Blaylock - closer to Payton or Lonzo

[durantbird]

How good was Mookie Blaylock? Is he closer to Gary Payton or to Lonzo Ball?

[penbeast0]

Ball is not a fair comp as he is still at the beginning of his career. I would say Blaylock's value is certainly far closer to that of Payton career but he was not valued as highly as he may have deserved. This was partly because of Seattle's success, partly because Payton scoring was a bit overvalued, and partly because people did not recognize the value of Mookie's 3 point shooting. That said, Payton was not only the better scorer, but also probably the better defender, playmaker, and rebounder (though not by a huge amount in any of the 3 cases) so he has a clear edge.

Mookie v. Lowry or Conley might be an interesting comp.

[ronnymac2]

Really like the comparisons to Conley and Lowry. Blaylock on a better team would have a tremendous rep and likely be seen as the precursor evolutionarily to those 3+D game manager PGs with excellent TOV economy who could score some as well. It's a very valuable PG archetype in any NBA era.

I also agree we should let Ball play a little more before making comparisons like this. I will say Blaylock's best five years probably aren't as far rom GP's best as their reps and awards suggest. Heck, during that time, Blaylock even almost matches Payton's most impressive attribute - durability.

[Jaivl]

Mookie ranks, obviously, somewhere between Gus Williams and Dave Bing.

By the way, what is Chauncey Billups doing at #46 on RealGM's list?

[Owly]

Got to be brief here but Blaylock is interesting.

Awful career TS add, somewhat driven by a particularly bad start to his (shooting) career in New Jersey (3 of his worse than -100 years in NJ, only 1 in Atlanta [though close one other year], 1 in GS).

Huge impact-y numbers 94-96, continued 97-99.

Career playoff box numbers illustrate how metrics can disagree on what is valuable (see OWS versus OBPM).

Alcoholism apparently present in playing days led to worse consequences post-playing.