MavsDirk41 wrote:f4p wrote:bledredwine wrote:
Not to mention Gary Payton has stated that John Stockton was the hardest player for him to guard.
In the 1996 WCF, Stockton averaged 9.9/7.6 on 40/20/58 shooting splits (14/11 in the regular season). So not that hard to guard apparently.
Stockton had 22/8/7 with 4 steals in game 7 of that series. He showed up when it mattered.
Lol. Since Utah lost the series, I'm going to say the whole series mattered. He scored 33 points in the first 5 games.
Cant just judge Stockton on numbers anyways, his impact was more about how the other 4 players on the court were playing. I think Malone was more replaceable on those Utah teams than Stockton.
I love the can't judge on numbers arguments. Sure you can. Stockton wasn't some magical guy who never put up numbers. He was at 14/11 in the regular season and dropped to 10/7. What, did he become an all-intangibles guy specifically for this series? Were the 40/20/58 shooting splits secretly impactful beyond the numbers or would Occam's razor just say it was a terrible shooting series.
As for all of the "who are you to question Payton?" responses. Uhh, you're going to have to have some weird opinions and rankings going forward if you are basing everything on things athletes say in interviews, either about others or even about themselves. They misremember and say crazy things or are just praising whoever the host brought up. Or they had an early experience where someone lit them up (Stockton did have 14/14 against Payton in Payton's 2nd year) and remember that beyond what it really meant.
Besides, it mostly doesn't matter what Payton says. The claim was basically that Stockton must be amazing because even gary Payton couldn't guard him. Except he completely shut Stockton down in that series so obviously he could guard him in the prime of Payton's career.