RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #32 (Deadline 5:00AM PST on 10/9/23)

[Owly]

Biggest thing for me is this:

When the Jazz became a serious threat to win a title, it happened with the team putting more and more primacy on Malone and less and less on Stockton.

With the assist numbers for example, Stockton's go down in the best years, and while many have argued this was about Hornacek coming in as a secondary playmaker, if that's all that was going on, we'd expect Malone's to go down too. Instead they go up. Even if we ignore what that implies about the replaceability of Stockton's playmaking talent, it's hard to fathom arguing Stockton should have been the MVP candidate when the Jazz had a serious MVP candidate.

Now, I do think that Stockton's style of play aged considerably better than Malone's come the 21st century, and that's a feather in his cap, but for me to ever seriously consider Stockton over Malone in the future, I'd have to see some pretty massive impact indicators in the years we don't yet have +/- for. Even then, it's just tough for me when the argument would be "Sure Malone was the one carrying them to contender status, but if you include all the surrounding years where they weren't really contenders, Stockton contributed more total value." I can see someone else being swayed by that, but for me in a league where the championship is the thing, the top player on a given contending core is generally the guy who was most important when the contending happened.

I know Stockton was banged up in ‘98, but I don’t see how Malone had more primacy in ‘97 than in any other season. Malone’s playoff AST% was lower than his career average. Stockton led the NBA in playoff AST% in ‘97 with his highest number since ‘93. Here are their playoff composite numbers:

Malone: 22.2 PER on .501 TS%, .127 WS/48, 4.0 BPM
Stockton: 22.7 PER on .627 TS%, .201 WS/48, 7.8 BPM

If anything it felt like Stockton played well enough to win a championship while Malone let MJ get in his head in the Finals and choked it away. Not to mention that Stockton hit the biggest clutch shot in the history of the franchise to get Utah to the Finals in the first place.

So these are good things to point out no doubt, and one thing I wanted to clarify is that I'm not trying to say Malone was literally a better passer than Stockton, only that if Stockton's passing was the Jazz' killer edge, it's weird that it's going down when they are at their apex and that it cannot simply be chalked up to another guard.

Re: Stockton played well enough to win chip and Malone choked it away.

So, I'll just point out the On & On-Off stuff here for those playoffs:

ORtg:
Malone, On: 111.1, On-Off: +25.6
Stockton, On: 106.3, On-Off: -3.1

Net:
Malone: On: +3.0, On-Off: +26.6
Stockton: On: -1.9, On-Off: -2.8

And of course this is with Malone playing bigger minutes.

Pretty hard to argue that Stockton was carrying the team to their run-to-the-finals success here I think.

You do allude to a common statistical trend with the Jazz in the playoff though: Malone's efficiency takes a hit as defenses concentrate on him while no one else steps up as a volume scoring threat.

I think "carrying" is nearly always unproductive language. I wouldn't have used choked as the post you respond to did, but ultimately it's a team game and even if a "cast" is just average there's real value to that versus what else could be there and "carrying"-based language tends to ignore that.

But as with the regular season '97 playoffs sees Stockton in multiple top 10 lineups with bench units that get killed whilst Malone isn't in them as much (though otoh, more than RS). Eisley gets a bunch of 1st unit and adjacent minutes rather than playing with the backups. And to be fair in those the Jazz at first glance seem to have fared well in those in the playoffs ... it's just, for instance, whether one really wants to buy into Eisley caused the rebound improvement for the GO,KM,BR,JH + point units or it's a fluke.

I'm weary of single playoff +/- beyond if someone's killing a guy for not advancing/winning etc and they win in their minutes (Embiid '19), but yeah

[Owly]

Biggest thing for me is this:

When the Jazz became a serious threat to win a title, it happened with the team putting more and more primacy on Malone and less and less on Stockton.

With the assist numbers for example, Stockton's go down in the best years, and while many have argued this was about Hornacek coming in as a secondary playmaker, if that's all that was going on, we'd expect Malone's to go down too. Instead they go up. Even if we ignore what that implies about the replaceability of Stockton's playmaking talent, it's hard to fathom arguing Stockton should have been the MVP candidate when the Jazz had a serious MVP candidate.

Now, I do think that Stockton's style of play aged considerably better than Malone's come the 21st century, and that's a feather in his cap, but for me to ever seriously consider Stockton over Malone in the future, I'd have to see some pretty massive impact indicators in the years we don't yet have +/- for. Even then, it's just tough for me when the argument would be "Sure Malone was the one carrying them to contender status, but if you include all the surrounding years where they weren't really contenders, Stockton contributed more total value." I can see someone else being swayed by that, but for me in a league where the championship is the thing, the top player on a given contending core is generally the guy who was most important when the contending happened.

Minor first glance thoughts not presently inclined to go deep

1) Primacy and goodness aren't the same. Malone "carrying" then is not really a given and is more dubious when granted without question whilst speaking as someone coming down more on the Stockton side (to the extent this needs to be zero-sum, which at at two-player level ... two players who seemed to work quite well together fwiw ... I don't think it does).
2) The "happened" refrain could just as well be 'it happened when they got a third good player.'
3) A smallish guard who has had some use as a combo guard and a one on both previous teams is probably more likely to eat into the stats (box and impact) of a 1 than a 4.
4) "Replacability" ... I think there's a multi-year and single year data trail especially on the RAPM-side, one that says Hornacek was himself excellent and yet, despite having a good somewhat similar player, that Stockton wasn't replaceable.

1) Primacy is not goodness. Very true, and as I've alluded to throughout this project, I'm trying not to rely on projecting goodness with my criteria. I understand why some think Stockton could have been a super-Nash if only he'd had Nash's opportunity, but that's not what actually happened.

Re: two-players who work quite well together. Right, but of course we're talking a lot here about the fact that Malone was playing more and more minutes without Stockton. Eventually we see Malone's volume scoring approach age out, but while the team is a contender, the impact indicators tend to side with Malone as the more essential piece.

2) "happened" when they got a 3rd good player. Sure, but that doesn't explain why the team concentrated more on Malone when they got the 3rd player.

3) Hornacek similar to Stockton, makes sense he eats into Stockton's stats. Sure, but if the Jazz were fortunate enough to acquire a second guy who must be an all-timer great playmaker in order to justify stealing primacy from the first, why is the power forward getting more assists?

4) RAPM loves Stockton! RAPM is largely geared toward the post-contention years. The +/- data I see in the '90s going back to '93-94 seems to favor Malone.

But to be clear: What I'm really saying here is that if Stockton's APG was an indication of his supreme utterly unable-to-be-matched-in-any-possession playmaking, we'd expect that the Jazz best years would be making maximal use of his assist game...and that's just not what we see.

Doesn't mean Stockton wasn't the best passer on the team - I think he was - but it does mean that the most effective strategy we ever saw with those Jazz wasn't about letting Stockton make as many playmaking decisions as possible and having everyone else just feed off of that...and by contrast with guys like Magic & Nash, I'd argue that letting the one guy make the decisions literally was how the team peaked.

Briefly
Re impact sees Malone as more essential ... maybe after minutes. As before Stockton came out as equal or mainly better in the AScreaming era yearly RAPMs. 94-96 stuff looks tougher, only potential defense I can think of is the possibility Stockton's minutes were offset in junk lineups as in '97.

On three, I'm not sure I'm joining the dots on your point but this hasn't ever been about diminishing Malone. He became a better passer. This was good. He's also got better shooting and more space inside with Hornacek. He also has greatly improved options if Stockton is minutes offset with backups than he would have were Hornacek not there. Fwiw I don't think Hornacek does have to an "all-timer great playmaker" to dent Stockton's impact numbers or box-production. Just better than what was there before. You can't run the same play every time down, even if it's really good (unless it's that good that it doesn't need the threat of other stuff to be optimally effective, but that would be surprising). I'm not sure " stealing primacy" is a productive avenue. It's fuzzy, the language is somewhat loaded etc. Hornacek isn't that "primary". He's very good guard that can do some "point" things, shoot really well, space the floor, make some tough shots...

As ever feel free to check into it but my impression is the Pollack dataset when including versus 76ers doesn't see a wide gap and could potentially point to a significant, perhaps substantial early Stockton lead early on. Of course I don't know which years you deem the Jazz contenders nor the extent to which other years are ... marginalized?

[lessthanjake]

What else can we use for players in 1973? We don’t have impact metrics from back then. Box score measures and some crude WOWY stuff is all we have in terms of data. We can decide that PER isn’t the best measure we have nowadays, but it’s still one of the best we have for players like Frazier.

Not really? We can use what we have been using. PER is a limited stat. PER without several of its input values is even worse. It's better to just discuss his box score contributions and other traits individually than bother with a summary stat missing pieces, in a system which suppressed individual assists, etc. It just isn't that useful.

Okay, but as I’ve written, my point stands if we just eyeball box score contributions ourselves. Listing PER is just a shorthand for making that point.

[MyUniBroDavis]

There's no point in using it to compare modern guys where there are better tools available, but sometimes it's the best box score measure we have for seasons prior to 1974. It's really not hard to identify the weak spots with it. It tends to underrate elite passer/playmakers and elite defenders, but other than that it mostly places people pretty well within the context of the league they played in.

As far as I know PER essentially comes down to an arbitrary box score formula that basically comes down to “eh well this looks good” so there quite literally is lol reason to use it over looking at box scores yourself and making your own conclusions

As far as you know? Shouldn't you understand it well before dismissing it?

Also, other than a few things here or there, what makes it arbitrary? It's not like it's 5 times points plus 27 times rebounds plus 73 times blocks. It's somewhat straightforward and, if anything, kind of just a possession counter. With the very convenient attribute of adjusting for pace and league environment.

Also, why would your or anyone else's evaluation of a box score be any better? Why not just use the longstanding measure that is widely calculated? And of course there aren't really any non-box score stats to look at from 1970.

PER is a idiotic stat lol, “as far as I know” was because there’s nothing on it that shows it’s not arbitrary lmfao

What ur basically saying is why would this one guys arbitrary box score formula generalized towards every player in history that was slightly adjusted for when inputs in it weren’t available are better than anyone that has the intelligence to actually look at different individuals in context.

Idk why u die on this hill cuz I saw you arguing that it wasn’t a garbage stat awhile back too, it absolutely is. It’s not even like RAPTOR or one of the bad plus minus stuff, PER is one of the few things that anyone with any mild Python or R experience could make something better than in less than a day lol


A stat being listed in an advanced stat category doesn’t mean it’s not garbage. PER is garbage and if u don’t think so then u don’t understand NBA data lol

[lessthanjake]

That’s a straw man. The question is not whether he was “one of the best players in the league” or had an “outstanding postseason run,” but rather whether he was as good as Kawhi Leonard. Frazier can be the things you mention, while still not being as good as Kawhi. And, to me that’s the case, and I think the box score data comports with that.

No, the discussion started when you said that no other candidate led his team as the clear best player to the title, which Frazier did. It's not a strawman, I am afraid people use this word way too often recently.

Yes, and you’ll notice that I quickly and repeatedly stated to you that pointing out Frazier did this too was “a fair point.” I then drew a more nuanced distinction between what Kawhi and Frazier had done than the one I’d initially drawn, so going back to the thing I already conceded wasn’t really right is in fact a straw man at this point in the discussion.

[MyUniBroDavis]

What else can we use for players in 1973? We don’t have impact metrics from back then. Box score measures and some crude WOWY stuff is all we have in terms of data. We can decide that PER isn’t the best measure we have nowadays, but it’s still one of the best we have for players like Frazier.

Not really? We can use what we have been using. PER is a limited stat. PER without several of its input values is even worse. It's better to just discuss his box score contributions and other traits individually than bother with a summary stat missing pieces, in a system which suppressed individual assists, etc. It just isn't that useful.

Okay, but as I’ve written, my point stands if we just eyeball box score contributions ourselves. Listing PER is just a shorthand for making that point.

I absolutely am just here to say PER sucks whenever I see it mentioned lol

[penbeast0]

I know Stockton was banged up in ‘98, but I don’t see how Malone had more primacy in ‘97 than in any other season. Malone’s playoff AST% was lower than his career average. Stockton led the NBA in playoff AST% in ‘97 with his highest number since ‘93. Here are their playoff composite numbers:

Malone: 22.2 PER on .501 TS%, .127 WS/48, 4.0 BPM
Stockton: 22.7 PER on .627 TS%, .201 WS/48, 7.8 BPM

If anything it felt like Stockton played well enough to win a championship while Malone let MJ get in his head in the Finals and choked it away. Not to mention that Stockton hit the biggest clutch shot in the history of the franchise to get Utah to the Finals in the first place.

So these are good things to point out no doubt, and one thing I wanted to clarify is that I'm not trying to say Malone was literally a better passer than Stockton, only that if Stockton's passing was the Jazz' killer edge, it's weird that it's going down when they are at their apex and that it cannot simply be chalked up to another guard.

Re: Stockton played well enough to win chip and Malone choked it away.

So, I'll just point out the On & On-Off stuff here for those playoffs:

ORtg:
Malone, On: 111.1, On-Off: +25.6
Stockton, On: 106.3, On-Off: -3.1

Net:
Malone: On: +3.0, On-Off: +26.6
Stockton: On: -1.9, On-Off: -2.8

And of course this is with Malone playing bigger minutes.

Pretty hard to argue that Stockton was carrying the team to their run-to-the-finals success here I think.

You do allude to a common statistical trend with the Jazz in the playoff though: Malone's efficiency takes a hit as defenses concentrate on him while no one else steps up as a volume scoring threat.[/quote]

It also could be like the legacy of Wilt's great scoring years. When everything focuses on one heliocentric piece that has the ball all the time (Malone was mainly a finisher early on), it tends to be less efficient as a team offense than one where there are multiple points of attacks or in this case, multiple playmaking options.

[penbeast0]

I see a couple of people bringing up Bill Walton. This isn't the peaks project, it's the career value project. Walton had one year where he was a healthy playoff starter, one where he was an outstanding reserve playing limited minutes in the playoffs, and one year where he was playing at an MVP level for 2/3 of a year then got injured and didn't go to the playoffs. Outside of that, he was a major detriment to any team he was one because he famously demanded to be paid at the Kareem level despite his injuries and for a decade, every year they would build a team around his skills and superstar money then he would not be there for the playoffs. Kawhi at least has a series of strong playoff runs. Walton has 1.5 and a career of being injured.

One year of MVP value where he managed 65 rs games and won a title should not be considered better than a decade of someone like Damon Lillard or Jason Kidd where they helped put their teams into contention year after year even if they didn't win a title. He's not in my top 100.

[70sFan]

That’s a straw man. The question is not whether he was “one of the best players in the league” or had an “outstanding postseason run,” but rather whether he was as good as Kawhi Leonard. Frazier can be the things you mention, while still not being as good as Kawhi. And, to me that’s the case, and I think the box score data comports with that.

No, the discussion started when you said that no other candidate led his team as the clear best player to the title, which Frazier did. It's not a strawman, I am afraid people use this word way too often recently.

Yes, and you’ll notice that I quickly and repeatedly stated to you that pointing out Frazier did this too was “a fair point.” I then drew a more nuanced distinction between what Kawhi and Frazier had done than the one I’d initially drawn, so going back to the thing I already conceded wasn’t really right is in fact a straw man at this point in the discussion.

Fair enough. I disagree with your nuanced distinction, but I don't think it's worth discussing further.

I still disagree with calling my posts "strawman".

[iggymcfrack]

Biggest thing for me is this:

When the Jazz became a serious threat to win a title, it happened with the team putting more and more primacy on Malone and less and less on Stockton.

With the assist numbers for example, Stockton's go down in the best years, and while many have argued this was about Hornacek coming in as a secondary playmaker, if that's all that was going on, we'd expect Malone's to go down too. Instead they go up. Even if we ignore what that implies about the replaceability of Stockton's playmaking talent, it's hard to fathom arguing Stockton should have been the MVP candidate when the Jazz had a serious MVP candidate.

Now, I do think that Stockton's style of play aged considerably better than Malone's come the 21st century, and that's a feather in his cap, but for me to ever seriously consider Stockton over Malone in the future, I'd have to see some pretty massive impact indicators in the years we don't yet have +/- for. Even then, it's just tough for me when the argument would be "Sure Malone was the one carrying them to contender status, but if you include all the surrounding years where they weren't really contenders, Stockton contributed more total value." I can see someone else being swayed by that, but for me in a league where the championship is the thing, the top player on a given contending core is generally the guy who was most important when the contending happened.

I know Stockton was banged up in ‘98, but I don’t see how Malone had more primacy in ‘97 than in any other season. Malone’s playoff AST% was lower than his career average. Stockton led the NBA in playoff AST% in ‘97 with his highest number since ‘93. Here are their playoff composite numbers:

Malone: 22.2 PER on .501 TS%, .127 WS/48, 4.0 BPM
Stockton: 22.7 PER on .627 TS%, .201 WS/48, 7.8 BPM

If anything it felt like Stockton played well enough to win a championship while Malone let MJ get in his head in the Finals and choked it away. Not to mention that Stockton hit the biggest clutch shot in the history of the franchise to get Utah to the Finals in the first place.

So these are good things to point out no doubt, and one thing I wanted to clarify is that I'm not trying to say Malone was literally a better passer than Stockton, only that if Stockton's passing was the Jazz' killer edge, it's weird that it's going down when they are at their apex and that it cannot simply be chalked up to another guard.

The point is Stockton’s assists really weren’t going down though? 1988 was the first year Stockton started to put up big assist numbers in the playoffs. From 88-96, Stockton had an AST% of 49.8 in the postseason. In ‘97, it was 47.5. That’s a tiny difference and it can easily be explained by the addition of a secondary playmaker. If you look at raw numbers, the difference seems a lot bigger than it actually was because pace league wide was so depressed from the late ‘80s to the late ‘90s.

[Doctor MJ]

I know Stockton was banged up in ‘98, but I don’t see how Malone had more primacy in ‘97 than in any other season. Malone’s playoff AST% was lower than his career average. Stockton led the NBA in playoff AST% in ‘97 with his highest number since ‘93. Here are their playoff composite numbers:

Malone: 22.2 PER on .501 TS%, .127 WS/48, 4.0 BPM
Stockton: 22.7 PER on .627 TS%, .201 WS/48, 7.8 BPM

If anything it felt like Stockton played well enough to win a championship while Malone let MJ get in his head in the Finals and choked it away. Not to mention that Stockton hit the biggest clutch shot in the history of the franchise to get Utah to the Finals in the first place.

So these are good things to point out no doubt, and one thing I wanted to clarify is that I'm not trying to say Malone was literally a better passer than Stockton, only that if Stockton's passing was the Jazz' killer edge, it's weird that it's going down when they are at their apex and that it cannot simply be chalked up to another guard.

Re: Stockton played well enough to win chip and Malone choked it away.

So, I'll just point out the On & On-Off stuff here for those playoffs:

ORtg:
Malone, On: 111.1, On-Off: +25.6
Stockton, On: 106.3, On-Off: -3.1

Net:
Malone: On: +3.0, On-Off: +26.6
Stockton: On: -1.9, On-Off: -2.8

And of course this is with Malone playing bigger minutes.

Pretty hard to argue that Stockton was carrying the team to their run-to-the-finals success here I think.

You do allude to a common statistical trend with the Jazz in the playoff though: Malone's efficiency takes a hit as defenses concentrate on him while no one else steps up as a volume scoring threat.

I think "carrying" is nearly always unproductive language. I wouldn't have used choked as the post you respond to did, but ultimately it's a team game and even if a "cast" is just average there's real value to that versus what else could be there and "carrying"-based language tends to ignore that.

But as with the regular season '97 playoffs sees Stockton in multiple top 10 lineups with bench units that get killed whilst Malone isn't in them as much (though otoh, more than RS). Eisley gets a bunch of 1st unit and adjacent minutes rather than playing with the backups. And to be fair in those the Jazz at first glance seem to have fared well in those in the playoffs ... it's just, for instance, whether one really wants to buy into Eisley caused the rebound improvement for the GO,KM,BR,JH + point units or it's a fluke.

I'm weary of single playoff +/- beyond if someone's killing a guy for not advancing/winning etc and they win in their minutes (Embiid '19), but yeah

Re: choking/carrying. Makes sense.

Re: '97 playoffs sees Stockton in multiple top 10 lineups with bench units that get killed. The argument that Stockton was playing with weak teammates that when properly accounted for would show an outstanding RAPM makes sense as a possibility, though I'm cautious about assuming it.

I will say I can't help but think, "Gosh, wouldn't it be nice if Stockton looked to score a lot more when Malone wasn't out there like top tier playmakers do." I'm sure that doesn't seem fair, but there's just thing that if Stockton can't just manufacture assists on demand regardless of his teammates, and he can't adjust by going into more of a volume scoring mold, well, doesn't that speak to his limitations?

Re: weary of single playoff +/-. Makes sense, though keep in mind I brought up the regular season data, and only spoke to the playoffs when someone pivoted to the playoffs to allege Malone's "choke" job. Malone's massive, massive, massive playoff +/- advantage over Stockton that year is something we should be cautious about being too bold about in our interpretations...but I do think it says enough to nix any thought that even if Malone was the regular season Jazz MVP during the year he was NBA MVP, Stockton was the true Jazz MVP in the playoffs.

[Doctor MJ]

Minor first glance thoughts not presently inclined to go deep

1) Primacy and goodness aren't the same. Malone "carrying" then is not really a given and is more dubious when granted without question whilst speaking as someone coming down more on the Stockton side (to the extent this needs to be zero-sum, which at at two-player level ... two players who seemed to work quite well together fwiw ... I don't think it does).
2) The "happened" refrain could just as well be 'it happened when they got a third good player.'
3) A smallish guard who has had some use as a combo guard and a one on both previous teams is probably more likely to eat into the stats (box and impact) of a 1 than a 4.
4) "Replacability" ... I think there's a multi-year and single year data trail especially on the RAPM-side, one that says Hornacek was himself excellent and yet, despite having a good somewhat similar player, that Stockton wasn't replaceable.

1) Primacy is not goodness. Very true, and as I've alluded to throughout this project, I'm trying not to rely on projecting goodness with my criteria. I understand why some think Stockton could have been a super-Nash if only he'd had Nash's opportunity, but that's not what actually happened.

Re: two-players who work quite well together. Right, but of course we're talking a lot here about the fact that Malone was playing more and more minutes without Stockton. Eventually we see Malone's volume scoring approach age out, but while the team is a contender, the impact indicators tend to side with Malone as the more essential piece.

2) "happened" when they got a 3rd good player. Sure, but that doesn't explain why the team concentrated more on Malone when they got the 3rd player.

3) Hornacek similar to Stockton, makes sense he eats into Stockton's stats. Sure, but if the Jazz were fortunate enough to acquire a second guy who must be an all-timer great playmaker in order to justify stealing primacy from the first, why is the power forward getting more assists?

4) RAPM loves Stockton! RAPM is largely geared toward the post-contention years. The +/- data I see in the '90s going back to '93-94 seems to favor Malone.

But to be clear: What I'm really saying here is that if Stockton's APG was an indication of his supreme utterly unable-to-be-matched-in-any-possession playmaking, we'd expect that the Jazz best years would be making maximal use of his assist game...and that's just not what we see.

Doesn't mean Stockton wasn't the best passer on the team - I think he was - but it does mean that the most effective strategy we ever saw with those Jazz wasn't about letting Stockton make as many playmaking decisions as possible and having everyone else just feed off of that...and by contrast with guys like Magic & Nash, I'd argue that letting the one guy make the decisions literally was how the team peaked.

Briefly
Re impact sees Malone as more essential ... maybe after minutes. As before Stockton came out as equal or mainly better in the AScreaming era yearly RAPMs. 94-96 stuff looks tougher, only potential defense I can think of is the possibility Stockton's minutes were offset in junk lineups as in '97.

On three, I'm not sure I'm joining the dots on your point but this hasn't ever been about diminishing Malone. He became a better passer. This was good. He's also got better shooting and more space inside with Hornacek. He also has greatly improved options if Stockton is minutes offset with backups than he would have were Hornacek not there. Fwiw I don't think Hornacek does have to an "all-timer great playmaker" to dent Stockton's impact numbers or box-production. Just better than what was there before. You can't run the same play every time down, even if it's really good (unless it's that good that it doesn't need the threat of other stuff to be optimally effective, but that would be surprising). I'm not sure " stealing primacy" is a productive avenue. It's fuzzy, the language is somewhat loaded etc. Hornacek isn't that "primary". He's very good guard that can do some "point" things, shoot really well, space the floor, make some tough shots...

As ever feel free to check into it but my impression is the Pollack dataset when including versus 76ers doesn't see a wide gap and could potentially point to a significant, perhaps substantial early Stockton lead early on. Of course I don't know which years you deem the Jazz contenders nor the extent to which other years are ... marginalized?

Re: maybe after minutes. Well, and I do think that's no small thing, particularly when the Jazz previously used Malone & Stockton more similar amounts of minutes. If Stockton gets his RAPM edge exclusively when his minutes are lowered, I'd be very reluctant to rank him above his teammate.

Re: this hasn't ever been about diminishing Malone. Maybe not for you, but I seriously doubt anyone who thinks Stockton was the MVP of the Jazz agrees with Malone winning NBA MVP.

Re: can't run same play every time down. Well I mean, I think you might argue that that's precisely what the Jazz tried to do and it's hard to imagine that this is unrelated to the fact that their point guard racked up assist totals that make people question if Magic Johnson was overrated.

So while it doesn't necessarily say anything bad about Stockton's playmaking ability that a greater diversity of options helped the Jazz, I just think we all need to acknowledge that any discussion about Stockton coming after the fact is heavily shaped by those gaudy assist totals. It's not the only thing involved, but I seriously doubt Stockton would get consideration as high as he's often been considered in the Top 100 project if the dude had averaged more pedestrian numbers.

Re: "stealing primacy" is fuzzy and loaded. True, and I'm open to better ways to describe the situation.

Re: Hornacek isn't that "primary". True. To be clear, I use the term "primacy" to represent a load relative to other players. Also to be clear, this is a term I first took from basketball video games a very long time ago.

Re: Pollack data vs 76ers. You're talking before '93-94? Honestly I've not really factored any data along those lines into my assessments, though I welcome the chance to do so if others think there's enough sample. Please point me at any particular thing and I'll chew on it.

Re: which years Jazz contenders? This is a very reasonable question. In the context of what I mean here, I'm basically talking about the '94-95 jump. One can certainly argue that the Jazz deserve to be considered contenders considerably earlier than that, but I just think there's a clear tier jump once they get Hornacek.

I don't really want to be disrespectful to what they did before, but I think it's critical to have front-of-mind that there's not really a question as to whether the Jazz were at their best pre-Hornacek or with-Hornacek.

[Doctor MJ]

It also could be like the legacy of Wilt's great scoring years. When everything focuses on one heliocentric piece that has the ball all the time (Malone was mainly a finisher early on), it tends to be less efficient as a team offense than one where there are multiple points of attacks or in this case, multiple playmaking options.

I think a connection between Wilt's biggest scoring years and Stockton's biggest assisting years makes a lot of sense.

[Doctor MJ]

The point is Stockton’s assists really weren’t going down though? 1988 was the first year Stockton started to put up big assist numbers in the playoffs. From 88-96, Stockton had an AST% of 49.8 in the postseason. In ‘97, it was 47.5. That’s a tiny difference and it can easily be explained by the addition of a secondary playmaker. If you look at raw numbers, the difference seems a lot bigger than it actually was because pace league wide was so depressed from the late ‘80s to the late ‘90s.

Stockton had a playoff AST% north of 50% every playoffs from 1988 to 1992, with a AST% in the final year of 54.2. The following year he dropped to 48.4 and didn't break 50% again in the '90s. We see similar trends in the regular season. If you want to say these differences are not that different you can make the argument, but the trend is there and bigger than you imply.

And while I do get the argument of the secondary playmaker in theory, it speaks to the needs of the team if additional playmakers are what was needed to elevate the offense.

Here's where I think it's good to remind us of the % of FG Ast'd which we have from '96-97 onward. That whole time Stockton lives north of 40% for his 2's. That's not any kind of "failure" he should get blamed for, but if that was the best way we saw the Jazz had to play him, it's noteworthy, because that's not some fundamental rule for all point guards.

Nash, whose MVPs have everything to do with how evaluations of Stockton have been done ever since, had more like 10% of this 2's assisted, and while one might naively think the Suns offense could improve if they added more creators to give Nash easier shots, in practice, given how dominant those Suns offenses were, this seems unrealistic.

[Doctor MJ]

Induction Vote 1: Walt Frazier



I think my previous posts where I showed how massive the gap is between Frazier and his teammates really hammers in how I'm seeing things. I completely respect others who value longevity more, but I do see Frazier as a clear cut alpha superstar leading the top team of his era, and that's not something I can say about the other guys on the board.

Induction Vote 2: Reggie Miller

Really on the fence here. Was siding with Pippen previously and may do so again, but at the moment I'm finding it easier to justify Miller I have as a Top 5 guy more times than Pippen, see as more of an alpha, and had considerably stronger longevity.

Nomination Vote 1: John Havlicek



Repeating:

Spoiler:

So, I haven't been able to get Hondo off my mind. I think I'm guilty of letting my simplifying year-by-year ranking process influence me too much. The main point of comparison here is Scottie Pippen, who ended up scoring considerably higher than Havlicek in that study. Of course maybe the scoring itself is particularly wrong there, but realistically even if it isn't, I can't really say that I think it's clear that Pippen was better than Havlicek prime-per-prime. Pippen's got an argument, and Havlicek does too.

And then there is the longevity to consider. As I've said above, I believe I weigh longevity less than most here, but in particular comparisons it becomes hard to dismiss. Havlicek's career can be characterized as having his prime begin in a Pippen-like role, and then at around the time Pippen's injuries started really taking their roll, Havlicek up'ed his scoring primacy and arguably led a team to two championship.

Honestly, as I think about Havlicek more, he may jump some guys in the Nomination pool that I previously supported over him.

Nomination Vote 2: Manu Ginobili

Repeating:

Spoiler:

Yup, there I go. Manu's my next man.

Now as I've said, I'm less fixed on where exactly Ginobili is than I am feeling compelled to spread the gospel on the guy. I'm not purposefully doing that early - but it's possible I'll end up raising someone else above him before all is said and done here.

I quote my posts from the '04-05 thread before, and it's not just a coincidence they come from there. As I was going back through the years evaluating POY, I ended up siding with Ginobili at #1. This actually shocked me, and it's incredibly funny talking about it here, given that I was first compelled to post at RealGM during that same season to argue for Steve Nash's MVP worthiness and that Nash has since become my all-time favorite player. I like Ginobili, but Nash is the one who I truly fear having bias for. Perhaps I overcompensate, but in the past my '04-05 POY considerations were really about Nash vs Duncan.

To understand how I got there logically:

1. I think that Ginobili impacts with the best of 'em per minute and is typically held back in total impact by his limited minutes.

2. When a player's lack of minutes seems clearly to have held the team back meaningfully - like keeping team from chip - it's easy to justify knocking him harshly for the lack.

3. But when the team wins the title, and does so on the back of how he plays when he does play, I need to seriously ask myself where the minute threshold is that would have been "enough" to be the most valuable player.

4. And so, in my analysis, I would say that Ginobili would be my pick for both the WC MVP & Finals MVP.

5. This is happening in a season where there Ginobili leads the league in +/- by a significant margin:

Ginobili +844
Duncan +765
Nash +728

6. Speaking today, I now believe with confidence pace & space is a just plain superior way to play to win, and Ginobili was the guy driving the pace (+5.5 Pace On/Off in the playoffs) and the space (made more 3's than any other Spur), which I think was likely critical to their success against the Suns in particular.

Without elaborating on Ginobili vs Duncan & Ginobili vs Nash specifically at this time, I'll just say:

I see compelling arguments for Ginobili against each of them, and I struggle to use minutes to negate them.

Okay then zooming out, I see Ginobili as a guy who at his best was really capable of being the top basketball player in the league. He's held back some due to his limited minutes...but he also shows a remarkable tendency to level up his impact in the playoffs, and in particular deep in the playoffs.

And when the Spurs won titles in the 2000s, it always coincided with Ginobili seeming to go particularly nuts with his impact. All 4 of those chips, Ginobili had the best team +/- - and for perspective with the data we have, we don't have any other player more than twice. (Though we do have Michael Jordan twice, during his final two chips, which bodes exceptionally well for what we may find when we get access to earlier data.)

I'm honestly not sure if there's any other player remotely like Ginobili on this front - demonstrating this level of deep playoff impact dominance, while not being something like a GOAT candidate.

Okay, imma stop there. I hope my plea doesn't end up making folks recoil. I'm less concerned with convincing people right now that they should Nominate Ginobili, and more hopeful they'll just chew on their assessment of the guy. I think we have some significant things to learn about basketball, and basketball analysis, by understanding the the time of the Argentine.

[penbeast0]

...

Re: can't run same play every time down. Well I mean, I think you might argue that that's precisely what the Jazz tried to do and it's hard to imagine that this is unrelated to the fact that their point guard racked up assist totals that make people question if Magic Johnson was overrated.

So while it doesn't necessarily say anything bad about Stockton's playmaking ability that a greater diversity of options helped the Jazz, I just think we all need to acknowledge that any discussion about Stockton coming after the fact is heavily shaped by those gaudy assist totals. It's not the only thing involved, but I seriously doubt Stockton would get consideration as high as he's often been considered in the Top 100 project if the dude had averaged more pedestrian numbers....

I've never heard anyone use Stockton to diminish Magic's impact and I've been around for awhile. I have seen Magic's unquestioned impact used to burnish Stockton's numbers (20% more assist than even Magic, because everyone knows that Magic was a truly great playmaker). I've done it myself for people that dismiss Stockton as "just a role player."

Also, I'm not sure there is any player other than Russell that we have looked at where they would be in the same spot with significantly more pedestrian numbers. The numbers are a huge part of every player's impact from LeBron down to Kawhi. Kawhi isn't being considered if he doesn't average so many points in his prime, etc. etc.

[Owly]

So these are good things to point out no doubt, and one thing I wanted to clarify is that I'm not trying to say Malone was literally a better passer than Stockton, only that if Stockton's passing was the Jazz' killer edge, it's weird that it's going down when they are at their apex and that it cannot simply be chalked up to another guard.

Re: Stockton played well enough to win chip and Malone choked it away.

So, I'll just point out the On & On-Off stuff here for those playoffs:

ORtg:
Malone, On: 111.1, On-Off: +25.6
Stockton, On: 106.3, On-Off: -3.1

Net:
Malone: On: +3.0, On-Off: +26.6
Stockton: On: -1.9, On-Off: -2.8

And of course this is with Malone playing bigger minutes.

Pretty hard to argue that Stockton was carrying the team to their run-to-the-finals success here I think.

You do allude to a common statistical trend with the Jazz in the playoff though: Malone's efficiency takes a hit as defenses concentrate on him while no one else steps up as a volume scoring threat.

I think "carrying" is nearly always unproductive language. I wouldn't have used choked as the post you respond to did, but ultimately it's a team game and even if a "cast" is just average there's real value to that versus what else could be there and "carrying"-based language tends to ignore that.

But as with the regular season '97 playoffs sees Stockton in multiple top 10 lineups with bench units that get killed whilst Malone isn't in them as much (though otoh, more than RS). Eisley gets a bunch of 1st unit and adjacent minutes rather than playing with the backups. And to be fair in those the Jazz at first glance seem to have fared well in those in the playoffs ... it's just, for instance, whether one really wants to buy into Eisley caused the rebound improvement for the GO,KM,BR,JH + point units or it's a fluke.

I'm weary of single playoff +/- beyond if someone's killing a guy for not advancing/winning etc and they win in their minutes (Embiid '19), but yeah

Re: choking/carrying. Makes sense.

Re: '97 playoffs sees Stockton in multiple top 10 lineups with bench units that get killed. The argument that Stockton was playing with weak teammates that when properly accounted for would show an outstanding RAPM makes sense as a possibility, though I'm cautious about assuming it.

I will say I can't help but think, "Gosh, wouldn't it be nice if Stockton looked to score a lot more when Malone wasn't out there like top tier playmakers do." I'm sure that doesn't seem fair, but there's just thing that if Stockton can't just manufacture assists on demand regardless of his teammates, and he can't adjust by going into more of a volume scoring mold, well, doesn't that speak to his limitations?

Re: weary of single playoff +/-. Makes sense, though keep in mind I brought up the regular season data, and only spoke to the playoffs when someone pivoted to the playoffs to allege Malone's "choke" job. Malone's massive, massive, massive playoff +/- advantage over Stockton that year is something we should be cautious about being too bold about in our interpretations...but I do think it says enough to nix any thought that even if Malone was the regular season Jazz MVP during the year he was NBA MVP, Stockton was the true Jazz MVP in the playoffs.

Well tbh I don't know about the value of a postseason RAPM. You need a larger sample to get to useful priors. Now if you're doing that and using the RS ... well '97 does have them not so far apart which also reiterates how damaging those Morris, Carr, Foster, Anderson type units could be.

Then too it fits that it's not the" on" that's so different (and the on is the larger and more reliable sample) it's the off.

So would I "assume" Stockton has a good RAPM? Not really. I probably wouldn't think about things in those terms. And any impact stuff off such a small sample is noisy anyhow. And it would depend on how one did it.
Would I list their on off without context ... hopefully no again.
Would I look at the RS context and RAPM and think there's some collinearity issues in the RS? Yes.
Would a glance at the Jazz playoff data (on-off and first glance at lineups) suggest that's happening again ... yes.
Does that preclude Stockton from having done bad, non-box stuff or other factors being at play than what I've discussed ... no.
Does Stockton's productivity give me greater comfort in regarding on-off as being a most likely due junky lineups and noise ... yes.

Regarding "I do think it says enough to nix any thought that even if Malone was the regular season Jazz MVP during the year he was NBA MVP, Stockton was the true Jazz MVP in the playoffs" ...
Seems to grant Malone as certain RS Jazz MVP. Otoh, I would say probable, not certain, not huge separation. But I haven't looked closely, I don't go too much into single season evals and partly because of that and just where I am in general I think I'd go for wider ranges of uncertainty than many. Fwiw, Hornacek had the best NPI RAPM.
Seems to foreclose on Stockton as better in the playoffs which seems too strong. I will say he played more which means value isn't as simple as rate goodness. Particularly in this context keeping a star on court and Carr and Foster on the bench is valuable.
Seems to my taste to be putting to much weight on playoff on-off, and mainly that Malone off and/or perhaps your priors (i.e. possibly to much pro-Malone, perhaps Stockton would need something special here).

I would also note in the small sample (this is a playoff run) janky units that Malone was part of (7,8 and 10 of the playoff 5 man units - Stockton, Malone and 2 or 3 of the ... I don't want to keeping kicking these guys but the 4 guys that seemingly really hurt them) ... the Jazz are really bad ... it's not like Malone could magically lift those units either. Tiny samples but this whole thing is tiny samples.

More generally I'm not sure this should matter much, though I guess at the margins with the absence of earlier playoff data it might seem a little more significant.

More generally, in my opinion/for me. you're too much weighting what Stockton wasn't, where I'd read his impact profile and production and conclude he was impactful doing the stuff he did.

[Owly]

1) Primacy is not goodness. Very true, and as I've alluded to throughout this project, I'm trying not to rely on projecting goodness with my criteria. I understand why some think Stockton could have been a super-Nash if only he'd had Nash's opportunity, but that's not what actually happened.

Re: two-players who work quite well together. Right, but of course we're talking a lot here about the fact that Malone was playing more and more minutes without Stockton. Eventually we see Malone's volume scoring approach age out, but while the team is a contender, the impact indicators tend to side with Malone as the more essential piece.

2) "happened" when they got a 3rd good player. Sure, but that doesn't explain why the team concentrated more on Malone when they got the 3rd player.

3) Hornacek similar to Stockton, makes sense he eats into Stockton's stats. Sure, but if the Jazz were fortunate enough to acquire a second guy who must be an all-timer great playmaker in order to justify stealing primacy from the first, why is the power forward getting more assists?

4) RAPM loves Stockton! RAPM is largely geared toward the post-contention years. The +/- data I see in the '90s going back to '93-94 seems to favor Malone.

But to be clear: What I'm really saying here is that if Stockton's APG was an indication of his supreme utterly unable-to-be-matched-in-any-possession playmaking, we'd expect that the Jazz best years would be making maximal use of his assist game...and that's just not what we see.

Doesn't mean Stockton wasn't the best passer on the team - I think he was - but it does mean that the most effective strategy we ever saw with those Jazz wasn't about letting Stockton make as many playmaking decisions as possible and having everyone else just feed off of that...and by contrast with guys like Magic & Nash, I'd argue that letting the one guy make the decisions literally was how the team peaked.

Briefly
Re impact sees Malone as more essential ... maybe after minutes. As before Stockton came out as equal or mainly better in the AScreaming era yearly RAPMs. 94-96 stuff looks tougher, only potential defense I can think of is the possibility Stockton's minutes were offset in junk lineups as in '97.

On three, I'm not sure I'm joining the dots on your point but this hasn't ever been about diminishing Malone. He became a better passer. This was good. He's also got better shooting and more space inside with Hornacek. He also has greatly improved options if Stockton is minutes offset with backups than he would have were Hornacek not there. Fwiw I don't think Hornacek does have to an "all-timer great playmaker" to dent Stockton's impact numbers or box-production. Just better than what was there before. You can't run the same play every time down, even if it's really good (unless it's that good that it doesn't need the threat of other stuff to be optimally effective, but that would be surprising). I'm not sure " stealing primacy" is a productive avenue. It's fuzzy, the language is somewhat loaded etc. Hornacek isn't that "primary". He's very good guard that can do some "point" things, shoot really well, space the floor, make some tough shots...

As ever feel free to check into it but my impression is the Pollack dataset when including versus 76ers doesn't see a wide gap and could potentially point to a significant, perhaps substantial early Stockton lead early on. Of course I don't know which years you deem the Jazz contenders nor the extent to which other years are ... marginalized?

Re: maybe after minutes. Well, and I do think that's no small thing, particularly when the Jazz previously used Malone & Stockton more similar amounts of minutes. If Stockton gets his RAPM edge exclusively when his minutes are lowered, I'd be very reluctant to rank him above his teammate.

Re: this hasn't ever been about diminishing Malone. Maybe not for you, but I seriously doubt anyone who thinks Stockton was the MVP of the Jazz agrees with Malone winning NBA MVP.

Re: can't run same play every time down. Well I mean, I think you might argue that that's precisely what the Jazz tried to do and it's hard to imagine that this is unrelated to the fact that their point guard racked up assist totals that make people question if Magic Johnson was overrated.

So while it doesn't necessarily say anything bad about Stockton's playmaking ability that a greater diversity of options helped the Jazz, I just think we all need to acknowledge that any discussion about Stockton coming after the fact is heavily shaped by those gaudy assist totals. It's not the only thing involved, but I seriously doubt Stockton would get consideration as high as he's often been considered in the Top 100 project if the dude had averaged more pedestrian numbers.

Re: "stealing primacy" is fuzzy and loaded. True, and I'm open to better ways to describe the situation.

Re: Hornacek isn't that "primary". True. To be clear, I use the term "primacy" to represent a load relative to other players. Also to be clear, this is a term I first took from basketball video games a very long time ago.

Re: Pollack data vs 76ers. You're talking before '93-94? Honestly I've not really factored any data along those lines into my assessments, though I welcome the chance to do so if others think there's enough sample. Please point me at any particular thing and I'll chew on it.

Re: which years Jazz contenders? This is a very reasonable question. In the context of what I mean here, I'm basically talking about the '94-95 jump. One can certainly argue that the Jazz deserve to be considered contenders considerably earlier than that, but I just think there's a clear tier jump once they get Hornacek.

I don't really want to be disrespectful to what they did before, but I think it's critical to have front-of-mind that there's not really a question as to whether the Jazz were at their best pre-Hornacek or with-Hornacek.

Really got to leave it here ... but hopefully brief thoughts ...

Malone keeping bench players on the bench and himself on is particularly valuable in this context ... but maybe less so on a better constructed team.

Re: Malone's MVP ... I don't think the two players have to be zero sum. I don't think not default agreeing with an MVP verdict means one is looking to reduce the player per se.

Re: Same play each time down, nearly joked about Jazz predictability. Reality is I don't know the ins and outs of it, but that I wanted to keep it to the core of the point, having Hornacek doesn't require him to be an all-time playmaker to do some on ball stuff that might previously have been Stockton or damage Stockton's impact numbers within that context, it just means sometimes Stockton's on the bench and that diversity makes it harder for D to key in on primary routes of attack as they might with less viable options.

Re Pollack ... it's obviously as I note every time I mention it a small sample. Not something to take the on-off at face value. But then
a) we're looking at a single playoff run
and
b) the raw +/- gap (and so more so the on-off) is so huge given the sample...

A spreadsheet, presumably from the original Pollack thread had Stockton as the absolute (and outlier) on/off leader and an outlier on the Jazz, Malone weaker than same other Jazz starters, some way down the overall pack
Player MP +/- On Off Net Rtg
John Stockton 599 107 8.8 -28 36.8
Mark Eaton 634 10 1 -13.3 14.3
Tyrone Corbin 417 71 8.6 -4.9 13.6
Blue Edwards 253 14 2.6 -4.8 7.4
Karl Malone 584 17 1.5 -4.4 5.9

I got slightly different numbers, presumably/maybe they did a pace adjustment for the net rtg where I just did per 48 but the ratio looks about the same
Stockton +29.58561124
Malone +5.049434187

As, previously noted in prior iterations of this discussion, adding the plus minus and minutes to the other Pollack get a cumulative Pollack On/Off, so large is the difference (in a small sample) that it chomps a circa 3.5 point per 48 Malone lead to circa 1.45 per 48 lead. This, whilst leaving some suggestion that, without taking the numbers at face value, the early years might be an area of perhaps significant advantage for Stockton. Now it's one opponent. It could be a bad matchup or tying his minutes to Barkley (though Barkley played more 3 earlier). Or an inversion of what happened later with Stockton. But there is a gulf there.

Per above i don't doubt that Hornacek was very good. I'm not sure I'd vouch for lesser weighting of earlier years because there was no Hornacek.

{edit: as before I could have messed up in aggregating the numbers, this is just something I messed around with a number of years ago]

[WestGOAT]

How do Stockton and Frazier perform relative (%) on average to the average of their contemporary peers*?

So during the Regular Season, Stockton indeed looks like a Point-God when it comes to generating assists (AST) (for himself):

Code: Select all

===========  ========  ======  =============  ====  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====
PLAYER       Season    Pos     Tm                G  Split      MP    PTS    TSA    TS%    AST    TRB     PF
===========  ========  ======  =============  ====  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====
W. Frazier   '69-78    ['PG']  ['NYK' 'CLE']  73.6  Rel (%)   8.6   18.3   11.9    6.5    2.2   52.7  -10.6
J. Stockton  '88-97    ['PG']  ['UTA']        81.6  Rel (%)   5.1    7.1   -5.3   14.6   75    -12.7   18.1
===========  ========  ======  =============  ====  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====

+75% relative to average, Stockton blows Frazier completely out of the water. His shooting efficiency (TS%) is also notabley better and that also enables him to score above an average rate (PTS) despite taking less true shots (TSA) on average. Frazier is scoring at a respectable efficiency (TS%), and that is more impresseive considering he is doing that on a much higher volume and this results in +18.3% points relative to his peers.

However, I think many would agree that titles are won (mainly) in the Post-Season. This is how the numbers look like per playoff series on average:

Code: Select all

===========  ========  ======  =======  ===  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====
PLAYER       Season    Pos     Tm         G  Split      MP    PTS    TSA    TS%    AST    TRB    PF
===========  ========  ======  =======  ===  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====
W. Frazier   '69-75    ['PG']  ['NYK']  5.6  Rel (%)  17.1   18.7    7.9   10.3    3.8   73.6   2
J. Stockton  '88-97    ['PG']  ['UTA']  5.1  Rel (%)  13.3    8.5    2.4    6.2   64.5    6.1  28.4


It actually looks like Stockton is looking for his shot more, as his relative TSA jumps from -5.3 to +2.4 %, and this leads to a slight increase in PTS (7.1 > 8.5), albeit at a significant cost of his TS%. His AST are also down, but it still looks elite. Frazier, on the other hand, if not maintaining his RS numbers, is elevating them. Marginal increase in PTS, but needs fewer TSA and is more efficient. That's crazy impressive considering how this normally would drop in the playoffs for other players and that he basically was the first option for the Knicks from 1971 onwards. Also notable is the high rate he is rebounding at, which also significantly increased during the PS. Stockton on the other hand doesn't seem to be capable of elevating, or even maintaining, these specific box-score stats.

What if we get a bit more granular? Let's have a looking at how the relative PS numbers look like when we only include the season-ending PS series:

Code: Select all

===========  ========  ======  =======  ===  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====
PLAYER       Season    Pos     Tm         G  Split      MP    PTS    TSA    TS%    AST    TRB    PF
===========  ========  ======  =======  ===  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====
W. Frazier   '69-75    ['PG']  ['NYK']  5.4  Rel (%)  16.5   18.5    4.1   14.3    3.1   71     2.7
J. Stockton  '88-97    ['PG']  ['UTA']  5.4  Rel (%)  15.9   12.8   11.9    0.2   59     -2.3  34.2
===========  ========  ======  =======  ===  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====

Same trend, Stockton is taking more TSA and is managing to score more PTS, but his TS% has become bang-average. Frazier on the other hand is maintaining his PTS despite taking fewer TSA and is even more efficient. Stockton not being able to scale up his scoring in the PS despite being efficient during the RS is pretty clear, especially compared to Frazier. Sure Stockton is generating more assists (more himself), but how valuable are these? Frazier capacity to maintain his production, or even scale up, is crazy impressive.

Team ORtg/DRtg would help put these stats in better context, but unfortunately we don't have possession estimates for Frazier (yet), so I left that out for now**. Another thing to consider would be adjusting these stats for opponent, instead of doing league-average.

* filtering player gamelogs point-guards playing in the same season and minutes played (MP) > 24
** I'll be posting the Jazz later, but anyone else is welcome to add these in the mean-time.



Actual RS Averages for Frazier and Stockton:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

===========  ========  ======  =============  ====  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====
PLAYER       Season    Pos     Tm                G  Split      MP    PTS    TSA    TS%    AST    TRB    PF
===========  ========  ======  =============  ====  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====
W. Frazier   '69-78    ['PG']  ['NYK' 'CLE']  73.6  Avg (μ)  39.2   19.9   18.6   53.1    6.3    6     2.7
J. Stockton  '88-97    ['PG']  ['UTA']        81.6  Avg (μ)  36.2   15.6   12.9   61     12.8    2.9   2.8
===========  ========  ======  =============  ====  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====

Actual PS Averages for Frazier and Stockton:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

===========  ========  ======  =======  ===  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====
PLAYER       Season    Pos     Tm         G  Split      MP    PTS    TSA    TS%    AST    TRB    PF
===========  ========  ======  =======  ===  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====
W. Frazier   '69-75    ['PG']  ['NYK']  5.6  Avg (μ)    43   21.3   19.1   55.2    6.6    7.2     3
J. Stockton  '88-97    ['PG']  ['UTA']  5.1  Avg (μ)    39   15.8   13.9   56.5   11.9    3.5     3
===========  ========  ======  =======  ===  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====

Actual PS, only including season-ending series, Averages for Frazier and Stockton:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

===========  ========  ======  =======  ===  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====
PLAYER       Season    Pos     Tm         G  Split      MP    PTS    TSA    TS%    AST    TRB    PF
===========  ========  ======  =======  ===  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====
W. Frazier   '69-75    ['PG']  ['NYK']  5.4  Avg (μ)  42.8   21.1   18.4   57.1    6.5    7.1   3
J. Stockton  '88-97    ['PG']  ['UTA']  5.4  Avg (μ)  40     16.5   15.2   53.3   11.8    3.3   3.2
===========  ========  ======  =======  ===  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====

Season-ending series stats:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

===========  ========  =====  ====  =====  ===  =============  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====
PLAYER         Season  Pos    Tm    Opp      G  Round          Split      MP    PTS    TSA    TS%    AST    TRB    PF
===========  ========  =====  ====  =====  ===  =============  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====
W. Frazier       1969  PG     NYK   BOS      6  E.D.Finals     Avg (μ)  41.5   21.7   21     52.4    6.7    7.8   2.5
W. Frazier       1970  PG     NYK   LAL      7  Finals         Avg (μ)  43.1   17.6   15     56.9   10.4    7.7   3
W. Frazier       1971  PG     NYK   BAL      7  E.C.Finals     Avg (μ)  40.6   20.4   18.1   56.2    4.1    5     3.9
W. Frazier       1972  PG     NYK   LAL      5  Finals         Avg (μ)  45.4   23     19.1   60.3    8      8     3
W. Frazier       1973  PG     NYK   LAL      5  Finals         Avg (μ)  46     16.6   16.6   49.7    5.2    6.8   3.8
W. Frazier       1974  PG     NYK   BOS      5  E.C.Finals     Avg (μ)  41.6   24.6   21.1   57.4    3.8    7.4   3.8
W. Frazier       1975  PG     NYK   HOU      3  E.C.1st Round  Avg (μ)  41.3   23.7   17.7   67      7      6.7   1.3
J. Stockton      1988  PG     UTA   LAL      7  W.C.Semis      Avg (μ)  44.6   19.3   16.8   56.2   16.4    3.4   2.9
J. Stockton      1989  PG     UTA   GSW      3  W.C.1st Round  Avg (μ)  46.3   27.3   23.2   58.3   13.7    3.3   5
J. Stockton      1990  PG     UTA   PHO      5  W.C.1st Round  Avg (μ)  38.8   15     15.8   46.8   15      3.2   4
J. Stockton      1991  PG     UTA   POR      5  W.C.Semis      Avg (μ)  43.4   18.4   15.7   59.9   14.6    4.8   3.6
J. Stockton      1992  PG     UTA   POR      6  W.C.Finals     Avg (μ)  37.5   14.3   13.7   51.7   11.2    2.2   2.7
J. Stockton      1993  PG     UTA   SEA      5  W.C.1st Round  Avg (μ)  38.6   13.2   12     55     11      2.4   3.2
J. Stockton      1994  PG     UTA   HOU      5  W.C.Finals     Avg (μ)  36.6   14.4   14.8   49.8    9.4    3.4   3
J. Stockton      1995  PG     UTA   HOU      5  W.C.1st Round  Avg (μ)  38.6   17.8   16.5   52.1   10.2    3.4   2.6
J. Stockton      1996  PG     UTA   SEA      7  W.C.Finals     Avg (μ)  37.6    9.9   11.1   42.7    7.6    2.9   2.9
J. Stockton      1997  PG     UTA   CHI      6  Finals         Avg (μ)  37.6   15     12.5   60.5    8.8    4     1.8
===========  ========  =====  ====  =====  ===  =============  =======  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====

League RS Averages for contemporary peers:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

==========  ========  =====  =======  =========  ====  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====  =====  =====
PLAYER        Season  Pos    Split    Round         G    MP    PTS    TSA    TS%    AST  TOV    ORB    DRB      TRB  STL    BLK      PF  +/-      Age
==========  ========  =====  =======  =========  ====  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====  =====  =====
-Leag. PG-      1969  PG     RS μ     R. Season   965  37     18     18.4   48.5    6.2  3.0    <NA>   <NA>     4.7  <NA>   <NA>    3.3  <NA>    27.2
-Leag. PG-      1970  PG     RS μ     R. Season  1113  36.9   19     18.3   50.9    6.5  <NA>   <NA>   <NA>     4.2  <NA>   <NA>    3    <NA>    27.2
-Leag. PG-      1971  PG     RS μ     R. Season  1314  36.2   18.1   17.7   50.4    6    <NA>   <NA>   <NA>     4.3  <NA>   <NA>    3    <NA>    27
-Leag. PG-      1972  PG     RS μ     R. Season  1328  36.4   17.7   17.2   51.2    6.4  <NA>   <NA>   <NA>     4    <NA>   <NA>    2.9  <NA>    27.6
-Leag. PG-      1973  PG     RS μ     R. Season  1236  37.1   18.1   18.1   49.4    6.6  <NA>   <NA>   <NA>     4.1  <NA>   <NA>    2.8  <NA>    27.4
-Leag. PG-      1974  PG     RS μ     R. Season  1273  36.3   17.1   17.1   49.8    6.1  5.8    1.1    2.8      4    1.7    0.2     2.9  <NA>    27.2
-Leag. PG-      1975  PG     RS μ     R. Season  1267  37.1   17     17     49.7    5.9  <NA>   1.0    2.7      3.7  1.8    0.2     3.1  <NA>    26.9
-Leag. PG-      1976  PG     RS μ     R. Season  1258  36.2   16.3   16.5   49      5.8  <NA>   1.1    2.4      3.8  1.9    0.2     3.1  <NA>    26.6
-Leag. PG-      1977  PG     RS μ     R. Season  1588  34.3   14.1   13.8   50.1    5.9  6.2    1.0    2.4      3.4  2.0    0.3     2.7  <NA>    26.4
-Leag. PG-      1978  PG     RS μ     R. Season  1725  33.4   13.3   13.2   50      5.9  2.8    0.9    2.3      3.3  2.0    0.2     2.9  <NA>    26.6
-Leag. PG-      1988  PG     RS μ     R. Season  1757  34.9   14.4   13.4   53.5    8.1  2.6    0.9    2.6      3.5  1.7    0.2     2.4  <NA>    26
-Leag. PG-      1989  PG     RS μ     R. Season  2042  34.7   14.8   13.7   53      8    2.8    0.9    2.8      3.8  1.8    0.2     2.4  <NA>    26.7
-Leag. PG-      1990  PG     RS μ     R. Season  2269  34.8   14.3   13.4   52.4    7.8  2.5    0.9    2.7      3.6  1.7    0.2     2.3  <NA>    26.9
-Leag. PG-      1991  PG     RS μ     R. Season  2375  34.6   15.5   14.4   53.5    7.6  2.6    0.8    2.6      3.4  1.7    0.2     2.4  <NA>    26.6
-Leag. PG-      1992  PG     RS μ     R. Season  2242  34     14.5   13.8   52.3    7.3  2.5    0.8    2.4      3.2  1.7    0.2     2.3  <NA>    26.8
-Leag. PG-      1993  PG     RS μ     R. Season  2312  34.2   14.4   13.4   53.5    7.2  2.4    0.8    2.5      3.3  1.6    0.2     2.4  <NA>    26.7
-Leag. PG-      1994  PG     RS μ     R. Season  2330  33.8   14.1   13.4   52.1    7    2.4    0.8    2.4      3.2  1.7    0.2     2.2  <NA>    27.1
-Leag. PG-      1995  PG     RS μ     R. Season  2338  34.4   14.3   13.1   54.1    7.1  2.5    0.8    2.5      3.2  1.6    0.2     2.3  <NA>    27.2
-Leag. PG-      1996  PG     RS μ     R. Season  2520  34.3   14.8   13.6   54.3    6.7  2.5    0.8    2.5      3.3  1.5    0.2     2.3  <NA>    27.6
-Leag. PG-      1997  PG     RS μ     R. Season  2482  35     14.6   13.6   53.3    6.6  2.5    0.8    2.5      3.3  1.6    0.2     2.3  1.0     27.5
==========  ========  =====  =======  =========  ====  ====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  =====  ====  =====  =====

[ZeppelinPage]

Vote: Scottie Pippen
Alternate Vote: Walt Frazier

Nomination: John Havlicek

I find Pippen and Frazier to be some of the more impactful defenders ever that could really cause mayhem. Frazier was a buzzsaw that seemed to steal and poke at the ball whenever it went his way, constantly looking to bother ball handlers and snatch passes away. Pippen was able to anchor a defense through his versatility and help defense, and as someone that favors defensive ability and how impactful it is in the playoffs I have to vote for Pippen and Frazier here with their other all-around abilities.

I put an emphasis on playoff performance and Havlicek is an 8x champion that consistently played better in the playoffs on heavier volume. He was a well-rounded player and he rarely ever missed games throughout his career. I think there are some other players being talked about here that one could certainly make an argument for but the level to which Havlicek one before and after Russell does show his value. I'm surprised to see mention of Havlicek as a "chucker" because I think that undersells what he was doing. The Celtics rarely had many players that could handle a high volume of shots so he was having to shoot because few others on the team would. Havlicek shooting takes pressure off his teammates and allows a defensively focused team to do what they do best. I could easily go another big here with how much I value what they bring, but Frazier does have the ability to score, pass, brings playoff resiliency, along with some of the best perimeter defense of his time.