underrated by OBPM, or both. And honestly, looking at Nash's skillset (incredible passing, elite shooting) and his success leading some phenomenal offensive teams, I tend to lean towards the former, although I'd say that his RAPM was almost definitely maximised by playing on a team that focused more on elite finishers rather than aligning Nash with elite shot creators.

FWIW, I think I'd actually place Stockton's career very slightly over Nash's (and I'm a big Nash guy myself - I actually named my dog after him! ), although in a prime for prime debate, I'd probably lean Nash very slightly. Stock was real good, and his DRAPM numbers shocked me - I remember him being a good defender, but he's got the best set of PG DRAPM numbers I've seen - even better than Clippers CP3, Kidd and Payton (interestingly enough, Payton doesn't actually appear anything otherworldly here)

Now, for the actual vote -

I'm going to vote Moses Malone without too much thought, really - he appears to be a mere formality at this point so it's not worth too much deliberation, and he's got longevity + a real nice prime on his side. I'm not so sure that his raw impact tops the best impact guys thus far, and part of this is sheer ignorance in my part due to being too young to watch Moses play consistently, but he was very good for a very long time, and I feel like his ability to be an excellent offensive player whilst playing without the ball is a terrific fit alongside heavy ball users.

I'm not fully confident with the vote though, because he's also got some markers (temperamental defence, not being a shot creator/great passer in general) that are normally cause for concern, but he's practically guaranteed at this point, and I'm happy enough with Moses here.

Not really sure what to do with my second vote here. Guys like Mikan and Pettit look real interesting from the old school crop. Along with Ewing, they're probably the next bigs to consider. Pettit had 10 years ranking somewhere in the NBA's top 5 (or, if not in the top 5, he's clearly in the discussion) so he's somebody whose name should be discussed a bit more, IMO. I've got my reservations about Ewing - clearly a very good scorer + great defender, but I'm curious as to how much of an impact he actually had on offence as a guy who wasn't really a good passer, struggled to lead strong offensive teams and wasn't actually overly efficient outside of a 3 year stretch early in his career. Not inefficient, but generally, bigs that have a Ast/TOV ratio below 1 and aren't highly efficient from the field are seldom high impact offensive players (Moses resonates a bit better with me, because of his off ball play).

From guards, we've got a fairly interesting crop. Stockton, CP3, Wade and Nash should all be in the discussion right now. Heck, Frazier too (I can't see myself voting for him right now, but how many PGs have ever been better over a 5-6 year stretch?). Stockton and CP3 are my two frontrunners that I'm thinking of. I'm real high on CP3 (and he happens to be my favourite player), and he's got a decade of outstanding play behind him. Stockton's prime isn't quite as good, but he's got some terrific longevity behind him. And it's not rubbish longevity at all - he was a high impact player until the end of his career.

Pippen, Havlicek, Barry.

Not saying all of these guys should be #21, but they're some interesting as hell names to throw up when we're thinking about the 21-30 placed guys.

Might relax on the second place vote here, and then promote somebody in the next thread.

[JoeMalburg]

Gilmore v. McAdoo and Reed. You can argue peaks, I have it McAdoo, 75 Gilmore, Reed but Artis could easily be last. You can't argue longevity; compared to those two Artis has a massive longevity edge and was more effective post prime as well.

Gilmore v. Cowens. Closer. Gilmore has a major statistical/efficiency edge and was a rim protector but Cowens's hustle and outside shooting are in another league. I have Gilmore over Cowens, behind Ewing. I have Gilmore over Dwight Howard too but then the Colonels were my favorite teams behind the Bullets growing up. (I do think you overrate Louie Dampier a bit, he was a terrific shooter, made himself into a good playmaker, but never was a good defender and was not that quick or strong. On my all time favorites ABA team but I'd take Jimmy Jones or Brian Taylor over him at PG for all around game though neither were as good at playmaking or shooting. Carrier was a purely one dimensional shooter and his last full year was before Artis entered the league. IN his only year playing with Artis, he played 23 games.)

Artis's big plus was his size/strength/athleticism combination which was pretty much unmatched outside of Kareem. His game was very similar to Dwight Howard's (slightly more advanced post moves, bigger but not as quick) and he was more effective in the ABA partially because of the competition (Jim McDaniel should NEVER be on any top center list, he was a useless player except for shooting a lot and his own team was almost glad he jumped to the NBA where he bombed) but also because they played him further away from the basket on both ends. Offensively, that meant appreciably lower fg% but more movement and more of a chance to use his athleticism; also easier to get him the ball as his big flaw (unlike Dwight) is that he was a very passive, shy personality off and on the court. Defensively, that meant more of a threat to opposing midrange shooters (but more often burned/more fouls). OVerall, it forced him to be more aggressive which was, to me, a major advantage and his biggest flaw in the NBA where his more stationary game next to the basket eventually got him nicknamed Rigor Artis.

Still, flaws and all, he was a player who could dominate the game on both sides of the ball with his sheer size and natural ability.

Thanks for the correction on Carrier. I thought he was there until '75. And when it comes to Dampier, my opinion is really just the opinions of others I trust or have no reason not to trust. I've only see him play a few games and he was never the guy I was focusing on watching. It seems like most of his accliam comes froms his ABA longevity which allows him to be the all-time leader in points, assists and three-pointers made. But thatn may be in large part due to also leading in games and minutes played. Just seemed like he and Issel were the perfect fit for a space eater like Artis.

And here's what it comes down to for me. You say "he was a player who could dominate the game on both sides of the ball with his sheer size and natural ability."

I very much agree, but what are the best examples of him actually doing that in meaningful games?

I hate sounding like I'm hating on Artis, and perhaps he was long criminally underrated. he certainly had a case for the 50@50 team and he waited far too long to get in the HOF. I just think that he earned his reputation good and bad with his play and his teams play. He wasn't engaged consistently enough or wasn't competitive enough or didn't have the Basketball IQ, whatever intangible cliche we want to attach. Bottom line he just wasn't the type of impact guy the numbers suggest, or to concede as much as I can, that impact did not resonate in a meaningful way often enough.

Thanks again for the input.

Note: Jim McDaniel had great numbers that year and was an All-Star, that's how bad the ABA big men were.

[penbeast0]

I saw McDaniels, that's why I refuse to believe he's any good despite the numbers that year. In terms of being dominant, Hubie Brown told the team in 75 that they were going to quit using Artis as a defensive counterpart to Issel's primary offensive hub and use Artis both ways. That year, they won the championship with Artis being Playoff MVP. So, that's probably the year to use for him being two way dominant (though others liked his defense in Chicago in 77-78 more than I did; I remember yelling at the TV to move him away from the basket though it wasn't my idea originally, I heard it from the commentators and adopted it).

[Joao Saraiva]

Just like I thought Moses coming in. MY vote would go for him so I'm occupied won't write a text about it. Keep it up guys.

[pandrade83]

Looks to me like you're using box score-based stats here, and box score stats just don't properly capture the impact of players for me to use them as more than a first pass analysis. I don't ignore them by any means - they are useful, but they are not enough.

Your comments are fair - but the traditional stats don't give Nash a big edge either over those time frames as the two are close in points (Stockton listed 1st) (15.7 vs. 16.8), TS% (61.9% vs. 61.3%), TOV% (20.9% vs. 18.9%) - with Stockton having a major edge in assists (12.9 vs. 9.7).

If you want to say Nash is better on the offensive end, I think it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to come to - stats that we have for Nash but not PRIME Stockton certainly augment that argument, especially if you narrow the time window. But I don't think the gap is particularly large and that's why I picked the word "comparable".

I don't think it off-sets either the longevity edge that Stockton has or the large defensive edge that he has.

Okay, so the issue with looking at Nash vs Stockton's offensive impact and using OBPM is that Steve Nash is ridiculously underrepresented via OBPM. The actual OBPM equation employs the following term -

Individual TS% - Team TS%

The principle behind this is that a player with poorer teammates reduces spacing/faces more double and triple teams, so a player such as 2003 T-Mac or 2009 Wade receive boosts in order to compensate for facing a tougher scenario in which to score. Now, OBPM and DBPM are calibrated against their respective RAPM stats, so this helps OBPM replicate them on a wider scale, but it sometimes struggles with elite playmakers (whose Team TS% is higher because of them... and this type of player can be underrated heavily by OBPM).

Nash is the example for this. In fact, in Engelmann's study on teammate effect on eFG% (kind of like RAPM for eFG% only, but ignoring the shooter), Nash actually finished first by such a high amount (5.6) that the difference between him and 2nd place (4.2) was higher than the difference between 2nd place and anybody else in the top 20! Heck, looking at the gargantuan drop offs faced by players like Stoudemire (1 season after Phoenix), Marion (the same season in Phoenix, pre and post trade) showcases just how much influence Nash had. Plus, he also ranked 2nd to LeBron in the 2008-2014 "teammate turnover" statistic. Basically, Nash had a lot of impact not showing up in the box score.

We've only got post-primeish ORAPM for Stockton, and he fares well there, but he actually seems to be a bit better through OBPM than ORAPM, whereas Nash appears to be either highly overrated by ORAPM, highly underrated by OBPM, or both. And honestly, looking at Nash's skillset (incredible passing, elite shooting) and his success leading some phenomenal offensive teams, I tend to lean towards the former, although I'd say that his RAPM was almost definitely maximised by playing on a team that focused more on elite finishers rather than aligning Nash with elite shot creators.

FWIW, I think I'd actually place Stockton's career very slightly over Nash's (and I'm a big Nash guy myself - I actually named my dog after him! ), although in a prime for prime debate, I'd probably lean Nash very slightly. Stock was real good, and his DRAPM numbers shocked me - I remember him being a good defender, but he's got the best set of PG DRAPM numbers I've seen - even better than Clippers CP3, Kidd and Payton (interestingly enough, Payton doesn't actually appear anything otherworldly here)

Now, for the actual vote -

I'm going to vote Moses Malone without too much thought, really - he appears to be a mere formality at this point so it's not worth too much deliberation, and he's got longevity + a real nice prime on his side. I'm not so sure that his raw impact tops the best impact guys thus far, and part of this is sheer ignorance in my part due to being too young to watch Moses play consistently, but he was very good for a very long time, and I feel like his ability to be an excellent offensive player whilst playing without the ball is a terrific fit alongside heavy ball users.

I'm not fully confident with the vote though, because he's also got some markers (temperamental defence, not being a shot creator/great passer in general) that are normally cause for concern, but he's practically guaranteed at this point, and I'm happy enough with Moses here.

Not really sure what to do with my second vote here. Guys like Mikan and Pettit look real interesting from the old school crop. Along with Ewing, they're probably the next bigs to consider. Pettit had 10 years ranking somewhere in the NBA's top 5 (or, if not in the top 5, he's clearly in the discussion) so he's somebody whose name should be discussed a bit more, IMO. I've got my reservations about Ewing - clearly a very good scorer + great defender, but I'm curious as to how much of an impact he actually had on offence as a guy who wasn't really a good passer, struggled to lead strong offensive teams and wasn't actually overly efficient outside of a 3 year stretch early in his career. Not inefficient, but generally, bigs that have a Ast/TOV ratio below 1 and aren't highly efficient from the field are seldom high impact offensive players (Moses resonates a bit better with me, because of his off ball play).

From guards, we've got a fairly interesting crop. Stockton, CP3, Wade and Nash should all be in the discussion right now. Heck, Frazier too (I can't see myself voting for him right now, but how many PGs have ever been better over a 5-6 year stretch?). Stockton and CP3 are my two frontrunners that I'm thinking of. I'm real high on CP3 (and he happens to be my favourite player), and he's got a decade of outstanding play behind him. Stockton's prime isn't quite as good, but he's got some terrific longevity behind him. And it's not rubbish longevity at all - he was a high impact player until the end of his career.

Pippen, Havlicek, Barry.

Not saying all of these guys should be #21, but they're some interesting as hell names to throw up when we're thinking about the 21-30 placed guys.

Might relax on the second place vote here, and then promote somebody in the next thread.

My only quibble is i think that we need to be very cautious in applying rapm to post prime Stockton and then comparing that to Nash.

I think that's a leap too far and while other metrics are imperfect for sure, I'd trust trying to paint a holistic picture of that over extrapolating post prime Stockton vs peak Nash.


I agree with everything else you wrote though!

[trex_8063]

Thru post #82:

Moses Malone - 10 (Bad Gatorade, andrewww, Dr Positivity, JordansBulls, Narigo, Outside, SactoKingsFan, scabbarista, trex_8063, Winsome Gerbil)
George Mikan - 2 (penbeast0, JoeMalburg)
Bob Pettit - 1 (Pablo Novi)

I think I'll just conclude this one right now, since the result is set (obv going to Moses). Will have the next thread open shortly, and maybe we'll leave it a pinch longer than 48 hours, as [imo] the field is pretty wide open again now that we're past 20.
@ JoeMalburg - Will respond to your questions in next thread.

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[Doctor MJ]

I think you're speaking to my offensive impact comment - if not, let me know & I can address for sure.

Because of the limited sample size (and we're looking at 38-40 yr old Stockton), I stayed away from RAPM for Stockton vs. Nash

Stockton's advanced stats I'm looking at on the offensive end from '88-'97:
ORtg above League Average: 14.81
Cumulative OBPM: +52.1

Nash's from '01-10:
Ortg above League Average: 14.38
Cumulative OBPM: +48.9

That looks really close to me - and slight edge for Stockton if anything.

Looks to me like you're using box score-based stats here, and box score stats just don't properly capture the impact of players for me to use them as more than a first pass analysis. I don't ignore them by any means - they are useful, but they are not enough.

Your comments are fair - but the traditional stats don't give Nash a big edge either over those time frames as the two are close in points (Stockton listed 1st) (15.7 vs. 16.8), TS% (61.9% vs. 61.3%), TOV% (20.9% vs. 18.9%) - with Stockton having a major edge in assists (12.9 vs. 9.7).

If you want to say Nash is better on the offensive end, I think it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to come to - stats that we have for Nash but not PRIME Stockton certainly augment that argument, especially if you narrow the time window. But I don't think the gap is particularly large and that's why I picked the word "comparable".

I don't think it off-sets either the longevity edge that Stockton has or the large defensive edge that he has.

I'm still not sure we're seeing eye to eye here. I'm certainly not saying that you should use basic box score stats instead of advanced box score stats. They are all box score stats, and box score stats don't accurately judge high BBIQ, team-oriented guys.

We lack complete +/- data from earlier eras, but that doesn't mean it makes sense to ignore that data when we do have it.

That data tells us Nash was the most impactful offensive player of his era, and puts him in a class that pretty much no opinions based on anything see Stockton. If you want to make an argument that you believe Stockton specifically could do what Nash did with similar opportunity, there's at least room for it, but you can't just throw it out because not all the data you could possibly want is available. For each player we must judge them to the best of our ability.

As mentioned, I don't really object to you siding with Stockton on this list, and I may do so as well. I'm not trying to making a "No, Nash must be ranked higher" argument, just saying, you can't evaluate Nash properly by ignoring +/- data. Doesn't matter whether those he's being compared with have that data, it's the best way we have to quantitatively peg what Nash did, and so it can't reasonably be brushed aside in favor of other data that's more readily available.

[therealbig3]

I think what really made me come around on Stockton was the +/- data that came out towards the end of his career that pegged him as one of the major impact guys around the league. Do I think playing for Sloan inflated his box score stats a bit? Yeah, sure. But a guy like Deron Williams seems to be someone who was more of a system player in the sense that his numbers looked great, but he never made a +/- footprint that really warranted the conversations he was a part of (namely, being compared to CP3).

But Stockton's impact clearly did go beyond the points and assists, and you combine that with insane longevity...it's hard for me to really rank anyone ahead of him as far as PGs go, other than Magic and Oscar...and even then, maybe our narratives about Stockton not being a take-over scorer or not being a winner are what's really holding him back from being considered ahead of those two, contrary to what he was actually doing out there...similar to our criticisms of David Robinson or Kevin Garnett, in fact.

Of the PGs left that had better peaks, none of them lasted nearly as long. I'm a big fan of Nash, but he doesn't have the longevity of Stockton, and that's not even because Nash had a short prime (he was an All-Star level PG from 01-04 in addition to his 05-10 run, along with a couple of impressive post-prime years in 11 and 12), but because Stockton had a ridiculously long one, and you can't really make the argument that Nash was having significantly more impact prime vs prime, when Stockton was doing this as far as the RAPM we have for him:

NPI RAPM 97: +3.88 (19th)

PI RAPM 98: +5.32 (7th)
PI RAPM 99: +5.14 (11th)
PI RAPM 00: +6.18 (8th)

Now beginning with Engelmann's data:

NPI RAPM 01: +5.76 (1st)

PI RAPM 02: +5.96 (3rd)
PI RAPM 03: +5.36 (5th)


I also saw some numbers from 95 and 96 in which Stockton looked very impressive as well. Didn't post them, because not sure where they're from though.

[pandrade83]

I'm going to borrow from something I said earlier.

"My only quibble is i think that we need to be very cautious in applying rapm to post prime Stockton and then comparing that to Nash." - I felt like the conversation was going in that direction which is probably why it felt like I was being more hesitant to use it.

I think it's a very valid data point and is insightful/substantial in helping us understand the true value that Nash brings. I just wanted to not over-rely on it in a Stockton vs. Nash comparison - when other metrics that we do have for both players' primes indicate that they are pretty close offensively.

I think if we had that kind of data for Stockton, I think it's more likely than not that the results would land us in the same directional ballpark as Nash - given that the data points we do have tells a similar story.

Hopefully that provides more context into where my head was at during the conversation. Definitely happy to clarify if any clarification is needed.