Nate505 wrote:-= original quote snipped =-
I have no idea how Kidd can be considered a better PG than Stockton on any level. He was/is a slightly better scorer. And that's about it (other than boards which is a who cares stat when you talk about PGs).
Actually, Kidd is a vastly inferior scorer to Stockton, if that's what you mean. Stockton was WAY more effective as a shooter and as a finisher around the rim. Kidd is actually quite pathetic by comparison. He's a brilliant passer and rebounder but his personal offense is tepid at best, and extremely inefficient despite being a good FT shooter.
As to the rest, I'm pretty comfortable with:
Magic
Frazier
Isiah
Stockton
Kidd
Payton
Lenny Wilkens
Kevin Johnson
Nash
And for #10, I'd think you're talking about Norm Nixon or maybe Mo Cheeks.
Walt Frazier
The key thing to remember with Frazier is that while he didn't post huge APG numbers, he played in an offense that Holzman designed to spread the ball around a lot. You can generally find 2-4 guys averaging 3+ apg BESIDES Frazier, which helps indicate the sort of style I'm discussing here. The Knicks moved the ball very well. This became especially true when Lucas and DeBusschere came aboard a few years after the first title in 69-70. By the time the team peaked in 72-73 with it's second title, you had two guys besides Frazier averaging 4.5 apg (Bill Bradley and Jerry Lucas), Frazier himself adding 5.9 and then Earl Monroe adding 3.8 and DeBusschere adding 3.4... and all of these guys except Lucas played 75+ games (and Lucas played 71).
You factor that in, the fact that he still generally posted good APG values, was an astonishing perimeter defender without hand-checking and that he was a very good scorer and you get an idea of why he belongs here. He did, after all, help his Knicks win two titles. beating the West/Baylor/Wilt Lakers once and the West/Wilt/Goodrich Lakers the other time. Neither of those were any mean feats. Actually, he faced the Lakers in all three of his Finals appearances... and of course, was 2-1.
Jerry West, Oscar Robertson and Nate Archibald
I don't consider Tiny, West or Oscar point guards on the balance of their careers because I think they looked to score too much on the whole to be thought of in that way but in terms of passing caliber, they are certainly worthy of mention in this sort of rarefied air. West in particular started passing a lot more once Wilt showed up in 68-69: you'll notice that in every season from 68-69 onward, West averaged more APG than in any previous season and that he averaged +0.1, +0.7, +2.7, +2.9, +2.0 and -0.2 over his career-high pre-Wilt (6.8 apg).
Notably, West finished his career in 73-74, the year after Wilt retired (he also only played 31 games that year).
So he clearly developed some rather considerable synergy with Wilt that he just didn't have with Baylor in the years before. He was an outstanding passer but he, like Oscar, generally shot the ball a LOT and it's difficult for me to consider guys like that (who trend to 18+ FGA/g) as point guards.
The only valid assertion that can be made is that if you pace-adjust his numbers, his attempts come down but really, you're talking about a guy who was rather clearly a scoring point, which is a different breed of player than a conventional point guard (or even someone like Magic).
Obviously, if you consider these types of players in this discussion, West and Oscar are #2 and 3 (interchangeably, perhaps weighting Oscar for his statistical dominance or Jerry West for making the Finals as often as Magic and winning Finals MVP as the loser because he was so good).
Nate, though... He was a valuable addition to the Celtics during Bird's era but he was certainly far from an all-time great by that time.
Nate the Skate won a title with the Celtics in '81 and acquitted himself well in the playoffs but he wasn't anything super-special. Before that, he was chucking up a lot of shots on some really bad teams and therefore producing a lot of high-scoring results. He was efficient when he shot but he overdribbled and didn't play good defense. Then his integration to Boston was hardly ideal, since he showed up overweight after having dealt with injuries and such the previous season, he struggled next to JoJo White, and pissed and moaned publicly about playing time, feuding with his coach.
This is not a top-10 PG; he was a turnover machine who played weak D on crappy teams in his prime and while it's impresive that he led the league in PPG and APG in the same year and is the only guy to do that, it's ultimately meaningless, a fairly empty achievement.
When he was in Boston, he was not noticeably better than the support PGs like Nixon and Cheeks on other 80s title teams and certainly not in the mix with the big guns.
Chris Paul and Deron Williams
Now, you talk about Paul and Deron... well, it's entirely too premature and Paul has no playoff resume to speak of at this time. He'll start it this year but right now, you can't project ANYTHING. Deron at least has a year and 17 games of playoff experience under his belt, during which he generally performed very well (though his 3 abandoned him and he shot about 1% under his seasonal FG%, he drew more fouls and shot better at the line than he did during the regular season). And to be fair, the Jazz made it all the way to the conference finals before getting smoked by the (at the time) 3-time champion San Antonio Spurs, who went on to win the title for the fourth time. Remember, San Antonio is in the middle of a decade-long run as one of the best defenses of all-time, so it's tough to really fault Utah for falling apart against that. The Spurs only lost 4 of the 20 games they played in the postseason last year (they beat Denver 4-1, beat Phoenix 4-2, beat Utah 4-1 and swept the Cavs).
But anyway, time will tell and I expect Paul and Deron to both have outstanding playoff careers; they seem to thrive under pressure anyway, so I'm not worried about it but it IS
entirely too premature to be discussing them in this type of context.
Playoff Legacy
Magic, Frazier, Nash, all these guys have fairly storied playoff careers and most of them (Nash being the glaring exception) have been to the Finals at least once. Here's a list, bolded years representing championships):
Magic (
80,
82, 83, 84,
85,
87,
88, 89, 91)
Frazier (
70, 72,
73)
Isiah (88,
89,
90)
Stockton (97, 98)
Nash
Kidd (02, 03)
Payton (96)
Lenny Wilkens (61)
Kevin Johnson (93)
EDIT: Freaking smilies...
