Sansterre's Top 100 Teams, #35-37, 1996 UTA, 2002 LAL, 1961 BOS

sansterre · Post #1 » by **sansterre** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:32 am

Glossary:

Spoiler:

#37. The 1996 Utah Jazz

Spoiler:

#36. The 2002 Los Angeles Lakers

Spoiler:

#35. The 1961 Boston Celtics

Spoiler:

Back to the Main Thread

WestGOAT · Post #2 » by **WestGOAT** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 5:51 pm

sansterre wrote:Glossary:

Spoiler:
Overall SRS: My combo-SRS from the regular season and playoffs as discussed in the master thread
Standard Deviations: Standard Deviations of Overall SRS from the league mean.

When I post the roster makeup of the team, I try and do it by playoff minutes. The numbers are age, regular season BPM and Playoff BPM (basketball-reference's BPM is being used here).

So if I say: "C: Vlade Divac (22), +2.3 / +4.3" I mean that Vlade Divac was their center, he was 22, he had a BPM of +2.3 in the regular season and a +4.3 in the playoffs. Yes, BPM misses out on a lot of subtle stuff but I thought it a good quick-hits indicator of the skills of the players.

I also list the playoff players (20+ MPG) in order of OLoad (which is usage that integrates assists) and it has everyone's per game average for minutes, points, rebounds, assists and stocks (steals plus blocks), but all of those (including minutes) are adjusted for pace.

I then cover the three highest players in scoring per 100 (with their true shooting relative to league average) and the three highest players in Assists per 100. I realize that these are arbitrary, but I wanted a quick-hits reference for how these teams' offenses ran.

I then talk about Heliocentrism, Wingmen and Depth. Basically I add up all of the team's VORP (again, basketball-reference) and then figure out what percentage of that VORP comes from the #1 player (Heliocentrism), from the #2 and 3 players combined (Wingmen) and Depth (everyone else). I include the ranking among the top 100 for reference. There are only 82 of these rankings, because 18 teams pre-date BPM/VORP, so I only have 82 to work with. I'm not saying that these are particularly meaningful, I just thought they were cool.

Playoff Offensive Rating: Amount by which your playoff offensive rating exceeds the offensive rating you'd expect given the regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents. If you would be expected to post a 99 given your opponents but you post a 104, that's graded as +5. This way we can compare across eras.
Playoff Defensive Rating is the same as Offensive Rating, just the opposite.
Playoff SRS: Is SRS measured *only* in the playoffs. Overall SRS is a mix of both playoffs and regular season.
Total SRS Increase Through Playoffs: Basically their Overall SRS minus their Regular Season SRS. This is basically how much better a team did in the playoffs than you'd guess, relative to their regular season performance.
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: The average regular season offensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Average Playoff Opponent Defense: The average regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents.

Rankings of any kind are out of my list. So if I say that the '91 Lakers had the 42nd best regular season offense, I don't mean "42nd best of All-Time", I mean "42nd best of my Top 100 Teams of All_Time". Which will be pretty comparable, but I want to be clear about this.

I also walk through the playoffs at each round, covering their opponent their SRS (at that time), how many games the series was, the margin of victory (and a "+" is always in the favor of the discussed team; losing a series by +2.0 means that you outscored the other team by two points a game on average despite losing) and for reference I put in an SRS equivalency (beat a +5 SRS team by 5 points a game, that's an equivalent +10 SRS series).

In writeups, if I ever say a player shot at "-8%" or something, that means "his true shooting was 8% lower than the league average that year". Any time I say "a player shot" and follow it by a percent, I am *always* using true shooting percentage unless otherwise indicated.

I also have a modern comps section for any teams pre-2011. It's basically me weighting each statistical characteristic and feeding each player's stats into the BackPicks database and choosing the best-rated comp from the list. I might list something like this:

PG: 2017 LeBron James (worse rebounding, better passing, way fewer shots)

What I mean is, "This team's point guard was basically 2017 LeBron James, but make his passing better, make his rebounding worse and make him take way fewer shots).

Anyhow. I don't know how clear any of this will be, so please let me know what does and doesn't work from these writeups. And thanks for reading!

#37. The 1996 Utah Jazz
Spoiler:
Overall SRS: +10.86, Standard Deviations: +1.94, Lost in Conference Finals (Preseason 8th)

Regular Season Record: 55-27, Regular Season SRS: +6.25 (65th), Earned the 3 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +5.7 (20th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -1.5 (80th)

PG: John Stockton, +6.8 / +3.9
SG: Jeff Hornacek, +4.4 / +6.1
SF: Bryon Russell, -1.6 / +6.6
PF: Karl Malone, +7.0 / +6.0
C: Felton Spencer, -4.5 / -5.9

Karl Malone (PF, 32): 42 MPPG, 29% OLoad, 29 / 11 / 5 / 3 on +3.3%
John Stockton (PG, 33): 40 MPPG, 24% OLoad, 16 / 3 / 12 / 2 on +10.0%
Jeff Hornacek (SG, 32): 35 MPPG, 21% OLoad, 17 / 3 / 5 / 2 on +7.7%
Bryon Russell (SF, 25): 11 MPPG, 16% OLoad, 3 / 2 / 1 / 1 on -3.5%
Felton Spencer (C, 28): 20 MPPG, 14% OLoad, 6 / 5 / 0 / 1 on +2.8%

Scoring/100: Karl Malone (36.1 / +3.3%), Jeff Hornacek (25.7 / +7.7%), John Stockton (22.1 / +10.0%)
Assists/100: John Stockton (16.8), Jeff Hornacek (7.0), Karl Malone (5.9)

Heliocentrism: 40.3% (32nd of 84 teams) - Malone
Wingmen: 60.2% (1st) - Stockton & Hornacek
Depth: -0.5% (84th)

Playoff Offensive Rating: +6.74 (34th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -8.27 (16th)
Playoff SRS: +13.87 (17th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +4.61 (11th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +1.47 (71st), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -4.64 (3rd)

Playoff Heliocentrism: 27.5% (73rd of 84 teams) - Malone
Playoff Wingmen: 45.1% (21st) - Hornacek & Stockton
Playoff Depth: 27.4% (33rd)

Round 1: Portland Trail Blazers (+2.2), won 3-2, by +10.0 points a game (+12.2 SRS eq)
Round 2: San Antonio Spurs (+7.3), won 4-2, by +11.7 points a game (+19.0 SRS eq)
Round 3: Seattle SuperSonics (+8.0), lost 3-4, by +2.6 points a game (+10.6 SRS eq)
Round 4:

In the 1984 draft, with the 16th pick overall, the Utah Jazz picked John Stockton. By 1988 he was arguably the second best point guard in the league (that’s what you’re competing for when Magic is still healthy). In the 1985 draft, with the 13th overall pick the Utah Jazz selected Karl Malone. Malone took a few years to get going, but by 1989 he was one of the better players in the league. So with mid-first rounders, the Jazz selected Top 25 players with back to back picks. This may be the best back-to-back pair of mid-first round picks that have ever been made by any team ever. There’s an obvious conclusion here:

They must be freakin’ geniuses.

And the Utah Jazz’ management would work as hard as possible to undo that reputation for the next decade.

It is impossible to overemphasize how little help Stockton and Malone had. First, they weren’t given a third option until 1994. And second, their bench was legitimately awful. From 1990 to 1993 the Jazz averaged 99% of their VORP coming from those two players. That is a serious problem. You may have divined from this list that not that many teams can be really good when 50% or more of their VORP is coming from one player. The average Helio score for their best player for teams on this list is 35%. Of the 6 Jordan Bulls teams, only one has a Helio score of higher than 42%. And Jordan was the freaking man. There is *one* team in the Top 17 with a Helio score above 50% (and two in the Top 37). So I hope you can appreciate that having two players combining for 100% of your VORP means that the rest of the roster is a barren wasteland. And look, BBR’s BPM is an imperfect tool. But I’m trying to make clear that if the Jazz had been able to add even one decent #3 and a tolerable bench they’d have owned the decade. In the West anyways . . .

Compounding the problem was that Malone and Stockton seemed to get worse in the playoffs. From ‘90 to ‘97:

Malone (RS): 30.2% Usage, 59.4% shooting, 16.8% Reb, 17.1% Ast, 11.3% TO, 3.5% Stk, 6.4 BPM
Malone (PS): 31.4% Usage, 53.2% shooting, 16.6% Reb, 15.2% Ast, 9.4% TO, 3.4% Stk, 5.2 BPM

Stockton (RS): 19.6% Usage, 61.6% shooting, 4.8% Reb, 52.5% Ast, 20.7% TO, 3.9% Stk, 7.9 BPM
Stockton (PS): 19.6% Usage, 56.6% shooting, 5.4% Reb, 49.0% Ast, 19.3% TO, 3.1% Stk, 6.1 BPM

Everything stayed basically the same except that their shooting imploded. Was this the result of inherent limitations in their skills? Was this the result of having almost no help from the rest of their team for most of this timeframe? Was this the result of Jerry Sloan’s fairly predictable style of offense being easier to defend in the playoffs? Probably some of all of the above.

Anyhow. Here’s the list of those years, with the percent of VORP those two players were in the regular season / playoffs, and their regular season SRS and how far they got:

1990: 94% / 50% (+4.82, 1st round)
1991: 104% / 90% (+3.18, 2nd round)
1992: 85% / 83% (+5.7, Conf Finals)
1993: 113% / 86% (+1.74 / 1st round)
1994: 92% / 79% (+4.1 / Conf Finals)
1995: 72% / 58% (+7.76 / 1st Round)
1996: 78% / 47% (+6.25 / Conf Finals)
1997: 71% / 55% (+7.97 / NBA Finals)

Notice anything big happening in 1995? Their regular season scores never go above 80% after that, and their playoff scores are considerably lower. What happened? They picked up Jeff Hornacek late in 1994, and suddenly the Jazz had help. Suddenly the team jumped in quality. Here are the averages:

1990-93 (pre-Hornacek): 99% / +3.86
1995-97 (with Hornacek): 74% / +7.33

Basically, as soon as the Jazz added Hornacek (who was an ideal complement to the team) they jumped from a pretty good team to an outstanding team. We know it wasn’t because Stockton and Malone were getting better; Stockton actually got worse (if not by a ton) as the decade progressed. And Hornacek was *not* worth a 3.5 point SRS jump in the abstract. For the mid-90s Jazz he was like water in the desert. Do you know what it kind of reminds me of? The late aughts Cavs. LeBron (or Malone and Stockton in this case) were good enough to keep the team relevant and management basically either a) did nothing to help or b) tried to help and mostly failed. So I don’t want to gloss over Stockton and Malone’s playoff struggles . . . but I do want to say that the amount of dominance they were capable of with even moderate help was considerable. That the Jazz’ management couldn’t get them that moderate help until both players were well into their 30s shouldn’t be held against them.

Anyhow. 1996. Stockton and Malone are awesome. Jeff Hornacek has integrated into the offense and is doing great (yay!!). The rest of the roster . . . you may note that the ‘96 Jazz have the lowest “Depth” rating, at -0.5%. It’s because the rest of their roster was garbage. Their starting small forward, David Benoit, was a 16% usage below average scorer with a 1:1 assist/turnover ratio who rebounded alright. Adam Keefe was their center; he was a decent scorer on 17% usage and rebounded well, but turned the ball over a ton and passed little. Bryon Russell and Greg Ostertag were on the roster but both were not yet at the point of contributing seriously.

It was a decidedly imperfect roster, but the Jazz managed to win 55 games, get the three-seed and post a +6.25 SRS, the 4th highest in the league. In the East were the fully re-Jordaned Bulls, but the West had its own tough teams (if not at that level), with the +7.4 Sonics getting the one-seed and the +6.0 Spurs getting the two-seed. So the ‘96 Jazz had had a good regular season, but there was no reason to expect them to be contenders.

In the first round the Jazz faced the +2.2 Blazers. The Jazz shut down the Blazers’ scoring (-4.7% as a team) and the Jazz shot well (+1.7%). Malone did his usual volume-but-no-efficiency thing (28/10/3 on -3.3% with 2.2 steals a game) but Hornacek and Stockton combined for 33.8 points on +9.3% or better, and the role players (Ostertag and Bryon Russell specifically) shot well. The Jazz won by 10 points a game, but it was a weird series, with the Blazers’ wins by 3 and 8 points, and the Jazz winning their home games by 8, 15 and 38 (they were up by 32 after three quarters). It was a pretty dominant first round.
In the semis they faced the Spurs (+7.3) who had just whipped through the Suns by eleven points a game. The Spurs were led by David Robinson, who had his own history of carrying a weak cast and struggling to score in the playoffs. This series would be no exception. Robinson would average a 19/9/2 on -0.9% shooting (1.7 steals and 2.5 blocks) while Malone averaged a 25/9/5 on -4.2%. But the rest of the Jazz shot extremely well (+2.5% as a team), with Bryon Russell and Chris Morris both shooting well, where the Spurs’ entire cast couldn’t shoot. The Jazz dominated by 11.7 points a game. Again, their home court advantage was bizarrely strong; they went 1-2 on the road (-0.7 MoV) but 3-0 at home (+24 MoV). They had absolutely crushed a really good team; that +19 SRS eq is one of the most impressive series results we’ve seen so far. Was David Robinson (and by derivation, teams where he was clearly the best player) a weaker playoff player than regular season player? Definitely. So does that mean that the Spurs probably aren’t quite as good as their OSRS here? Probably. I’m not moved. Crushing a +5 OSRS (instead of a +7.3) team by 11 a game is still damn impressive.

They advanced to the Conference Finals, suddenly looking like the team to beat (in the West anyways). And there they faced the ‘96 Sonics, who had just crushed the ‘96 Rockets by 11.7 points a game in a clean sweep. It was to be a strange series. The Home/Away split continued: at home their MoV was +17.7; away it was -8.8. But, unfortunately, the Jazz were not the higher seed and so more games were in Seattle. The Jazz had an advantage on the boards (Malone posted an insane DReb% to keep Shawn Kemp at bay) and forced the Sonics to turn the ball over frequently (combining for about ten shots a game). Jeff Hornacek shot well (20/4/4 on +10.4%) but Malone averaged a 27/12/5 on -3.4% (2 steals a game) and Stockton struggled against Payton with a 10/3/8 on -8.3%. The Jazz as a team shot -0.7%, which shouldn’t have been too much of a problem if they’d been able to stop the Sonics. That said, the Sonics scored well (+4.4% as a team) and Shawn Kemp ran amok with a 20/10/1 on +20.4%. When the smoke cleared the Jazz had outscored the Sonics by 2.6 points a game, but had lost in seven.

14 | Bulls
13 |
12 |
11 |
10 | Jazz
9 |
8 | Sonics
7 |
6 | Magic
5 | Knicks
4 | Spurs
3 | Lakers
2 | Pacers
1 | Hawks, Rockets
0 | Cavs, Pistons, Blazers, Bullets
-0 | Hornets
-1 | Heat, Suns, Kings, Warriors
-2 | Nuggets
-3 | Celtics, Clippers
-4 | Nets, Bucks, Mavericks
-5 | TWolves
-6 |
-7 | Raptors
-8 |
-9 | 76ers, Grizzlies
-10|

What to make of this season? Well, first, I was quite surprised to see it this high. But it’s kind of obvious why they made it. Every series was a +10 SRS eq performance. They crushed a decent team, crushed a good-to-very-good team and then seemingly outperformed the extremely good Sonics. That their home court advantage (or away disadvantage) was so extreme leads to lots of longer series, but their margins of victory speak for themselves. Do I think that they were better than the Sonics? . . . probably. You can’t really attack their playoff opponents; those were strong teams (even if the Spurs probably weren’t as good as they looked).

So look at that league breakdown. This is a pretty lopsided league. We’ve got two teams worse than -9, two teams at +10 or higher with a surprisingly low number of teams grouped around zero. I don’t think it’s a really hard sell to think that the Jazz were the 2nd best team that year (and being 2nd to the ‘96 Bulls is forgivable). The ‘96 Jazz really stand out from the rest of the teams here, and the formula is giving them credit for it.

Do I think that they’re ranked too high? Yes. Much of their ranking comes from their PSRS, and much of that comes from them blowing out teams. Of their 18 playoff games they had six wins by more than 20 points, three by more than 30 and two by 35 or more. They deserve credit for proving their dominance so convincingly . . . but probably not as much as they got. I’d feel more comfortable with this team in the 50s.

Still. One of the underrated subplots of ‘96 was that the Jazz’ role-players really stepped up in the playoffs (particularly Bryon Russell), which was to set up the Jazz’ excellent ‘97 run.

Back to the Main Thread

Interesting to see that while the Jazz's depth was poor (based on VORP) during the regular-season, it did pick up during the post-season. In fact, I recently did some analyses to identify the "top" 3-year offensive stretches for wingmen during the playoffs from 1985 to 2020, using OBPM augmented with relative TS% and team offensive performance in the playoffs (relative ORtg), and Byron Russel's stretch from 1994-1996 managed to pop up quite high in my list (#22 out of 193):

Code: Select all

             Name     Period  Games    MP   PTS  AST  TOV  rTS%  OBPM  Tm_rORtg
22  Bryon Russell  1994-1996     13  31.0  12.5  1.5  0.6  11.9   3.7       7.4

Mind you, looking closer at the data you can hardly call this a stretch. Using a threshold of at least 18 minutes being played in a game during this period meant that of the 13 games, 12 were played in 1996. And 13 games is, of course, a (relatively) small sample size, but he was scoring at a ridiculously efficient rate (+11.9 rTS%).

So like you pointed out in the last sentence of your post, it was was not all Malone, Stockton, and Hornachek during the playoffs in '96.

Also, I don't want to distract too much from the subject, but since you wrote "It is impossible to overemphasize how little help Stockton and Malone had. First, they weren’t given a third option until 1994." I'm curious to know what you think about the likes of Thurl Bailey, Jeff Malone, and Tyrone Corbin as third options?

I guess related to that would be the question: What would make a decent third option for Stockton & Malone? Obviously someone like Hornachek, but I would argue he's not merely a decent third option, these are his playoff numbers (adjusted for pace) from 1989 to 1992:

Code: Select all

        MP   PTS  AST  TOV  rTS%  OBPM  Tm_rORtg
mean  36.1  16.0  4.1  1.7   3.6   2.0       6.0

So not only did he bring relatively efficient scoring at a decent rate to the table, he basically brought a lot of play-making as well. How common are these type of third options?

It's just very curious for me that two players widely considered top-20 all-time on this board, more often lead their team to first-round exists than conference finals before Hornachek arrived, especially considering as you noted that Stockton was arguably at his peak earlier in the decade (" Stockton actually got worse (if not by a ton) as the decade progressed."). Yes they faced very tough opposition, but since we are talking about top-20 players I think it's fair to be extra critical. Did Lebron have anyone as impactful as Hornachek when he dragged that Cleveland team to the finals in 2009? So why wouldn't two top-20 all-time players do something similar (without having someone as impactful as Hornachek)?

Ancalagon · Post #3 » by **Ancalagon** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 6:50 pm

I’d be interested to watch that Jazz-Sonics series again, particularly as an older and (more) unbiased observer. The buzz on Utah sports radio at the time was that the Jazz got screwed in the games in Seattle, particularly the games officiated by Ronnie Nunn.

I can’t find the game log of games he officiated, but I do see on basketball-reference that he officiated six playoff games that year with the home team winning by 12.2 ppg (5.7 points above league average).

I have absolutely no idea if there is any validity to this line of thinking.

colts18 · Post #4 » by **colts18** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:11 pm

WestGOAT wrote:
sansterre wrote:Glossary:

Spoiler:
Overall SRS: My combo-SRS from the regular season and playoffs as discussed in the master thread
Standard Deviations: Standard Deviations of Overall SRS from the league mean.

When I post the roster makeup of the team, I try and do it by playoff minutes. The numbers are age, regular season BPM and Playoff BPM (basketball-reference's BPM is being used here).

So if I say: "C: Vlade Divac (22), +2.3 / +4.3" I mean that Vlade Divac was their center, he was 22, he had a BPM of +2.3 in the regular season and a +4.3 in the playoffs. Yes, BPM misses out on a lot of subtle stuff but I thought it a good quick-hits indicator of the skills of the players.

I also list the playoff players (20+ MPG) in order of OLoad (which is usage that integrates assists) and it has everyone's per game average for minutes, points, rebounds, assists and stocks (steals plus blocks), but all of those (including minutes) are adjusted for pace.

I then cover the three highest players in scoring per 100 (with their true shooting relative to league average) and the three highest players in Assists per 100. I realize that these are arbitrary, but I wanted a quick-hits reference for how these teams' offenses ran.

I then talk about Heliocentrism, Wingmen and Depth. Basically I add up all of the team's VORP (again, basketball-reference) and then figure out what percentage of that VORP comes from the #1 player (Heliocentrism), from the #2 and 3 players combined (Wingmen) and Depth (everyone else). I include the ranking among the top 100 for reference. There are only 82 of these rankings, because 18 teams pre-date BPM/VORP, so I only have 82 to work with. I'm not saying that these are particularly meaningful, I just thought they were cool.

Playoff Offensive Rating: Amount by which your playoff offensive rating exceeds the offensive rating you'd expect given the regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents. If you would be expected to post a 99 given your opponents but you post a 104, that's graded as +5. This way we can compare across eras.
Playoff Defensive Rating is the same as Offensive Rating, just the opposite.
Playoff SRS: Is SRS measured *only* in the playoffs. Overall SRS is a mix of both playoffs and regular season.
Total SRS Increase Through Playoffs: Basically their Overall SRS minus their Regular Season SRS. This is basically how much better a team did in the playoffs than you'd guess, relative to their regular season performance.
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: The average regular season offensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Average Playoff Opponent Defense: The average regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents.

Rankings of any kind are out of my list. So if I say that the '91 Lakers had the 42nd best regular season offense, I don't mean "42nd best of All-Time", I mean "42nd best of my Top 100 Teams of All_Time". Which will be pretty comparable, but I want to be clear about this.

I also walk through the playoffs at each round, covering their opponent their SRS (at that time), how many games the series was, the margin of victory (and a "+" is always in the favor of the discussed team; losing a series by +2.0 means that you outscored the other team by two points a game on average despite losing) and for reference I put in an SRS equivalency (beat a +5 SRS team by 5 points a game, that's an equivalent +10 SRS series).

In writeups, if I ever say a player shot at "-8%" or something, that means "his true shooting was 8% lower than the league average that year". Any time I say "a player shot" and follow it by a percent, I am *always* using true shooting percentage unless otherwise indicated.

I also have a modern comps section for any teams pre-2011. It's basically me weighting each statistical characteristic and feeding each player's stats into the BackPicks database and choosing the best-rated comp from the list. I might list something like this:

PG: 2017 LeBron James (worse rebounding, better passing, way fewer shots)

What I mean is, "This team's point guard was basically 2017 LeBron James, but make his passing better, make his rebounding worse and make him take way fewer shots).

Anyhow. I don't know how clear any of this will be, so please let me know what does and doesn't work from these writeups. And thanks for reading!

#37. The 1996 Utah Jazz
Spoiler:
Overall SRS: +10.86, Standard Deviations: +1.94, Lost in Conference Finals (Preseason 8th)

Regular Season Record: 55-27, Regular Season SRS: +6.25 (65th), Earned the 3 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +5.7 (20th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -1.5 (80th)

PG: John Stockton, +6.8 / +3.9
SG: Jeff Hornacek, +4.4 / +6.1
SF: Bryon Russell, -1.6 / +6.6
PF: Karl Malone, +7.0 / +6.0
C: Felton Spencer, -4.5 / -5.9

Karl Malone (PF, 32): 42 MPPG, 29% OLoad, 29 / 11 / 5 / 3 on +3.3%
John Stockton (PG, 33): 40 MPPG, 24% OLoad, 16 / 3 / 12 / 2 on +10.0%
Jeff Hornacek (SG, 32): 35 MPPG, 21% OLoad, 17 / 3 / 5 / 2 on +7.7%
Bryon Russell (SF, 25): 11 MPPG, 16% OLoad, 3 / 2 / 1 / 1 on -3.5%
Felton Spencer (C, 28): 20 MPPG, 14% OLoad, 6 / 5 / 0 / 1 on +2.8%

Scoring/100: Karl Malone (36.1 / +3.3%), Jeff Hornacek (25.7 / +7.7%), John Stockton (22.1 / +10.0%)
Assists/100: John Stockton (16.8), Jeff Hornacek (7.0), Karl Malone (5.9)

Heliocentrism: 40.3% (32nd of 84 teams) - Malone
Wingmen: 60.2% (1st) - Stockton & Hornacek
Depth: -0.5% (84th)

Playoff Offensive Rating: +6.74 (34th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -8.27 (16th)
Playoff SRS: +13.87 (17th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +4.61 (11th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +1.47 (71st), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -4.64 (3rd)

Playoff Heliocentrism: 27.5% (73rd of 84 teams) - Malone
Playoff Wingmen: 45.1% (21st) - Hornacek & Stockton
Playoff Depth: 27.4% (33rd)

Round 1: Portland Trail Blazers (+2.2), won 3-2, by +10.0 points a game (+12.2 SRS eq)
Round 2: San Antonio Spurs (+7.3), won 4-2, by +11.7 points a game (+19.0 SRS eq)
Round 3: Seattle SuperSonics (+8.0), lost 3-4, by +2.6 points a game (+10.6 SRS eq)
Round 4:

In the 1984 draft, with the 16th pick overall, the Utah Jazz picked John Stockton. By 1988 he was arguably the second best point guard in the league (that’s what you’re competing for when Magic is still healthy). In the 1985 draft, with the 13th overall pick the Utah Jazz selected Karl Malone. Malone took a few years to get going, but by 1989 he was one of the better players in the league. So with mid-first rounders, the Jazz selected Top 25 players with back to back picks. This may be the best back-to-back pair of mid-first round picks that have ever been made by any team ever. There’s an obvious conclusion here:

They must be freakin’ geniuses.

And the Utah Jazz’ management would work as hard as possible to undo that reputation for the next decade.

It is impossible to overemphasize how little help Stockton and Malone had. First, they weren’t given a third option until 1994. And second, their bench was legitimately awful. From 1990 to 1993 the Jazz averaged 99% of their VORP coming from those two players. That is a serious problem. You may have divined from this list that not that many teams can be really good when 50% or more of their VORP is coming from one player. The average Helio score for their best player for teams on this list is 35%. Of the 6 Jordan Bulls teams, only one has a Helio score of higher than 42%. And Jordan was the freaking man. There is *one* team in the Top 17 with a Helio score above 50% (and two in the Top 37). So I hope you can appreciate that having two players combining for 100% of your VORP means that the rest of the roster is a barren wasteland. And look, BBR’s BPM is an imperfect tool. But I’m trying to make clear that if the Jazz had been able to add even one decent #3 and a tolerable bench they’d have owned the decade. In the West anyways . . .

Compounding the problem was that Malone and Stockton seemed to get worse in the playoffs. From ‘90 to ‘97:

Malone (RS): 30.2% Usage, 59.4% shooting, 16.8% Reb, 17.1% Ast, 11.3% TO, 3.5% Stk, 6.4 BPM
Malone (PS): 31.4% Usage, 53.2% shooting, 16.6% Reb, 15.2% Ast, 9.4% TO, 3.4% Stk, 5.2 BPM

Stockton (RS): 19.6% Usage, 61.6% shooting, 4.8% Reb, 52.5% Ast, 20.7% TO, 3.9% Stk, 7.9 BPM
Stockton (PS): 19.6% Usage, 56.6% shooting, 5.4% Reb, 49.0% Ast, 19.3% TO, 3.1% Stk, 6.1 BPM

Everything stayed basically the same except that their shooting imploded. Was this the result of inherent limitations in their skills? Was this the result of having almost no help from the rest of their team for most of this timeframe? Was this the result of Jerry Sloan’s fairly predictable style of offense being easier to defend in the playoffs? Probably some of all of the above.

Anyhow. Here’s the list of those years, with the percent of VORP those two players were in the regular season / playoffs, and their regular season SRS and how far they got:

1990: 94% / 50% (+4.82, 1st round)
1991: 104% / 90% (+3.18, 2nd round)
1992: 85% / 83% (+5.7, Conf Finals)
1993: 113% / 86% (+1.74 / 1st round)
1994: 92% / 79% (+4.1 / Conf Finals)
1995: 72% / 58% (+7.76 / 1st Round)
1996: 78% / 47% (+6.25 / Conf Finals)
1997: 71% / 55% (+7.97 / NBA Finals)

Notice anything big happening in 1995? Their regular season scores never go above 80% after that, and their playoff scores are considerably lower. What happened? They picked up Jeff Hornacek late in 1994, and suddenly the Jazz had help. Suddenly the team jumped in quality. Here are the averages:

1990-93 (pre-Hornacek): 99% / +3.86
1995-97 (with Hornacek): 74% / +7.33

Basically, as soon as the Jazz added Hornacek (who was an ideal complement to the team) they jumped from a pretty good team to an outstanding team. We know it wasn’t because Stockton and Malone were getting better; Stockton actually got worse (if not by a ton) as the decade progressed. And Hornacek was *not* worth a 3.5 point SRS jump in the abstract. For the mid-90s Jazz he was like water in the desert. Do you know what it kind of reminds me of? The late aughts Cavs. LeBron (or Malone and Stockton in this case) were good enough to keep the team relevant and management basically either a) did nothing to help or b) tried to help and mostly failed. So I don’t want to gloss over Stockton and Malone’s playoff struggles . . . but I do want to say that the amount of dominance they were capable of with even moderate help was considerable. That the Jazz’ management couldn’t get them that moderate help until both players were well into their 30s shouldn’t be held against them.

Anyhow. 1996. Stockton and Malone are awesome. Jeff Hornacek has integrated into the offense and is doing great (yay!!). The rest of the roster . . . you may note that the ‘96 Jazz have the lowest “Depth” rating, at -0.5%. It’s because the rest of their roster was garbage. Their starting small forward, David Benoit, was a 16% usage below average scorer with a 1:1 assist/turnover ratio who rebounded alright. Adam Keefe was their center; he was a decent scorer on 17% usage and rebounded well, but turned the ball over a ton and passed little. Bryon Russell and Greg Ostertag were on the roster but both were not yet at the point of contributing seriously.

It was a decidedly imperfect roster, but the Jazz managed to win 55 games, get the three-seed and post a +6.25 SRS, the 4th highest in the league. In the East were the fully re-Jordaned Bulls, but the West had its own tough teams (if not at that level), with the +7.4 Sonics getting the one-seed and the +6.0 Spurs getting the two-seed. So the ‘96 Jazz had had a good regular season, but there was no reason to expect them to be contenders.

In the first round the Jazz faced the +2.2 Blazers. The Jazz shut down the Blazers’ scoring (-4.7% as a team) and the Jazz shot well (+1.7%). Malone did his usual volume-but-no-efficiency thing (28/10/3 on -3.3% with 2.2 steals a game) but Hornacek and Stockton combined for 33.8 points on +9.3% or better, and the role players (Ostertag and Bryon Russell specifically) shot well. The Jazz won by 10 points a game, but it was a weird series, with the Blazers’ wins by 3 and 8 points, and the Jazz winning their home games by 8, 15 and 38 (they were up by 32 after three quarters). It was a pretty dominant first round.
In the semis they faced the Spurs (+7.3) who had just whipped through the Suns by eleven points a game. The Spurs were led by David Robinson, who had his own history of carrying a weak cast and struggling to score in the playoffs. This series would be no exception. Robinson would average a 19/9/2 on -0.9% shooting (1.7 steals and 2.5 blocks) while Malone averaged a 25/9/5 on -4.2%. But the rest of the Jazz shot extremely well (+2.5% as a team), with Bryon Russell and Chris Morris both shooting well, where the Spurs’ entire cast couldn’t shoot. The Jazz dominated by 11.7 points a game. Again, their home court advantage was bizarrely strong; they went 1-2 on the road (-0.7 MoV) but 3-0 at home (+24 MoV). They had absolutely crushed a really good team; that +19 SRS eq is one of the most impressive series results we’ve seen so far. Was David Robinson (and by derivation, teams where he was clearly the best player) a weaker playoff player than regular season player? Definitely. So does that mean that the Spurs probably aren’t quite as good as their OSRS here? Probably. I’m not moved. Crushing a +5 OSRS (instead of a +7.3) team by 11 a game is still damn impressive.

They advanced to the Conference Finals, suddenly looking like the team to beat (in the West anyways). And there they faced the ‘96 Sonics, who had just crushed the ‘96 Rockets by 11.7 points a game in a clean sweep. It was to be a strange series. The Home/Away split continued: at home their MoV was +17.7; away it was -8.8. But, unfortunately, the Jazz were not the higher seed and so more games were in Seattle. The Jazz had an advantage on the boards (Malone posted an insane DReb% to keep Shawn Kemp at bay) and forced the Sonics to turn the ball over frequently (combining for about ten shots a game). Jeff Hornacek shot well (20/4/4 on +10.4%) but Malone averaged a 27/12/5 on -3.4% (2 steals a game) and Stockton struggled against Payton with a 10/3/8 on -8.3%. The Jazz as a team shot -0.7%, which shouldn’t have been too much of a problem if they’d been able to stop the Sonics. That said, the Sonics scored well (+4.4% as a team) and Shawn Kemp ran amok with a 20/10/1 on +20.4%. When the smoke cleared the Jazz had outscored the Sonics by 2.6 points a game, but had lost in seven.

14 | Bulls
13 |
12 |
11 |
10 | Jazz
9 |
8 | Sonics
7 |
6 | Magic
5 | Knicks
4 | Spurs
3 | Lakers
2 | Pacers
1 | Hawks, Rockets
0 | Cavs, Pistons, Blazers, Bullets
-0 | Hornets
-1 | Heat, Suns, Kings, Warriors
-2 | Nuggets
-3 | Celtics, Clippers
-4 | Nets, Bucks, Mavericks
-5 | TWolves
-6 |
-7 | Raptors
-8 |
-9 | 76ers, Grizzlies
-10|

What to make of this season? Well, first, I was quite surprised to see it this high. But it’s kind of obvious why they made it. Every series was a +10 SRS eq performance. They crushed a decent team, crushed a good-to-very-good team and then seemingly outperformed the extremely good Sonics. That their home court advantage (or away disadvantage) was so extreme leads to lots of longer series, but their margins of victory speak for themselves. Do I think that they were better than the Sonics? . . . probably. You can’t really attack their playoff opponents; those were strong teams (even if the Spurs probably weren’t as good as they looked).

So look at that league breakdown. This is a pretty lopsided league. We’ve got two teams worse than -9, two teams at +10 or higher with a surprisingly low number of teams grouped around zero. I don’t think it’s a really hard sell to think that the Jazz were the 2nd best team that year (and being 2nd to the ‘96 Bulls is forgivable). The ‘96 Jazz really stand out from the rest of the teams here, and the formula is giving them credit for it.

Do I think that they’re ranked too high? Yes. Much of their ranking comes from their PSRS, and much of that comes from them blowing out teams. Of their 18 playoff games they had six wins by more than 20 points, three by more than 30 and two by 35 or more. They deserve credit for proving their dominance so convincingly . . . but probably not as much as they got. I’d feel more comfortable with this team in the 50s.

Still. One of the underrated subplots of ‘96 was that the Jazz’ role-players really stepped up in the playoffs (particularly Bryon Russell), which was to set up the Jazz’ excellent ‘97 run.

Back to the Main Thread

Interesting to see that while the Jazz's depth was poor (based on VORP) during the regular-season, it did pick up during the post-season. In fact, I recently did some analyses to identify the "top" 3-year offensive stretches for wingmen during the playoffs from 1985 to 2020, using OBPM augmented with relative TS% and team offensive performance in the playoffs (relative ORtg), and Byron Russel's stretch from 1994-1996 managed to pop up quite high in my list (#22 out of 193):

Code: Select all
Name Period Games MP PTS AST TOV rTS% OBPM Tm_rORtg 22 Bryon Russell 1994-1996 13 31.0 12.5 1.5 0.6 11.9 3.7 7.4

Mind you, looking closer at the data you can hardly call this a stretch. Using a threshold of at least 18 minutes being played in a game during this period meant that of the 13 games, 12 were played in 1996. And 13 games is, of course, a (relatively) small sample size, but he was scoring at a ridiculously efficient rate (+11.9 rTS%).

So like you pointed out in the last sentence of your post, it was was not all Malone, Stockton, and Hornachek during the playoffs in '96.

Also, I don't want to distract too much from the subject, but since you wrote "It is impossible to overemphasize how little help Stockton and Malone had. First, they weren’t given a third option until 1994." I'm curious to know what you think about the likes of Thurl Bailey, Jeff Malone, and Tyrone Corbin as third options?

I guess related to that would be the question: What would make a decent third option for Stockton & Malone? Obviously someone like Hornachek, but I would argue he's not merely a decent third option, these are his playoff numbers (adjusted for pace) from 1989 to 1992:
Code: Select all
MP PTS AST TOV rTS% OBPM Tm_rORtg mean 36.1 16.0 4.1 1.7 3.6 2.0 6.0

So not only did he bring relatively efficient scoring at a decent rate to the table, he basically brought a lot of play-making as well. How common are these type of third options?

It's just very curious for me that two players widely considered top-20 all-time on this board, more often lead their team to first-round exists than conference finals before Hornachek arrived, especially considering as you noted that Stockton was arguably at his peak earlier in the decade (" Stockton actually got worse (if not by a ton) as the decade progressed."). Yes they faced very tough opposition, but since we are talking about top-20 players I think it's fair to be extra critical. Did Lebron have anyone as impactful as Hornachek when he dragged that Cleveland team to the finals in 2009? So why wouldn't two top-20 all-time players do something similar (without having someone as impactful as Hornachek)?

The Jazz cast was pre-Hornacek was awful. They had zero above average starters alongside the team and the bench was historically bad too. Here is how that cast compared to the casts of other star players.

88-94 (Doesn't include Stockton/Malone):
# of players with 1+ VORP: 7
2+ VORP: 0
2+ BPM (Min. 1000 MP): 0 (best BPM is Mark Eaton 0.6)

90-96 Spurs (Robinson):
1+ VORP: 22
2+ VORP: 11
2+ BPM: 2

98-04 Lakers (Shaq and Kobe):
1+ VORP: 15
2+ VORP: 6
2+ BPM: 7

87-93 Bulls (MJ and Pippen):
1+ VORP: 9
2+ VORP: 4
2+ BPM: 2

80-86 Lakers (Magic and Kareem):
1+ VORP: 19
2+ VORP: 6
2+ BPM: 2

01-07 Spurs (Duncan):
1+ VORP: 37
2+ VORP: 13
2+ BPM: 20

The Jazz had 0 2+ VORP players in that span while the other franchises averaged 8 of them. The Jazz supporting cast was significantly behind the other teams.

Hornacek was a beast for the Jazz but you have to remember that he was 30 years old when he was traded to the Jazz. He was 34 and 35 years old in the finals against the Bulls. If he was younger, they would have for sure beat the Bulls both years.

Thurl Bailey was not a 3rd option. He was a 6' 11 player who sucked at rebounding (career high 16.5 PPG). Solid jump shooter. He was very reliant on Stockton getting him the ball because he couldn't beat defenders 1 on 1. Only 1 career season with an above average BPM.

lol @ even mentioning Tyrone Corbin as a 3rd option. There is a reason why he played on 9 franchises during his career.

Jeff Malone was not a good 3rd option at all. He could score but his efficiency was average. His midrange stroke was lethal. Unfortunately, He HATED the 3 point shot. Hated it. That lowered his efficiency. He didn't get to the line much either. Outside of scoring, he contributed absolutely nothing. Couldn't pass. Couldn't rebound. Was a turnstyle on defense. That's why his career high BPM is 0.0. He holds the distinction for having a record 5 seasons of 20+ PPG and a negative BPM. That's truly astonishing.

#3 on the list was also a member of the Stockton/Malone Jazz.

LeBron

LeBron's "drag" of the Cavs to the finals consisted of 1 series vs Detroit. The rest of his competition was a joke. He played the 41-41 Wizards and Nets, both teams with negative SRS. Then he beat a Pistons team that only won 53 games in a weak East. That's nothing special. By contrast, in the 90's alone the Jazz faced 16 different teams in the playoffs that won more than 53 games (7-9 record). When LeBron faced comparable competition, the Spurs, his team got swept.

Jordan Syndrome · Post #5 » by **Jordan Syndrome** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:28 pm

colts18 wrote:LeBron's "drag" of the Cavs to the finals consisted of 1 series vs Detroit. The rest of his competition was a joke. He played the 41-41 Wizards and Nets, both teams with negative SRS. Then he beat a Pistons team that only won 53 games in a weak East. That's nothing special. By contrast, in the 90's alone the Jazz faced 16 different teams in the playoffs that won more than 53 games (7-9 record). When LeBron faced comparable competition, the Spurs, his team got swept.

This makes no sense.

The Cavalier were a 3.33 SRS team. They beat a 3.56 SRS team in the conference finals (A comparable team, no?).

The Spurs were a 8.35 SRS team.

How in the world were the Cavaliers at 3.33 SRS comparable to the Spurs at 8.35?

colts18 · Post #6 » by **colts18** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:32 pm

Ancalagon wrote:I’d be interested to watch that Jazz-Sonics series again, particularly as an older and (more) unbiased observer. The buzz on Utah sports radio at the time was that the Jazz got screwed in the games in Seattle, particularly the games officiated by Ronnie Nunn.

I can’t find the game log of games he officiated, but I do see on basketball-reference that he officiated six playoff games that year with the home team winning by 12.2 ppg (5.7 points above league average).

I have absolutely no idea if there is any validity to this line of thinking.

The Jazz lost because of two reasons:

1. John Stockton's elbow injury causing him to play the worst series of his career.

2. Karl Malone sucking in the clutch at Free Throws. A career long theme for him. In game 4, he shoots 3-8 from the free throw line in a game the Jazz lost by 2 including missing a free throw with under 2 minutes left. Then in the crucial game 7 that the Jazz lost by 4, Malone shoots 6-12 from the free throw line including going 0-2 when he went to the line in the final 15 seconds of the game down by 3.

colts18 · Post #7 » by **colts18** » Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:42 pm

Jordan Syndrome wrote:
colts18 wrote:LeBron's "drag" of the Cavs to the finals consisted of 1 series vs Detroit. The rest of his competition was a joke. He played the 41-41 Wizards and Nets, both teams with negative SRS. Then he beat a Pistons team that only won 53 games in a weak East. That's nothing special. By contrast, in the 90's alone the Jazz faced 16 different teams in the playoffs that won more than 53 games (7-9 record). When LeBron faced comparable competition, the Spurs, his team got swept.

This makes no sense.

The Cavalier were a 3.33 SRS team. They beat a 3.56 SRS team in the conference finals (A comparable team, no?).

The Spurs were a 8.35 SRS team.

How in the world were the Cavaliers at 3.33 SRS comparable to the Spurs at 8.35?

Comparable competition to what the Jazz were facing. The Jazz were facing a 7 SRS Suns team in the 1st round. LeBron otoh got to face 2 .500 teams in the first 2 rounds. Beating 1 decent team is a whole lot easier than beating 3 decent teams. I mean the Jazz beat the 91 Suns, 94 Spurs, 96 Spurs, 97 Lakers, 97 Rockets, 98 Spurs, 98 Lakers who were all better than that Pistons team.

sansterre · Post #8 » by **sansterre** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 12:46 pm

Bump for Team #36, the 2002 Los Angeles Lakers!

colts18 · Post #9 » by **colts18** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 7:53 pm

colts18 wrote:
WestGOAT wrote:
sansterre wrote:Glossary:

Spoiler:
Overall SRS: My combo-SRS from the regular season and playoffs as discussed in the master thread
Standard Deviations: Standard Deviations of Overall SRS from the league mean.

When I post the roster makeup of the team, I try and do it by playoff minutes. The numbers are age, regular season BPM and Playoff BPM (basketball-reference's BPM is being used here).

So if I say: "C: Vlade Divac (22), +2.3 / +4.3" I mean that Vlade Divac was their center, he was 22, he had a BPM of +2.3 in the regular season and a +4.3 in the playoffs. Yes, BPM misses out on a lot of subtle stuff but I thought it a good quick-hits indicator of the skills of the players.

I also list the playoff players (20+ MPG) in order of OLoad (which is usage that integrates assists) and it has everyone's per game average for minutes, points, rebounds, assists and stocks (steals plus blocks), but all of those (including minutes) are adjusted for pace.

I then cover the three highest players in scoring per 100 (with their true shooting relative to league average) and the three highest players in Assists per 100. I realize that these are arbitrary, but I wanted a quick-hits reference for how these teams' offenses ran.

I then talk about Heliocentrism, Wingmen and Depth. Basically I add up all of the team's VORP (again, basketball-reference) and then figure out what percentage of that VORP comes from the #1 player (Heliocentrism), from the #2 and 3 players combined (Wingmen) and Depth (everyone else). I include the ranking among the top 100 for reference. There are only 82 of these rankings, because 18 teams pre-date BPM/VORP, so I only have 82 to work with. I'm not saying that these are particularly meaningful, I just thought they were cool.

Playoff Offensive Rating: Amount by which your playoff offensive rating exceeds the offensive rating you'd expect given the regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents. If you would be expected to post a 99 given your opponents but you post a 104, that's graded as +5. This way we can compare across eras.
Playoff Defensive Rating is the same as Offensive Rating, just the opposite.
Playoff SRS: Is SRS measured *only* in the playoffs. Overall SRS is a mix of both playoffs and regular season.
Total SRS Increase Through Playoffs: Basically their Overall SRS minus their Regular Season SRS. This is basically how much better a team did in the playoffs than you'd guess, relative to their regular season performance.
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: The average regular season offensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Average Playoff Opponent Defense: The average regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents.

Rankings of any kind are out of my list. So if I say that the '91 Lakers had the 42nd best regular season offense, I don't mean "42nd best of All-Time", I mean "42nd best of my Top 100 Teams of All_Time". Which will be pretty comparable, but I want to be clear about this.

I also walk through the playoffs at each round, covering their opponent their SRS (at that time), how many games the series was, the margin of victory (and a "+" is always in the favor of the discussed team; losing a series by +2.0 means that you outscored the other team by two points a game on average despite losing) and for reference I put in an SRS equivalency (beat a +5 SRS team by 5 points a game, that's an equivalent +10 SRS series).

In writeups, if I ever say a player shot at "-8%" or something, that means "his true shooting was 8% lower than the league average that year". Any time I say "a player shot" and follow it by a percent, I am *always* using true shooting percentage unless otherwise indicated.

I also have a modern comps section for any teams pre-2011. It's basically me weighting each statistical characteristic and feeding each player's stats into the BackPicks database and choosing the best-rated comp from the list. I might list something like this:

PG: 2017 LeBron James (worse rebounding, better passing, way fewer shots)

What I mean is, "This team's point guard was basically 2017 LeBron James, but make his passing better, make his rebounding worse and make him take way fewer shots).

Anyhow. I don't know how clear any of this will be, so please let me know what does and doesn't work from these writeups. And thanks for reading!

#37. The 1996 Utah Jazz
Spoiler:
Overall SRS: +10.86, Standard Deviations: +1.94, Lost in Conference Finals (Preseason 8th)

Regular Season Record: 55-27, Regular Season SRS: +6.25 (65th), Earned the 3 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +5.7 (20th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -1.5 (80th)

PG: John Stockton, +6.8 / +3.9
SG: Jeff Hornacek, +4.4 / +6.1
SF: Bryon Russell, -1.6 / +6.6
PF: Karl Malone, +7.0 / +6.0
C: Felton Spencer, -4.5 / -5.9

Karl Malone (PF, 32): 42 MPPG, 29% OLoad, 29 / 11 / 5 / 3 on +3.3%
John Stockton (PG, 33): 40 MPPG, 24% OLoad, 16 / 3 / 12 / 2 on +10.0%
Jeff Hornacek (SG, 32): 35 MPPG, 21% OLoad, 17 / 3 / 5 / 2 on +7.7%
Bryon Russell (SF, 25): 11 MPPG, 16% OLoad, 3 / 2 / 1 / 1 on -3.5%
Felton Spencer (C, 28): 20 MPPG, 14% OLoad, 6 / 5 / 0 / 1 on +2.8%

Scoring/100: Karl Malone (36.1 / +3.3%), Jeff Hornacek (25.7 / +7.7%), John Stockton (22.1 / +10.0%)
Assists/100: John Stockton (16.8), Jeff Hornacek (7.0), Karl Malone (5.9)

Heliocentrism: 40.3% (32nd of 84 teams) - Malone
Wingmen: 60.2% (1st) - Stockton & Hornacek
Depth: -0.5% (84th)

Playoff Offensive Rating: +6.74 (34th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -8.27 (16th)
Playoff SRS: +13.87 (17th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +4.61 (11th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +1.47 (71st), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -4.64 (3rd)

Playoff Heliocentrism: 27.5% (73rd of 84 teams) - Malone
Playoff Wingmen: 45.1% (21st) - Hornacek & Stockton
Playoff Depth: 27.4% (33rd)

Round 1: Portland Trail Blazers (+2.2), won 3-2, by +10.0 points a game (+12.2 SRS eq)
Round 2: San Antonio Spurs (+7.3), won 4-2, by +11.7 points a game (+19.0 SRS eq)
Round 3: Seattle SuperSonics (+8.0), lost 3-4, by +2.6 points a game (+10.6 SRS eq)
Round 4:

In the 1984 draft, with the 16th pick overall, the Utah Jazz picked John Stockton. By 1988 he was arguably the second best point guard in the league (that’s what you’re competing for when Magic is still healthy). In the 1985 draft, with the 13th overall pick the Utah Jazz selected Karl Malone. Malone took a few years to get going, but by 1989 he was one of the better players in the league. So with mid-first rounders, the Jazz selected Top 25 players with back to back picks. This may be the best back-to-back pair of mid-first round picks that have ever been made by any team ever. There’s an obvious conclusion here:

They must be freakin’ geniuses.

And the Utah Jazz’ management would work as hard as possible to undo that reputation for the next decade.

It is impossible to overemphasize how little help Stockton and Malone had. First, they weren’t given a third option until 1994. And second, their bench was legitimately awful. From 1990 to 1993 the Jazz averaged 99% of their VORP coming from those two players. That is a serious problem. You may have divined from this list that not that many teams can be really good when 50% or more of their VORP is coming from one player. The average Helio score for their best player for teams on this list is 35%. Of the 6 Jordan Bulls teams, only one has a Helio score of higher than 42%. And Jordan was the freaking man. There is *one* team in the Top 17 with a Helio score above 50% (and two in the Top 37). So I hope you can appreciate that having two players combining for 100% of your VORP means that the rest of the roster is a barren wasteland. And look, BBR’s BPM is an imperfect tool. But I’m trying to make clear that if the Jazz had been able to add even one decent #3 and a tolerable bench they’d have owned the decade. In the West anyways . . .

Compounding the problem was that Malone and Stockton seemed to get worse in the playoffs. From ‘90 to ‘97:

Malone (RS): 30.2% Usage, 59.4% shooting, 16.8% Reb, 17.1% Ast, 11.3% TO, 3.5% Stk, 6.4 BPM
Malone (PS): 31.4% Usage, 53.2% shooting, 16.6% Reb, 15.2% Ast, 9.4% TO, 3.4% Stk, 5.2 BPM

Stockton (RS): 19.6% Usage, 61.6% shooting, 4.8% Reb, 52.5% Ast, 20.7% TO, 3.9% Stk, 7.9 BPM
Stockton (PS): 19.6% Usage, 56.6% shooting, 5.4% Reb, 49.0% Ast, 19.3% TO, 3.1% Stk, 6.1 BPM

Everything stayed basically the same except that their shooting imploded. Was this the result of inherent limitations in their skills? Was this the result of having almost no help from the rest of their team for most of this timeframe? Was this the result of Jerry Sloan’s fairly predictable style of offense being easier to defend in the playoffs? Probably some of all of the above.

Anyhow. Here’s the list of those years, with the percent of VORP those two players were in the regular season / playoffs, and their regular season SRS and how far they got:

1990: 94% / 50% (+4.82, 1st round)
1991: 104% / 90% (+3.18, 2nd round)
1992: 85% / 83% (+5.7, Conf Finals)
1993: 113% / 86% (+1.74 / 1st round)
1994: 92% / 79% (+4.1 / Conf Finals)
1995: 72% / 58% (+7.76 / 1st Round)
1996: 78% / 47% (+6.25 / Conf Finals)
1997: 71% / 55% (+7.97 / NBA Finals)

Notice anything big happening in 1995? Their regular season scores never go above 80% after that, and their playoff scores are considerably lower. What happened? They picked up Jeff Hornacek late in 1994, and suddenly the Jazz had help. Suddenly the team jumped in quality. Here are the averages:

1990-93 (pre-Hornacek): 99% / +3.86
1995-97 (with Hornacek): 74% / +7.33

Basically, as soon as the Jazz added Hornacek (who was an ideal complement to the team) they jumped from a pretty good team to an outstanding team. We know it wasn’t because Stockton and Malone were getting better; Stockton actually got worse (if not by a ton) as the decade progressed. And Hornacek was *not* worth a 3.5 point SRS jump in the abstract. For the mid-90s Jazz he was like water in the desert. Do you know what it kind of reminds me of? The late aughts Cavs. LeBron (or Malone and Stockton in this case) were good enough to keep the team relevant and management basically either a) did nothing to help or b) tried to help and mostly failed. So I don’t want to gloss over Stockton and Malone’s playoff struggles . . . but I do want to say that the amount of dominance they were capable of with even moderate help was considerable. That the Jazz’ management couldn’t get them that moderate help until both players were well into their 30s shouldn’t be held against them.

Anyhow. 1996. Stockton and Malone are awesome. Jeff Hornacek has integrated into the offense and is doing great (yay!!). The rest of the roster . . . you may note that the ‘96 Jazz have the lowest “Depth” rating, at -0.5%. It’s because the rest of their roster was garbage. Their starting small forward, David Benoit, was a 16% usage below average scorer with a 1:1 assist/turnover ratio who rebounded alright. Adam Keefe was their center; he was a decent scorer on 17% usage and rebounded well, but turned the ball over a ton and passed little. Bryon Russell and Greg Ostertag were on the roster but both were not yet at the point of contributing seriously.

It was a decidedly imperfect roster, but the Jazz managed to win 55 games, get the three-seed and post a +6.25 SRS, the 4th highest in the league. In the East were the fully re-Jordaned Bulls, but the West had its own tough teams (if not at that level), with the +7.4 Sonics getting the one-seed and the +6.0 Spurs getting the two-seed. So the ‘96 Jazz had had a good regular season, but there was no reason to expect them to be contenders.

In the first round the Jazz faced the +2.2 Blazers. The Jazz shut down the Blazers’ scoring (-4.7% as a team) and the Jazz shot well (+1.7%). Malone did his usual volume-but-no-efficiency thing (28/10/3 on -3.3% with 2.2 steals a game) but Hornacek and Stockton combined for 33.8 points on +9.3% or better, and the role players (Ostertag and Bryon Russell specifically) shot well. The Jazz won by 10 points a game, but it was a weird series, with the Blazers’ wins by 3 and 8 points, and the Jazz winning their home games by 8, 15 and 38 (they were up by 32 after three quarters). It was a pretty dominant first round.
In the semis they faced the Spurs (+7.3) who had just whipped through the Suns by eleven points a game. The Spurs were led by David Robinson, who had his own history of carrying a weak cast and struggling to score in the playoffs. This series would be no exception. Robinson would average a 19/9/2 on -0.9% shooting (1.7 steals and 2.5 blocks) while Malone averaged a 25/9/5 on -4.2%. But the rest of the Jazz shot extremely well (+2.5% as a team), with Bryon Russell and Chris Morris both shooting well, where the Spurs’ entire cast couldn’t shoot. The Jazz dominated by 11.7 points a game. Again, their home court advantage was bizarrely strong; they went 1-2 on the road (-0.7 MoV) but 3-0 at home (+24 MoV). They had absolutely crushed a really good team; that +19 SRS eq is one of the most impressive series results we’ve seen so far. Was David Robinson (and by derivation, teams where he was clearly the best player) a weaker playoff player than regular season player? Definitely. So does that mean that the Spurs probably aren’t quite as good as their OSRS here? Probably. I’m not moved. Crushing a +5 OSRS (instead of a +7.3) team by 11 a game is still damn impressive.

They advanced to the Conference Finals, suddenly looking like the team to beat (in the West anyways). And there they faced the ‘96 Sonics, who had just crushed the ‘96 Rockets by 11.7 points a game in a clean sweep. It was to be a strange series. The Home/Away split continued: at home their MoV was +17.7; away it was -8.8. But, unfortunately, the Jazz were not the higher seed and so more games were in Seattle. The Jazz had an advantage on the boards (Malone posted an insane DReb% to keep Shawn Kemp at bay) and forced the Sonics to turn the ball over frequently (combining for about ten shots a game). Jeff Hornacek shot well (20/4/4 on +10.4%) but Malone averaged a 27/12/5 on -3.4% (2 steals a game) and Stockton struggled against Payton with a 10/3/8 on -8.3%. The Jazz as a team shot -0.7%, which shouldn’t have been too much of a problem if they’d been able to stop the Sonics. That said, the Sonics scored well (+4.4% as a team) and Shawn Kemp ran amok with a 20/10/1 on +20.4%. When the smoke cleared the Jazz had outscored the Sonics by 2.6 points a game, but had lost in seven.

14 | Bulls
13 |
12 |
11 |
10 | Jazz
9 |
8 | Sonics
7 |
6 | Magic
5 | Knicks
4 | Spurs
3 | Lakers
2 | Pacers
1 | Hawks, Rockets
0 | Cavs, Pistons, Blazers, Bullets
-0 | Hornets
-1 | Heat, Suns, Kings, Warriors
-2 | Nuggets
-3 | Celtics, Clippers
-4 | Nets, Bucks, Mavericks
-5 | TWolves
-6 |
-7 | Raptors
-8 |
-9 | 76ers, Grizzlies
-10|

What to make of this season? Well, first, I was quite surprised to see it this high. But it’s kind of obvious why they made it. Every series was a +10 SRS eq performance. They crushed a decent team, crushed a good-to-very-good team and then seemingly outperformed the extremely good Sonics. That their home court advantage (or away disadvantage) was so extreme leads to lots of longer series, but their margins of victory speak for themselves. Do I think that they were better than the Sonics? . . . probably. You can’t really attack their playoff opponents; those were strong teams (even if the Spurs probably weren’t as good as they looked).

So look at that league breakdown. This is a pretty lopsided league. We’ve got two teams worse than -9, two teams at +10 or higher with a surprisingly low number of teams grouped around zero. I don’t think it’s a really hard sell to think that the Jazz were the 2nd best team that year (and being 2nd to the ‘96 Bulls is forgivable). The ‘96 Jazz really stand out from the rest of the teams here, and the formula is giving them credit for it.

Do I think that they’re ranked too high? Yes. Much of their ranking comes from their PSRS, and much of that comes from them blowing out teams. Of their 18 playoff games they had six wins by more than 20 points, three by more than 30 and two by 35 or more. They deserve credit for proving their dominance so convincingly . . . but probably not as much as they got. I’d feel more comfortable with this team in the 50s.

Still. One of the underrated subplots of ‘96 was that the Jazz’ role-players really stepped up in the playoffs (particularly Bryon Russell), which was to set up the Jazz’ excellent ‘97 run.

Back to the Main Thread

Interesting to see that while the Jazz's depth was poor (based on VORP) during the regular-season, it did pick up during the post-season. In fact, I recently did some analyses to identify the "top" 3-year offensive stretches for wingmen during the playoffs from 1985 to 2020, using OBPM augmented with relative TS% and team offensive performance in the playoffs (relative ORtg), and Byron Russel's stretch from 1994-1996 managed to pop up quite high in my list (#22 out of 193):

Code: Select all
Name Period Games MP PTS AST TOV rTS% OBPM Tm_rORtg 22 Bryon Russell 1994-1996 13 31.0 12.5 1.5 0.6 11.9 3.7 7.4

Mind you, looking closer at the data you can hardly call this a stretch. Using a threshold of at least 18 minutes being played in a game during this period meant that of the 13 games, 12 were played in 1996. And 13 games is, of course, a (relatively) small sample size, but he was scoring at a ridiculously efficient rate (+11.9 rTS%).

So like you pointed out in the last sentence of your post, it was was not all Malone, Stockton, and Hornachek during the playoffs in '96.

Also, I don't want to distract too much from the subject, but since you wrote "It is impossible to overemphasize how little help Stockton and Malone had. First, they weren’t given a third option until 1994." I'm curious to know what you think about the likes of Thurl Bailey, Jeff Malone, and Tyrone Corbin as third options?

I guess related to that would be the question: What would make a decent third option for Stockton & Malone? Obviously someone like Hornachek, but I would argue he's not merely a decent third option, these are his playoff numbers (adjusted for pace) from 1989 to 1992:
Code: Select all
MP PTS AST TOV rTS% OBPM Tm_rORtg mean 36.1 16.0 4.1 1.7 3.6 2.0 6.0

So not only did he bring relatively efficient scoring at a decent rate to the table, he basically brought a lot of play-making as well. How common are these type of third options?

It's just very curious for me that two players widely considered top-20 all-time on this board, more often lead their team to first-round exists than conference finals before Hornachek arrived, especially considering as you noted that Stockton was arguably at his peak earlier in the decade (" Stockton actually got worse (if not by a ton) as the decade progressed."). Yes they faced very tough opposition, but since we are talking about top-20 players I think it's fair to be extra critical. Did Lebron have anyone as impactful as Hornachek when he dragged that Cleveland team to the finals in 2009? So why wouldn't two top-20 all-time players do something similar (without having someone as impactful as Hornachek)?

The Jazz cast was pre-Hornacek was awful. They had zero above average starters alongside the team and the bench was historically bad too. Here is how that cast compared to the casts of other star players.

88-94 (Doesn't include Stockton/Malone):
# of players with 1+ VORP: 7
2+ VORP: 0
2+ BPM (Min. 1000 MP): 0 (best BPM is Mark Eaton 0.6)

90-96 Spurs (Robinson):
1+ VORP: 22
2+ VORP: 11
2+ BPM: 2

98-04 Lakers (Shaq and Kobe):
1+ VORP: 15
2+ VORP: 6
2+ BPM: 7

87-93 Bulls (MJ and Pippen):
1+ VORP: 9
2+ VORP: 4
2+ BPM: 2

80-86 Lakers (Magic and Kareem):
1+ VORP: 19
2+ VORP: 6
2+ BPM: 2

01-07 Spurs (Duncan):
1+ VORP: 37
2+ VORP: 13
2+ BPM: 20

The Jazz had 0 2+ VORP players in that span while the other franchises averaged 8 of them. The Jazz supporting cast was significantly behind the other teams.

Hornacek was a beast for the Jazz but you have to remember that he was 30 years old when he was traded to the Jazz. He was 34 and 35 years old in the finals against the Bulls. If he was younger, they would have for sure beat the Bulls both years.

Thurl Bailey was not a 3rd option. He was a 6' 11 player who sucked at rebounding (career high 16.5 PPG). Solid jump shooter. He was very reliant on Stockton getting him the ball because he couldn't beat defenders 1 on 1. Only 1 career season with an above average BPM.

lol @ even mentioning Tyrone Corbin as a 3rd option. There is a reason why he played on 9 franchises during his career.

Jeff Malone was not a good 3rd option at all. He could score but his efficiency was average. His midrange stroke was lethal. Unfortunately, He HATED the 3 point shot. Hated it. That lowered his efficiency. He didn't get to the line much either. Outside of scoring, he contributed absolutely nothing. Couldn't pass. Couldn't rebound. Was a turnstyle on defense. That's why his career high BPM is 0.0. He holds the distinction for having a record 5 seasons of 20+ PPG and a negative BPM. That's truly astonishing.

#3 on the list was also a member of the Stockton/Malone Jazz.

LeBron

LeBron's "drag" of the Cavs to the finals consisted of 1 series vs Detroit. The rest of his competition was a joke. He played the 41-41 Wizards and Nets, both teams with negative SRS. Then he beat a Pistons team that only won 53 games in a weak East. That's nothing special. By contrast, in the 90's alone the Jazz faced 16 different teams in the playoffs that won more than 53 games (7-9 record). When LeBron faced comparable competition, the Spurs, his team got swept.

Jeff Malone was the Andrew Wiggins of the 1980's. He could score but not do much else. Their numbers are eerily similar too:

5 year peak, Per 36 minutes:
86-90 Malone: 23.3 PPG, 2.9 Reb, 3.2 AST-2.2 TOV, 0.8 Stl, 0.2 Blk, .529 TS%
17-20 Wiggins: 20.3 PPG, 4.5 Reb, 2.5 AST-2.1 TOV, 1.0 Stl, 0.6 Blk, .518 TS%

Malone is slightly better offensively. On defense, Wiggins is better due to his 3 inch height advantage.

Mark Eaton was an old complete stiff at that point. The rest of the roster wasn't great either.

Let's imagine how the 1992 Jazz would do in the modern NBA. They are the best pre-Hornacek Jazz team. Malone and Stockton at that point was a better version of Lob City Chris Paul/Blake Griffin IMO. But the rest of the rest of the roster wasn't that good.

Imagine if the Lob City Clippers had these players instead of DeAndre Jordan, Redick, Crawford, Barnes, Pierce, etc.

Starting Lineup:
PG 2015 Chris Paul
SG Andrew Wiggins
SF Jae Crowder if he shot 1.5 3 pointer per game instead of 6
2015 Blake Griffin
2009 Ben Wallace

Bench:
SF Marvin Williams
SF Al- Farooq Aminu
C Cleveland Kendrick Perkins

That team is making the playoffs but they aren't a threat at all to compete against the top teams.

WestGOAT · Post #10 » by **WestGOAT** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 8:17 pm

colts18 wrote:

In order not to derail this topic, my response in regards to Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin in spoilers:

Spoiler:

In 1988 and 1989 Thurl Baily averaged 24 to 25 points per 90 possessions on 54-55% TS% (league average TS% being slightly lower than 54%) during the RS. And while not a 3rd option, Mark Eaton (2x DPOY) was anchoring a Jazz defence that ranked first (RS) in both of those years. I did not mention Kelly Tripucka, because he was awful for the Jazz in '88, but he was talented enough for sure as he bounced back in '89. Why didn't he benefit from playing with a pass-first PG Stockton?

In 1990 Utah would have gotten past the Suns (lead by KJ, hampered by viral enteritis, and who's second-best player arguably was Hornachek) if Stockton shoots slightly better than his (putrid for his RS standards) 48.2 TS% (perhaps his elbow was injured here aswell :lol:

), especially considering that the Jazz lost Game 7 by 2 points. Is it the role players fault Stockton shot so badly?

From 1991 to 1993 they had Jeff Malone. The year before he arrived at the Jazz he averaged 31 points per 90 pos on 53% TS% (league average TS% being slightly below 54%). Not to mention he had also averaged 4.1 AST/2.2 TO per 90 pos, which is not bad at all for someone that "couldn't pass". Blue Edwards also started to emerge during this period and in 1992 shot 57% TS (above the league average TS% of 53%), before having a career year in 1993 for the Bucks. Then you also had Tyrone Corbin, while not as an efficient scorer as Baily and J.Malone (he still put up 22 points/per 90 pos for Minny in '91), he was (based on posts I've read on this board) much better on defence and provided strong rebounding, and moved the ball pretty well.

In 1991 and 1992, they can't get past the Blazers, as Terry Porter went supernova (especially in 1992) and played way above his own lofty playoff standards (sole responsibility lies on Sloan's defensive scheme of course). 1993 is a down year for the Jazz (only 47 wins), perhaps Malone and Stockton were worn out because of the Olympics, and they end up as 6th seed which is pretty disappointing. No wonder they go eliminated in the first-round again with no home-court advantage.

So I would not characterize it as "awful" support for two "MVP"-candidates in Malone (1a) and Stockton (1b) before Hornachek arrived. Sure, Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin were not efficient at scoring, but shouldn't Stockton's playmaking have elevated their scoring efficiency if he was that great (similar to what Nash did for others while playing for the Suns)? In before "It was all because of D'Antoni's system!!", perhaps Nash was the driving force that enabled that system?

If Lebron's carry-job of the Cavs is disqualified due to poor opposition faced, and perhaps more relevant for Santerre's topic, why not look at some teams Santerre has listed that were very top-heavy and still made the finals/won a chip:

2006 Heat: Mainly Wade with old Shaq supported by James Posey: beat DET (6.2) and DAL (6.0).
2003 Spurs: Mainly Duncan with old man Robinson supported by rookie Ginobili: beat Shaq and Kobe LAL (2.7) who coasted in the RS, DAL (7.9), NJN (4.4).
2000 Lakers: Mainly Shaq with 21-year old Kobe supported by Glen Rice: SAC (3.0), PHO (5.2), POR (6.4), IND (4.2).
1993 Chicago: Mainly Jordan with Pippen supported by Grant: beat CLE (6.3 SRS), NYK (5.9 SRS), and PHO (6.3 SRS) to win the chip.

Other teams he has yet to mention: 2011 Dallas and 1994 Houston.

Also worth a mention are the 2008 Lakers who beat SAS (5.1) and UTA (6.9), who basically relied on Kobe and Gasol, with Odom as the only other decent player.

Replace the top two players of these listed teams with both early 90s Malone and Stockton and I doubt they make the finals, let alone win the chip. Which might sound harsh, but if both of them are MVP-calibre players (which you in particular keep pushing for Stockton on this board) than you can expect as much.

sansterre · Post #11 » by **sansterre** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 8:41 pm

WestGOAT wrote:
colts18 wrote:

In order not to derail this topic, my response in regards to Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin in spoilers:
Spoiler:
In 1988 and 1989 Thurl Baily averaged 24 to 25 points per 90 possessions on 54-55% TS% (league average TS% being slightly lower than 54%) during the RS. And while not a 3rd option, Mark Eaton (2x DPOY) was anchoring a Jazz defence that ranked first (RS) in both of those years. I did not mention Kelly Tripucka, because he was awful for the Jazz in '88, but he was talented enough for sure as he bounced back in '89. Why didn't he benefit from playing with a pass-first PG Stockton?

In 1990 Utah would have gotten past the Suns (lead by KJ, hampered by viral enteritis, and who's second-best player arguably was Hornachek) if Stockton shoots slightly better than his (putrid for his RS standards) 48.2 TS% (perhaps his elbow was injured here aswell ), especially considering that the Jazz lost Game 7 by 2 points. Is it the role players fault Stockton shot so badly?

From 1991 to 1993 they had Jeff Malone. The year before he arrived at the Jazz he averaged 31 points per 90 pos on 53% TS% (league average TS% being slightly below 54%). Not to mention he had also averaged 4.1 AST/2.2 TO per 90 pos, which is not bad at all for someone that "couldn't pass". Blue Edwards also started to emerge during this period and in 1992 shot 57% TS (above the league average TS% of 53%), before having a career year in 1993 for the Bucks. Then you also had Tyrone Corbin, while not as an efficient scorer as Baily and J.Malone (he still put up 22 points/per 90 pos for Minny in '91), he was (based on posts I've read on this board) much better on defence and provided strong rebounding, and moved the ball pretty well.

In 1991 and 1992, they can't get past the Blazers, as Terry Porter went supernova (especially in 1992) and played way above his own lofty playoff standards (sole responsibility lies on Sloan's defensive scheme of course). 1993 is a down year for the Jazz (only 47 wins), perhaps Malone and Stockton were worn out because of the Olympics, and they end up as 6th seed which is pretty disappointing. No wonder they go eliminated in the first-round again with no home-court advantage.

So I would not characterize it as "awful" support for two "MVP"-candidates in Malone (1a) and Stockton (1b) before Hornachek arrived. Sure, Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin were not efficient at scoring, but shouldn't Stockton's playmaking have elevated their scoring efficiency if he was that great (similar to what Nash did for others while playing for the Suns)? In before "It was all because of D'Antoni's system!!", perhaps Nash was the driving force that enabled that system?

If Lebron's carry-job of the Cavs is disqualified due to poor opposition faced, and perhaps more relevant for Santerre's topic, why not look at some teams Santerre has listed that were very top-heavy and still made the finals/won a chip:

2006 Heat: Mainly Wade with old Shaq supported by James Posey: beat DET (6.2) and DAL (6.0).
2003 Spurs: Mainly Duncan with old man Robinson supported by rookie Ginobili: beat Shaq and Kobe LAL (2.7) who coasted in the RS, DAL (7.9), NJN (4.4).
2000 Lakers: Mainly Shaq with 21-year old Kobe supported by Glen Rice: SAC (3.0), PHO (5.2), POR (6.4), IND (4.2).
1993 Chicago: Mainly Jordan with Pippen supported by Grant: beat CLE (6.3 SRS), NYK (5.9 SRS), and PHO (6.3 SRS) to win the chip.

Other teams he has yet to mention: 2011 Dallas and 1994 Houston.

Also worth a mention are the 2008 Lakers who beat SAS (5.1) and UTA (6.9), who basically relied on Kobe and Gasol, with Odom as the only other decent player.

Replace the top two players of these listed teams with both early 90s Malone and Stockton and I doubt they make the finals, let alone win the chip. Which might sound harsh, but if both of them are MVP-calibre players (which you in particular keep pushing for Stockton on this board) than you can expect as much.

I probably overplayed the discussion of how unsupported Malone and Stockton were. Their regression in the playoffs contributed mightily to their team's struggles in the postseason. And much of the lack of support wasn't as much a lack of a 3rd option (though that's part of it) but also the fact that they had a lot of sub-replacement level players. It's one of the subtle things about team quality; how many of your minutes are actually replacement-level or worse. And that was a serious problem for the Jazz through '96. For Stockton and Malone to combine for more than 100% of the team's VORP, that means the entire rest of the roster was (overall) below replacement level. That is far worse than a problem in the third option.

But again. I couldn't tell you why this was. All I can say is that in my tour through 70ish teams so far, the lack of support Stockton and Malone received (Hornacek and eventually Russell notwithstanding) is quite unusual.

I'm not trying to push the "if only they had support they'd have been Bulls-level". That's absolutely not true. But we do know that Stockton (diminished somewhat), Malone, Hornacek and Russell (with a young Ostertag) were throwing up 7+ SRS performances fairly consistently in both the regular season and playoffs. It's hard not to wonder what the Jazz could have done had those two received that level of support earlier in the decade. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd won a ring or two, and they'd certainly have made several more Finals.

Obviously this is all in arbitrary hindsight. All I mean to say is that it's fairly unusual for a team to have such an insane amount of its value split between two players.

Of course, we saw this exact thing happen in 2020. It just happened that LeBron and AD were a considerably better pair.

Addendum: the '11 Mavericks are definitely still coming, but the '94 Rockets are not. A +4.19 RSRS and +8.44 PSRS in a low-competition year keep them quite off the list. They and the '88 Lakers are the only two teams to win a championship past 1980 to fall short of the list.

WestGOAT · Post #12 » by **WestGOAT** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 8:57 pm

sansterre wrote:
WestGOAT wrote:
colts18 wrote:

In order not to derail this topic, my response in regards to Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin in spoilers:
Spoiler:
In 1988 and 1989 Thurl Baily averaged 24 to 25 points per 90 possessions on 54-55% TS% (league average TS% being slightly lower than 54%) during the RS. And while not a 3rd option, Mark Eaton (2x DPOY) was anchoring a Jazz defence that ranked first (RS) in both of those years. I did not mention Kelly Tripucka, because he was awful for the Jazz in '88, but he was talented enough for sure as he bounced back in '89. Why didn't he benefit from playing with a pass-first PG Stockton?

In 1990 Utah would have gotten past the Suns (lead by KJ, hampered by viral enteritis, and who's second-best player arguably was Hornachek) if Stockton shoots slightly better than his (putrid for his RS standards) 48.2 TS% (perhaps his elbow was injured here aswell ), especially considering that the Jazz lost Game 7 by 2 points. Is it the role players fault Stockton shot so badly?

From 1991 to 1993 they had Jeff Malone. The year before he arrived at the Jazz he averaged 31 points per 90 pos on 53% TS% (league average TS% being slightly below 54%). Not to mention he had also averaged 4.1 AST/2.2 TO per 90 pos, which is not bad at all for someone that "couldn't pass". Blue Edwards also started to emerge during this period and in 1992 shot 57% TS (above the league average TS% of 53%), before having a career year in 1993 for the Bucks. Then you also had Tyrone Corbin, while not as an efficient scorer as Baily and J.Malone (he still put up 22 points/per 90 pos for Minny in '91), he was (based on posts I've read on this board) much better on defence and provided strong rebounding, and moved the ball pretty well.

In 1991 and 1992, they can't get past the Blazers, as Terry Porter went supernova (especially in 1992) and played way above his own lofty playoff standards (sole responsibility lies on Sloan's defensive scheme of course). 1993 is a down year for the Jazz (only 47 wins), perhaps Malone and Stockton were worn out because of the Olympics, and they end up as 6th seed which is pretty disappointing. No wonder they go eliminated in the first-round again with no home-court advantage.

So I would not characterize it as "awful" support for two "MVP"-candidates in Malone (1a) and Stockton (1b) before Hornachek arrived. Sure, Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin were not efficient at scoring, but shouldn't Stockton's playmaking have elevated their scoring efficiency if he was that great (similar to what Nash did for others while playing for the Suns)? In before "It was all because of D'Antoni's system!!", perhaps Nash was the driving force that enabled that system?

If Lebron's carry-job of the Cavs is disqualified due to poor opposition faced, and perhaps more relevant for Santerre's topic, why not look at some teams Santerre has listed that were very top-heavy and still made the finals/won a chip:

2006 Heat: Mainly Wade with old Shaq supported by James Posey: beat DET (6.2) and DAL (6.0).
2003 Spurs: Mainly Duncan with old man Robinson supported by rookie Ginobili: beat Shaq and Kobe LAL (2.7) who coasted in the RS, DAL (7.9), NJN (4.4).
2000 Lakers: Mainly Shaq with 21-year old Kobe supported by Glen Rice: SAC (3.0), PHO (5.2), POR (6.4), IND (4.2).
1993 Chicago: Mainly Jordan with Pippen supported by Grant: beat CLE (6.3 SRS), NYK (5.9 SRS), and PHO (6.3 SRS) to win the chip.

Other teams he has yet to mention: 2011 Dallas and 1994 Houston.

Also worth a mention are the 2008 Lakers who beat SAS (5.1) and UTA (6.9), who basically relied on Kobe and Gasol, with Odom as the only other decent player.

Replace the top two players of these listed teams with both early 90s Malone and Stockton and I doubt they make the finals, let alone win the chip. Which might sound harsh, but if both of them are MVP-calibre players (which you in particular keep pushing for Stockton on this board) than you can expect as much.

I probably overplayed the discussion of how unsupported Malone and Stockton were. Their regression in the playoffs contributed mightily to their team's struggles in the postseason. And much of the lack of support wasn't as much a lack of a 3rd option (though that's part of it) but also the fact that they had a lot of sub-replacement level players. It's one of the subtle things about team quality; how many of your minutes are actually replacement-level or worse. And that was a serious problem for the Jazz through '96. For Stockton and Malone to combine for more than 100% of the team's VORP, that means the entire rest of the roster was (overall) below replacement level. That is far worse than a problem in the third option.

But again. I couldn't tell you why this was. All I can say is that in my tour through 70ish teams so far, the lack of support Stockton and Malone received (Hornacek and eventually Russell notwithstanding) is quite unusual.

I'm not trying to push the "if only they had support they'd have been Bulls-level". That's absolutely not true. But we do know that Stockton (diminished somewhat), Malone, Hornacek and Russell (with a young Ostertag) were throwing up 7+ SRS performances fairly consistently in both the regular season and playoffs. It's hard not to wonder what the Jazz could have done had those two received that level of support earlier in the decade. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd won a ring or two, and they'd certainly have made several more Finals.

Obviously this is all in arbitrary hindsight. All I mean to say is that it's fairly unusual for a team to have such an insane amount of its value split between two players.

Of course, we saw this exact thing happen in 2020. It just happened that LeBron and AD were a considerably better pair.

Addendum: the '11 Mavericks are definitely still coming, but the '94 Rockets are not. A +4.19 RSRS and +8.44 PSRS in a low-competition year keep them quite off the list. They and the '88 Lakers are the only two teams to win a championship past 1980 to fall short of the list.

Makes sense the Rockets didn't make it based on those metrics. That said they did face pretty steep competition, at least based on the average SRS of their opposition (ranked 11th out of 35 since 1985), while their own SRS was "only" 4.2:

Code: Select all

   Opp  OppRS_SRS
0  NYK        6.5
1  PHO        4.7
3  UTA        4.1
2  POR        2.6

sansterre · Post #13 » by **sansterre** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 9:01 pm

WestGOAT wrote:
sansterre wrote:
WestGOAT wrote:
In order not to derail this topic, my response in regards to Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin in spoilers:
Spoiler:
In 1988 and 1989 Thurl Baily averaged 24 to 25 points per 90 possessions on 54-55% TS% (league average TS% being slightly lower than 54%) during the RS. And while not a 3rd option, Mark Eaton (2x DPOY) was anchoring a Jazz defence that ranked first (RS) in both of those years. I did not mention Kelly Tripucka, because he was awful for the Jazz in '88, but he was talented enough for sure as he bounced back in '89. Why didn't he benefit from playing with a pass-first PG Stockton?

In 1990 Utah would have gotten past the Suns (lead by KJ, hampered by viral enteritis, and who's second-best player arguably was Hornachek) if Stockton shoots slightly better than his (putrid for his RS standards) 48.2 TS% (perhaps his elbow was injured here aswell ), especially considering that the Jazz lost Game 7 by 2 points. Is it the role players fault Stockton shot so badly?

From 1991 to 1993 they had Jeff Malone. The year before he arrived at the Jazz he averaged 31 points per 90 pos on 53% TS% (league average TS% being slightly below 54%). Not to mention he had also averaged 4.1 AST/2.2 TO per 90 pos, which is not bad at all for someone that "couldn't pass". Blue Edwards also started to emerge during this period and in 1992 shot 57% TS (above the league average TS% of 53%), before having a career year in 1993 for the Bucks. Then you also had Tyrone Corbin, while not as an efficient scorer as Baily and J.Malone (he still put up 22 points/per 90 pos for Minny in '91), he was (based on posts I've read on this board) much better on defence and provided strong rebounding, and moved the ball pretty well.

In 1991 and 1992, they can't get past the Blazers, as Terry Porter went supernova (especially in 1992) and played way above his own lofty playoff standards (sole responsibility lies on Sloan's defensive scheme of course). 1993 is a down year for the Jazz (only 47 wins), perhaps Malone and Stockton were worn out because of the Olympics, and they end up as 6th seed which is pretty disappointing. No wonder they go eliminated in the first-round again with no home-court advantage.

So I would not characterize it as "awful" support for two "MVP"-candidates in Malone (1a) and Stockton (1b) before Hornachek arrived. Sure, Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin were not efficient at scoring, but shouldn't Stockton's playmaking have elevated their scoring efficiency if he was that great (similar to what Nash did for others while playing for the Suns)? In before "It was all because of D'Antoni's system!!", perhaps Nash was the driving force that enabled that system?

If Lebron's carry-job of the Cavs is disqualified due to poor opposition faced, and perhaps more relevant for Santerre's topic, why not look at some teams Santerre has listed that were very top-heavy and still made the finals/won a chip:

2006 Heat: Mainly Wade with old Shaq supported by James Posey: beat DET (6.2) and DAL (6.0).
2003 Spurs: Mainly Duncan with old man Robinson supported by rookie Ginobili: beat Shaq and Kobe LAL (2.7) who coasted in the RS, DAL (7.9), NJN (4.4).
2000 Lakers: Mainly Shaq with 21-year old Kobe supported by Glen Rice: SAC (3.0), PHO (5.2), POR (6.4), IND (4.2).
1993 Chicago: Mainly Jordan with Pippen supported by Grant: beat CLE (6.3 SRS), NYK (5.9 SRS), and PHO (6.3 SRS) to win the chip.

Other teams he has yet to mention: 2011 Dallas and 1994 Houston.

Also worth a mention are the 2008 Lakers who beat SAS (5.1) and UTA (6.9), who basically relied on Kobe and Gasol, with Odom as the only other decent player.

Replace the top two players of these listed teams with both early 90s Malone and Stockton and I doubt they make the finals, let alone win the chip. Which might sound harsh, but if both of them are MVP-calibre players (which you in particular keep pushing for Stockton on this board) than you can expect as much.

I probably overplayed the discussion of how unsupported Malone and Stockton were. Their regression in the playoffs contributed mightily to their team's struggles in the postseason. And much of the lack of support wasn't as much a lack of a 3rd option (though that's part of it) but also the fact that they had a lot of sub-replacement level players. It's one of the subtle things about team quality; how many of your minutes are actually replacement-level or worse. And that was a serious problem for the Jazz through '96. For Stockton and Malone to combine for more than 100% of the team's VORP, that means the entire rest of the roster was (overall) below replacement level. That is far worse than a problem in the third option.

But again. I couldn't tell you why this was. All I can say is that in my tour through 70ish teams so far, the lack of support Stockton and Malone received (Hornacek and eventually Russell notwithstanding) is quite unusual.

I'm not trying to push the "if only they had support they'd have been Bulls-level". That's absolutely not true. But we do know that Stockton (diminished somewhat), Malone, Hornacek and Russell (with a young Ostertag) were throwing up 7+ SRS performances fairly consistently in both the regular season and playoffs. It's hard not to wonder what the Jazz could have done had those two received that level of support earlier in the decade. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd won a ring or two, and they'd certainly have made several more Finals.

Obviously this is all in arbitrary hindsight. All I mean to say is that it's fairly unusual for a team to have such an insane amount of its value split between two players.

Of course, we saw this exact thing happen in 2020. It just happened that LeBron and AD were a considerably better pair.

Addendum: the '11 Mavericks are definitely still coming, but the '94 Rockets are not. A +4.19 RSRS and +8.44 PSRS in a low-competition year keep them quite off the list. They and the '88 Lakers are the only two teams to win a championship past 1980 to fall short of the list.

Makes sense the Rockets didn't make it based on those metrics. That said they did face pretty steep competition, at least based on the average SRS of their opposition (ranked 11th out of 35 since 1985), while their own SRS was "only" 4.2:
Code: Select all
Opp OppRS_SRS 0 NYK 6.5 1 PHO 4.7 3 UTA 4.1 2 POR 2.6

Granted, and if the sheet ranked teams based on "most improbable run to the championship" they'd probably be #1. But we surely can't reward them for beating teams better than them (as that is tantamount to rewarding them for being bad in the regular season) and the sheet isn't concerned only with winning, but how sure that winning would have been. The '94 Rockets totally ran the table . . . but their fairly low MoV (combined with weak regular season) doesn't make a very good case for their dominance.

They're a great story, and they'd have been a lot of fun to write up. But based on these metrics, they fall short.

sansterre · Post #14 » by **sansterre** » Sat Jan 2, 2021 11:41 am

Bump for team #35, the 1961 Boston Celtics, the last Bill Russell team and 2nd to last Celtics team (and by last I guess I mean last to be posted, but highest ranked).

homecourtloss · Post #15 » by **homecourtloss** » Sat Jan 2, 2021 8:23 pm

sansterre wrote:Bump for team #35, the 1961 Boston Celtics, the last Bill Russell team and 2nd to last Celtics team (and by last I guess I mean last to be posted, but highest ranked).

Excellent read about ranking methodology via strictly formula output as an evaluative tool for teams getting #1 seeds and automatically getting to conference finals but also have shorter evaluative periods to boost numbers (in this type of methodology).

Good stuff as per usual, Sansterre.

Post #16 » by **trex_8063** » Sat Jan 2, 2021 8:37 pm

sansterre wrote:Scoring/100: Tom Heinsohn (25.0 / -1.9%), Bill Sharman (22.7 / +1.8%), Frank Ramsey (21.1 / +1.4%)
Assists/100: Bob Cousy (5.7), Bill Russell (2.6), Sam Jones (2.1)

Some small corrections: I haven't checked Ramsey's numbers, but the assist figures and Sharman's shooting efficiency are incorrect.....

Sharman's rTS was +1.46%, not +1.8%.

Cousy averaged 8.5 ast/100. Russell averaged 2.8. Jones averaged 3.8.

sansterre · Post #17 » by **sansterre** » Sat Jan 2, 2021 8:53 pm

trex_8063 wrote:
sansterre wrote:Scoring/100: Tom Heinsohn (25.0 / -1.9%), Bill Sharman (22.7 / +1.8%), Frank Ramsey (21.1 / +1.4%)
Assists/100: Bob Cousy (5.7), Bill Russell (2.6), Sam Jones (2.1)

Some small corrections: I haven't checked Ramsey's numbers, but the assist figures and Sharman's shooting efficiency are incorrect.....

Sharman's rTS was +1.46%, not +1.8%.

Cousy averaged 8.5 ast/100. Russell averaged 2.8. Jones averaged 3.8.

Thanks for catching those!

The Sharman rTS is a typo, but the /100 numbers are from an apparently broken formula. I made some tweaks and I got the numbers you had, so I'll make the adjustments.

Thanks again!

colts18 · Post #18 » by **colts18** » Sat Jan 2, 2021 9:04 pm

WestGOAT wrote:
colts18 wrote:

In order not to derail this topic, my response in regards to Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin in spoilers:
Spoiler:
In 1988 and 1989 Thurl Baily averaged 24 to 25 points per 90 possessions on 54-55% TS% (league average TS% being slightly lower than 54%) during the RS. And while not a 3rd option, Mark Eaton (2x DPOY) was anchoring a Jazz defence that ranked first (RS) in both of those years. I did not mention Kelly Tripucka, because he was awful for the Jazz in '88, but he was talented enough for sure as he bounced back in '89. Why didn't he benefit from playing with a pass-first PG Stockton?

In 1990 Utah would have gotten past the Suns (lead by KJ, hampered by viral enteritis, and who's second-best player arguably was Hornachek) if Stockton shoots slightly better than his (putrid for his RS standards) 48.2 TS% (perhaps his elbow was injured here aswell ), especially considering that the Jazz lost Game 7 by 2 points. Is it the role players fault Stockton shot so badly?

From 1991 to 1993 they had Jeff Malone. The year before he arrived at the Jazz he averaged 31 points per 90 pos on 53% TS% (league average TS% being slightly below 54%). Not to mention he had also averaged 4.1 AST/2.2 TO per 90 pos, which is not bad at all for someone that "couldn't pass". Blue Edwards also started to emerge during this period and in 1992 shot 57% TS (above the league average TS% of 53%), before having a career year in 1993 for the Bucks. Then you also had Tyrone Corbin, while not as an efficient scorer as Baily and J.Malone (he still put up 22 points/per 90 pos for Minny in '91), he was (based on posts I've read on this board) much better on defence and provided strong rebounding, and moved the ball pretty well.

In 1991 and 1992, they can't get past the Blazers, as Terry Porter went supernova (especially in 1992) and played way above his own lofty playoff standards (sole responsibility lies on Sloan's defensive scheme of course). 1993 is a down year for the Jazz (only 47 wins), perhaps Malone and Stockton were worn out because of the Olympics, and they end up as 6th seed which is pretty disappointing. No wonder they go eliminated in the first-round again with no home-court advantage.

So I would not characterize it as "awful" support for two "MVP"-candidates in Malone (1a) and Stockton (1b) before Hornachek arrived. Sure, Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin were not efficient at scoring, but shouldn't Stockton's playmaking have elevated their scoring efficiency if he was that great (similar to what Nash did for others while playing for the Suns)? In before "It was all because of D'Antoni's system!!", perhaps Nash was the driving force that enabled that system?

If Lebron's carry-job of the Cavs is disqualified due to poor opposition faced, and perhaps more relevant for Santerre's topic, why not look at some teams Santerre has listed that were very top-heavy and still made the finals/won a chip:

2006 Heat: Mainly Wade with old Shaq supported by James Posey: beat DET (6.2) and DAL (6.0).
2003 Spurs: Mainly Duncan with old man Robinson supported by rookie Ginobili: beat Shaq and Kobe LAL (2.7) who coasted in the RS, DAL (7.9), NJN (4.4).
2000 Lakers: Mainly Shaq with 21-year old Kobe supported by Glen Rice: SAC (3.0), PHO (5.2), POR (6.4), IND (4.2).
1993 Chicago: Mainly Jordan with Pippen supported by Grant: beat CLE (6.3 SRS), NYK (5.9 SRS), and PHO (6.3 SRS) to win the chip.

Other teams he has yet to mention: 2011 Dallas and 1994 Houston.

Also worth a mention are the 2008 Lakers who beat SAS (5.1) and UTA (6.9), who basically relied on Kobe and Gasol, with Odom as the only other decent player.

Replace the top two players of these listed teams with both early 90s Malone and Stockton and I doubt they make the finals, let alone win the chip. Which might sound harsh, but if both of them are MVP-calibre players (which you in particular keep pushing for Stockton on this board) than you can expect as much.

You are conflating many different years into when in reality the Jazz never had 1 year with overall solid talent. Maybe if you combine later Malone, younger stockton, with 80s Eaton and Bailey, and 92 Corbin you might have a championship team, but the Jazz never had that happen in 1 season. 1988 Eaton was a pretty good role. 1992 Eaton otoh was an old slow man who was a complete offensive liability. 1988 Thurl Bailey is solid, but 1991 Bailey is a declining player. 1992 Karl Malone is an MVP candidate, 1988 Malone is a young Forward who led the NBA in turnovers. That version of Karl Malone was not an MVP.

A lot of the players you mentioned were never good. Kelly Tripucka :lol:

. He was benched by the Jazz BEFORE Stockton became the starter. Nothing to do with Stockton/Malone. The fact that he didn't fit in Utah was because he needed a system to run through him. He was not a good enough player to have a system run through him. Then he puts up big numbers on a losing expansion team. I've never been impressed with players who put up huge numbers on expansion teams. Tyrone Corbin in Minnesota is an example of that. Corbin never put in any numbers in a long career comparable to the time he played on a 20 win expansion team.

The 1990 and 1991 Suns had significantly more talent than the Jazz. It's not even close. The #3 Suns player was Tom Chambers, the #3 Jazz player was Thurl Bailey. The Suns had Dan Majerle and Eddie Johnson coming off the bench. The Jazz had Darrell Griffith and Blue Edwards coming off the bench. The Suns were super talented which is why they beat the Showtime Lakers the next round in 5 games. The same with the Blazers who were so good they had Danny Ainge and Cliff Robinson coming off the bench. The 88-94 Jazz never lost to a team worse than them with the exception of the 89 Warriors when the Jazz supporting cast completely collapsed.

All of the teams you listed had a better supporting cast than the Jazz. Here are the Jazz players with above average BPM's from 1988-1994 (Min. 1000 MP):

93 Corbin +0.6
89 Eaton +0.6
92 Corbin +0.4
90 Eaton +0.4
88 Bailey +0.2
88 Edwards +0.0

# of players with a BPM worse than -2.0: 20

That's awful compared to other Championship teams. They never once had a season with 2 players over a 0 BPM. The average Jazz role player VORP for 88-94 is +0.8.

2008 Lakers minus Kobe/Gasol: +10.5
2003 Spurs minus Duncan/Robinson: +7.4
2000 Lakers minus Shaq/Kobe: 6.4
2006 Heat minus Wade/Shaq: +5.3
1994 Rockets minus Hakeem: +7.8
88-94 Jazz minus Malone/Stockton average: +0.8

lol @ listing the 1993 Bulls. They had 3 different players make the all-star game the next season WITHOUT MJ.

sansterre · Post #19 » by **sansterre** » Sat Jan 2, 2021 9:10 pm

colts18 wrote:
WestGOAT wrote:
colts18 wrote:

In order not to derail this topic, my response in regards to Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin in spoilers:
Spoiler:
In 1988 and 1989 Thurl Baily averaged 24 to 25 points per 90 possessions on 54-55% TS% (league average TS% being slightly lower than 54%) during the RS. And while not a 3rd option, Mark Eaton (2x DPOY) was anchoring a Jazz defence that ranked first (RS) in both of those years. I did not mention Kelly Tripucka, because he was awful for the Jazz in '88, but he was talented enough for sure as he bounced back in '89. Why didn't he benefit from playing with a pass-first PG Stockton?

In 1990 Utah would have gotten past the Suns (lead by KJ, hampered by viral enteritis, and who's second-best player arguably was Hornachek) if Stockton shoots slightly better than his (putrid for his RS standards) 48.2 TS% (perhaps his elbow was injured here aswell ), especially considering that the Jazz lost Game 7 by 2 points. Is it the role players fault Stockton shot so badly?

From 1991 to 1993 they had Jeff Malone. The year before he arrived at the Jazz he averaged 31 points per 90 pos on 53% TS% (league average TS% being slightly below 54%). Not to mention he had also averaged 4.1 AST/2.2 TO per 90 pos, which is not bad at all for someone that "couldn't pass". Blue Edwards also started to emerge during this period and in 1992 shot 57% TS (above the league average TS% of 53%), before having a career year in 1993 for the Bucks. Then you also had Tyrone Corbin, while not as an efficient scorer as Baily and J.Malone (he still put up 22 points/per 90 pos for Minny in '91), he was (based on posts I've read on this board) much better on defence and provided strong rebounding, and moved the ball pretty well.

In 1991 and 1992, they can't get past the Blazers, as Terry Porter went supernova (especially in 1992) and played way above his own lofty playoff standards (sole responsibility lies on Sloan's defensive scheme of course). 1993 is a down year for the Jazz (only 47 wins), perhaps Malone and Stockton were worn out because of the Olympics, and they end up as 6th seed which is pretty disappointing. No wonder they go eliminated in the first-round again with no home-court advantage.

So I would not characterize it as "awful" support for two "MVP"-candidates in Malone (1a) and Stockton (1b) before Hornachek arrived. Sure, Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin were not efficient at scoring, but shouldn't Stockton's playmaking have elevated their scoring efficiency if he was that great (similar to what Nash did for others while playing for the Suns)? In before "It was all because of D'Antoni's system!!", perhaps Nash was the driving force that enabled that system?

If Lebron's carry-job of the Cavs is disqualified due to poor opposition faced, and perhaps more relevant for Santerre's topic, why not look at some teams Santerre has listed that were very top-heavy and still made the finals/won a chip:

2006 Heat: Mainly Wade with old Shaq supported by James Posey: beat DET (6.2) and DAL (6.0).
2003 Spurs: Mainly Duncan with old man Robinson supported by rookie Ginobili: beat Shaq and Kobe LAL (2.7) who coasted in the RS, DAL (7.9), NJN (4.4).
2000 Lakers: Mainly Shaq with 21-year old Kobe supported by Glen Rice: SAC (3.0), PHO (5.2), POR (6.4), IND (4.2).
1993 Chicago: Mainly Jordan with Pippen supported by Grant: beat CLE (6.3 SRS), NYK (5.9 SRS), and PHO (6.3 SRS) to win the chip.

Other teams he has yet to mention: 2011 Dallas and 1994 Houston.

Also worth a mention are the 2008 Lakers who beat SAS (5.1) and UTA (6.9), who basically relied on Kobe and Gasol, with Odom as the only other decent player.

Replace the top two players of these listed teams with both early 90s Malone and Stockton and I doubt they make the finals, let alone win the chip. Which might sound harsh, but if both of them are MVP-calibre players (which you in particular keep pushing for Stockton on this board) than you can expect as much.

You are conflating many different years into when in reality the Jazz never had 1 year with overall solid talent. Maybe if you combine later Malone, younger stockton, with 80s Eaton and Bailey, and 92 Corbin you might have a championship team, but the Jazz never had that happen in 1 season. 1988 Eaton was a pretty good role. 1992 Eaton otoh was an old slow man who was a complete offensive liability. 1988 Thurl Bailey is solid, but 1991 Bailey is a declining player. 1992 Karl Malone is an MVP candidate, 1988 Malone is a young Forward who led the NBA in turnovers. That version of Karl Malone was not an MVP.

A lot of the players you mentioned were never good. Kelly Tripucka . He was benched by the Jazz BEFORE Stockton became the starter. Nothing to do with Stockton/Malone. The fact that he didn't fit in Utah was because he needed a system to run through him. He was not a good enough player to have a system run through him. Then he puts up big numbers on a losing expansion team. I've never been impressed with players who put up huge numbers on expansion teams. Tyrone Corbin in Minnesota is an example of that. Corbin never put in any numbers in a long career comparable to the time he played on a 20 win expansion team.

The 1990 and 1991 Suns had significantly more talent than the Jazz. It's not even close. The #3 Suns player was Tom Chambers, the #3 Jazz player was Thurl Bailey. The Suns had Dan Majerle and Eddie Johnson coming off the bench. The Jazz had Darrell Griffith and Blue Edwards coming off the bench. The Suns were super talented which is why they beat the Showtime Lakers the next round in 5 games. The same with the Blazers who were so good they had Danny Ainge and Cliff Robinson coming off the bench. The 88-94 Jazz never lost to a team worse than them with the exception of the 89 Warriors when the Jazz supporting cast completely collapsed.

All of the teams you listed had a better supporting cast than the Jazz. Here are the Jazz players with above average BPM's from 1988-1994 (Min. 1000 MP):

93 Corbin +0.6
89 Eaton +0.6
92 Corbin +0.4
90 Eaton +0.4
88 Bailey +0.2
88 Edwards +0.0

# of players with a BPM worse than -2.0: 20

That's awful compared to other Championship teams. They never once had a season with 2 players over a 0 BPM. The average Jazz role player VORP for 88-94 is +0.8.

2008 Lakers minus Kobe/Gasol: +10.5
2003 Spurs minus Duncan/Robinson: +7.4
2000 Lakers minus Shaq/Kobe: 6.4
2006 Heat minus Wade/Shaq: +5.3
1994 Rockets minus Hakeem: +7.8
88-94 Jazz minus Malone/Stockton average: +0.8

lol @ listing the 1993 Bulls. They had 3 different players make the all-star game the next season WITHOUT MJ.

Without weighing in overmuch on this debate, I'll point out that the '93 Bulls without Jordan and Pippen were +2.6 by the above method.

colts18 · Post #20 » by **colts18** » Sat Jan 2, 2021 9:44 pm

sansterre wrote:
colts18 wrote:
WestGOAT wrote:
In order not to derail this topic, my response in regards to Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin in spoilers:
Spoiler:
In 1988 and 1989 Thurl Baily averaged 24 to 25 points per 90 possessions on 54-55% TS% (league average TS% being slightly lower than 54%) during the RS. And while not a 3rd option, Mark Eaton (2x DPOY) was anchoring a Jazz defence that ranked first (RS) in both of those years. I did not mention Kelly Tripucka, because he was awful for the Jazz in '88, but he was talented enough for sure as he bounced back in '89. Why didn't he benefit from playing with a pass-first PG Stockton?

In 1990 Utah would have gotten past the Suns (lead by KJ, hampered by viral enteritis, and who's second-best player arguably was Hornachek) if Stockton shoots slightly better than his (putrid for his RS standards) 48.2 TS% (perhaps his elbow was injured here aswell ), especially considering that the Jazz lost Game 7 by 2 points. Is it the role players fault Stockton shot so badly?

From 1991 to 1993 they had Jeff Malone. The year before he arrived at the Jazz he averaged 31 points per 90 pos on 53% TS% (league average TS% being slightly below 54%). Not to mention he had also averaged 4.1 AST/2.2 TO per 90 pos, which is not bad at all for someone that "couldn't pass". Blue Edwards also started to emerge during this period and in 1992 shot 57% TS (above the league average TS% of 53%), before having a career year in 1993 for the Bucks. Then you also had Tyrone Corbin, while not as an efficient scorer as Baily and J.Malone (he still put up 22 points/per 90 pos for Minny in '91), he was (based on posts I've read on this board) much better on defence and provided strong rebounding, and moved the ball pretty well.

In 1991 and 1992, they can't get past the Blazers, as Terry Porter went supernova (especially in 1992) and played way above his own lofty playoff standards (sole responsibility lies on Sloan's defensive scheme of course). 1993 is a down year for the Jazz (only 47 wins), perhaps Malone and Stockton were worn out because of the Olympics, and they end up as 6th seed which is pretty disappointing. No wonder they go eliminated in the first-round again with no home-court advantage.

So I would not characterize it as "awful" support for two "MVP"-candidates in Malone (1a) and Stockton (1b) before Hornachek arrived. Sure, Baily, J.Malone, and Corbin were not efficient at scoring, but shouldn't Stockton's playmaking have elevated their scoring efficiency if he was that great (similar to what Nash did for others while playing for the Suns)? In before "It was all because of D'Antoni's system!!", perhaps Nash was the driving force that enabled that system?

If Lebron's carry-job of the Cavs is disqualified due to poor opposition faced, and perhaps more relevant for Santerre's topic, why not look at some teams Santerre has listed that were very top-heavy and still made the finals/won a chip:

2006 Heat: Mainly Wade with old Shaq supported by James Posey: beat DET (6.2) and DAL (6.0).
2003 Spurs: Mainly Duncan with old man Robinson supported by rookie Ginobili: beat Shaq and Kobe LAL (2.7) who coasted in the RS, DAL (7.9), NJN (4.4).
2000 Lakers: Mainly Shaq with 21-year old Kobe supported by Glen Rice: SAC (3.0), PHO (5.2), POR (6.4), IND (4.2).
1993 Chicago: Mainly Jordan with Pippen supported by Grant: beat CLE (6.3 SRS), NYK (5.9 SRS), and PHO (6.3 SRS) to win the chip.

Other teams he has yet to mention: 2011 Dallas and 1994 Houston.

Also worth a mention are the 2008 Lakers who beat SAS (5.1) and UTA (6.9), who basically relied on Kobe and Gasol, with Odom as the only other decent player.

Replace the top two players of these listed teams with both early 90s Malone and Stockton and I doubt they make the finals, let alone win the chip. Which might sound harsh, but if both of them are MVP-calibre players (which you in particular keep pushing for Stockton on this board) than you can expect as much.

You are conflating many different years into when in reality the Jazz never had 1 year with overall solid talent. Maybe if you combine later Malone, younger stockton, with 80s Eaton and Bailey, and 92 Corbin you might have a championship team, but the Jazz never had that happen in 1 season. 1988 Eaton was a pretty good role. 1992 Eaton otoh was an old slow man who was a complete offensive liability. 1988 Thurl Bailey is solid, but 1991 Bailey is a declining player. 1992 Karl Malone is an MVP candidate, 1988 Malone is a young Forward who led the NBA in turnovers. That version of Karl Malone was not an MVP.

A lot of the players you mentioned were never good. Kelly Tripucka . He was benched by the Jazz BEFORE Stockton became the starter. Nothing to do with Stockton/Malone. The fact that he didn't fit in Utah was because he needed a system to run through him. He was not a good enough player to have a system run through him. Then he puts up big numbers on a losing expansion team. I've never been impressed with players who put up huge numbers on expansion teams. Tyrone Corbin in Minnesota is an example of that. Corbin never put in any numbers in a long career comparable to the time he played on a 20 win expansion team.

The 1990 and 1991 Suns had significantly more talent than the Jazz. It's not even close. The #3 Suns player was Tom Chambers, the #3 Jazz player was Thurl Bailey. The Suns had Dan Majerle and Eddie Johnson coming off the bench. The Jazz had Darrell Griffith and Blue Edwards coming off the bench. The Suns were super talented which is why they beat the Showtime Lakers the next round in 5 games. The same with the Blazers who were so good they had Danny Ainge and Cliff Robinson coming off the bench. The 88-94 Jazz never lost to a team worse than them with the exception of the 89 Warriors when the Jazz supporting cast completely collapsed.

All of the teams you listed had a better supporting cast than the Jazz. Here are the Jazz players with above average BPM's from 1988-1994 (Min. 1000 MP):

93 Corbin +0.6
89 Eaton +0.6
92 Corbin +0.4
90 Eaton +0.4
88 Bailey +0.2
88 Edwards +0.0

# of players with a BPM worse than -2.0: 20

That's awful compared to other Championship teams. They never once had a season with 2 players over a 0 BPM. The average Jazz role player VORP for 88-94 is +0.8.

2008 Lakers minus Kobe/Gasol: +10.5
2003 Spurs minus Duncan/Robinson: +7.4
2000 Lakers minus Shaq/Kobe: 6.4
2006 Heat minus Wade/Shaq: +5.3
1994 Rockets minus Hakeem: +7.8
88-94 Jazz minus Malone/Stockton average: +0.8

lol @ listing the 1993 Bulls. They had 3 different players make the all-star game the next season WITHOUT MJ.

Without weighing in overmuch on this debate, I'll point out that the '93 Bulls without Jordan and Pippen were +2.6 by the above method.

True. Their #1 player was the GOAT so they could overcome that. Malone/Stockton were not on MJ's level.

I can't emphasize how different the Jazz cast was post-Hornacek than Pre-Hornacek. Below the TS ADD totals for Stockton and Malone combined. The 2nd column is the TS ADD of the other players. The 2nd table is during the Hornacek era. You can see that the role Player TS ADD was much higher even when you remove Hornacek's totals too.

Code: Select all

JS+KM   Others
1987-88   319   -175
1988-89   413   -195
1989-90   519   -6
1990-91   409   -16
1991-92   384   8
1992-93   376   -163
1993-94   246   -151
Total   2666   -698

Code: Select all

   JS+KM   Others   JH
1994-95   375   284   165
1995-96   309   42   155
1996-97   458   187   120
1997-98   397   264   124
Total   1539   777   610