One_and_Done wrote:I don’t really care what players BPM was, there’s so many ways that stat can be wrong or misleading. I also think you downplay guys like Eaton, Bailey, Jeff Malone and Hornacek.
You go on about how Eaton’s offense was bad. Ok. But he wasn’t selected as an all-star because of his offense, he was selected because of his defence. It’s such a weird thing to criticise. Like, Ben Wallace and Deke were mostly bad on offense too, but that doesn’t mean they were bad players. I think that’s especially the case in the 80s, when Eaton didn’t have to worry about the problems on O and D he’d face in the modern game. He even got MVP votes on 2 separate occasions, and while I don’t agree with that I think it’s a stretch to describe him as an “awful” player. The guy was a 2 time DPOY, and in 1985 (before Malone even got there) he anchored the #1 defence in the NBA, on a team that frankly did not have many good defensive players. The years after that they were 3rd, 1st, 1st, 1st, and 5th in Drtg. I am sorry, but I am just not interested in hearing about how Eaton was no good because he was bad on O or had a poor BPM.
Eaton was still a somewhat positive player overall for a significant portion of his career, due to his defense. But the timeframe you’re talking about doesn’t overlap a whole lot with his prime defensive years. You’re talking about a timeframe in which he was mostly in his mid-30s. You can even just take a glance at his block numbers and see that he got like 50% more blocks in the years before Malone/Stockton were stars than in the years where they were. Of course, blocks aren’t everything, but it’s indicative of Eaton’s defensive falloff in general, as he aged.
And you mention that Eaton was an all-star. That all-star year did come when Malone/Stockton were already good. Unsurprisingly, it also was probably his best defensive season in the years Malone and Stockton were star players. But, as I’ve pointed out already, he actually was awful defensively in the playoffs that year. There’s a video in this thread of one of those games, and you can judge for yourself. It’s bad. He provided essentially nothing defensively in that game (and was predictably terrible on offense), and overall for the series he only had 2 total blocks. Considering that you’re largely criticizing Malone/Stockton for the Jazz’s lack of playoff success, that seems pretty important. In his one year where he was selected as an all-star, Eaton was a massive negative in the playoff loss that you’re criticizing Stockton and Malone for. Even if you think Eaton’s defense overcame his awful offense that season, it certainly did not overcome it at all in that playoff series, so it’s hard to see how Eaton could provide any basis for a conclusion that Stockton/Malone didn’t have a terrible supporting cast during the time of the specific thing you were focused on criticizing. Meanwhile, after that year, Eaton kept falling off defensively and really was a clearly negative player overall. You might be able to convince me that there was one year where Stockton/Malone were star players and Eaton was actually still a great defender and didn’t lay a complete egg in the playoffs. That would be in 1988, but of course the Jazz took the title-winning Lakers to 7 games that year, so it’s hard to really criticize Malone/Stockton for that.
Then we have Jeff Malone, who you dismiss as “having been an all-star 5 years ago”. Well, yes, Jeff Malone didn’t make any all-star teams on the Jazz, which isn’t surprising. He went from being a primary option to a 3rd option. When your role shrinks like that, you’re going to see your stats (and all-star credibility) drop somewhat, especially in that era. However, Jeff Malone was only 29 when he got to the Jazz, and on a per 100 basis very little had changed about his statistical profile. He went from scoring 29-30pp100 in his all-star years, to scoring 26-28pp100 in his first 3 years with the Jazz. As you’d expect, as a result of his shot volume decreasing slightly due to his new role, his efficiency went up on the Jazz from 525 TS% in his 2 all-star years, to 551 in his first 3 years on the Jazz. He wasn’t hurt, and I don’t see much reason to think he was any worse as a player. I don’t think you can dismiss his stats as empty numbers either, because in Washington he led the Bullets to two playoff appearances as their best or second best player. They were actually above 500. in games he played, and actually gave the Barkley Sixers a tough series in the 1st round in 1986. It’s impossible to dismiss Jeff Malone as an “awful” player. He was a fringe all-star type guy to be sure, and he was mainly a scorer, but he was a good player for the times.
Again, Jeff Malone literally has a negative BPM for his career. And, unlike Eaton, there’s no “but BPM doesn’t adequately account for defense” excuse here. Jeff Malone genuinely was a guy who didn’t provide much of anything but volume scoring, and didn’t do that efficiently. Throughout NBA history, those types of guys have sometimes made some stray all-star games. But they’re generally actually negative-impact players.
To say he led the Bullets to two playoff appearances as their best or second best player is definitely handwaving things to avoid talking about specifics. The Bullets had the following SRS’s in Jeff Malone’s years there: -2.36, 0.15, -1.28, -1.02, -0.16, -1.77, and -2.42. They were a subpar team. And guys on those teams like Moses Malone, Jeff Ruland, and Gus Williams were all better IMO. Heck, even Cliff Robinson and a post-injury Bernard King were probably better. Being one of the main volume scorers on a negative SRS team that slips into the playoffs really doesn’t indicate someone is a positive impact player. We see proof of that all the time. For instance, due to scoring numbers, Zach LaVine was considered the second-best player on a negative-SRS playoff team and has been an all-star, but he is a negative-impact player. A guy like Jerry Stackhouse is another good example IMO. Honestly, if you look at negative-SRS playoff teams, pure volume scorers that are considered the team’s second-best player usually are negative-impact players—that’s usually a big reason the team is a below average team!
Also, you mention the 1986 series, but Jeff Malone had a 47.5% TS% in that series, as a guy who did essentially nothing but volume scoring. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of him being a positive player! The series definitely wasn’t close because of him, and frankly they probably could’ve won if he had been even a neutral player.
Anyways, you say you don’t see much reason that he was any worse as a player when he was in Utah. But after his rookie year, Jeff Malone had a -0.5 BPM on the Bullets, and then he proceeded to have a -2.4 BPM on the Jazz (and that slipped even more in his limited post-Jazz career). That certainly indicates he was worse. Either way, though, I don’t see his time on the Bullets as indicative of him being a positive-impact player anyways.
Hornacek was the best of all of these guys; an underrated player at the time, who would maybe even be a fringe all-star today still. He also complemented both Stockton and Malone very well. I won’t get into Thurl Bailey, but he was also a solid player who is being slandered. He would be out of position playing the 3 in today’s game, but for that era it was fine. He didn’t always hit his shots in the playoffs, but he gave them size and offensive rebounding to make up for it. It’s also a weak criticism to focus on this series or that series where the Jazz 4th best player didn’t show up. Like, he’s their 4th best player. Why should we be so focused on what he’s doing in a playoff series, when he performed fine in the RS and the team was still only a low 50s win team or worse? The 88-91 Jazz, when Bailey was around, won 47, 51, 55, and 54 games. They were not some powerhouse contender.
Again, Hornacek is good, but the Jazz actually had a great team when they had Hornacek, so that is irrelevant to the argument you’re trying to make. You are talking about the pre-Hornacek years.
As for Thurl Bailey, saying “he gave them . . . offensive rebounding” is definitely a real stretch, to the point of falsity. In the years in question with the Jazz (i.e. from 1988-1992), Thurl Bailey had a 5.4% offensive rebounding rate, and it was a virtually identical 5.8% in the playoffs. In an era in which the league’s offensive rebounding rates averaged around 32-33%, that’s objectively not good at all for a forward (especially one who spent a good bit of time at PF). There’s a much better argument that he was an offensive-rebounding liability than that he was making up for his other deficiencies with offensive rebounding.
And I mention Thurl Bailey’s playoff woes to emphasize that while he was a negative player in general, he had playoffs where he was even worse than he was in the regular season. You ask why we should be focused on what he’s doing in a playoff series, but you’re literally criticizing Stockton/Malone for the results of playoff series! For instance, you specifically invoked the 1989 series against the Warriors as a major part of your argument. It’s certainly relevant to what happened in that series that Thurl Bailey took almost 15 true shot attempts a game and had a 44.3% TS%! Yeah, he wasn’t quite that bad in the regular season, but your argument was, in substantial part, focused on playoff results. So I noted that the playoff performances for Thurl Bailey were sometimes even more brutal than the regular season performances.
Ultimately the supposed talent or Stockton and Malone should have been sufficient to do much more than they did. The conclusion I draw is that Stockton was pretty overrated, but you are free to blame his coach or Malone if you prefer.
I think if two great players are surrounded with an entire team of all negative BPM players, then typically winning like 50-55 games and averaging a second-round playoff exit is actually pretty good. Star players matter a lot in the NBA, but the rest of the team matters a lot too. Think of it like the Lakers this year or last year. They’ll have had two all-NBA guys both years. Last year, they even had a past-all-star volume shooter that previously led a negative SRS playoff team (sound familiar?). And they’ve actually been even worse than that era’s Jazz were. Lakers fans will tell you the big reason for them not being all that good is that the supporting cast is bad (not sure I fully agree with everything Lakers/LeBron fans say on this, but let’s just accept that premise for these purposes). Of course, we might say that a guy like Karl Malone is supposed to be better than old LeBron, and that’s true, but it’s also true that the Jazz averaged like 2.5 better SRS than the Lakers did the last couple years and didn’t always lose in the first round, so there’s room to think that Karl Malone is significantly better than old LeBron and still see a clear parallel. LeBron the last couple years could be amped up to produce an extra 2.5 SRS for his team (a very significant upgrade), and the result for LeBron + AD/Luka would just be similar to what the Malone/Stockton Jazz achieved in the era you’re talking about.
