Stockton Vs Nash vs Kidd

[Clyde Frazier]

He should absolutely be ridiculed for those exits, the reasons have been explained in depth. Either he, Karl Malone, Sloan, or all three should get some blame for it. They constantly underachieved relative to what their talent supposedly was (and I'm talking about the claimed talent of Malone and Stockton). If Lebron and the Heatles got swept in the first round by losers like the 1989 Warriors he'd be under a lot of scrutiny too.

Comparing the best player on the planet, who will finish his career as a top 10 player of all time to the stockton/malone jazz and who they had to face over the years is ludicrous. Heat have had relative cakewalks overall to the finals since lebron wade and bosh came together. You're fixating on 1 bad first round exit in a 19 year career.

[Baller2014]

Compare him to prime Nash. That's the guy his fans are claiming he is somehow comparable to. Yet he clearly has not, and to make it worse, he was Robin for their run (much of which was worse than Nash seemed to do as Batman). It's not just "one 1st round exit", many years were pointed to which were indisputably failures. Feel free to go back and address the posts that discussed this at length.

[Clyde Frazier]

Compare him to prime Nash. That's the guy his fans are claiming he is somehow comparable to. Yet he clearly has not, and to make it worse, he was Robin for their run (much of which was worse than Nash seemed to do as Batman). It's not just "one 1st round exit", many years were pointed to which were indisputably failures. Feel free to go back and address the posts that discussed this at length.

While I don't criticize nash as much as the average fan for never making the finals, i find it interesting that you don't seem to think it's a big deal. "Losing to the better team" is typically not enough for critics to accept as a viable reason for a player not making the finals / winning a championship. Nash also had some bad luck with the spurs series + suspensions. That being said, he still never made the finals. You take that into account when ranking him all time.

[Baller2014]

The East was so weak, the real finals often took place in the West. Not making the finals is meaningless, it's about meeting or exceeding expectations. The Suns under Nash did that in spades, the Jazz didn't. There was another difference; Nash was the man, while Stockton was Robin at best (and in later years like 98 Stockton's massively reduced role had basically a negligible effect on the teams outcome).

[Clyde Frazier]

The East was so weak, the real finals often took place in the West. Not making the finals is meaningless, it's about meeting or exceeding expectations. The Suns under Nash did that in spades, the Jazz didn't. There was another difference; Nash was the man, while Stockton was Robin at best (and in later years like 98 Stockton's massively reduced role had basically a negligible effect on the teams outcome).

...Why do you think from 90-99 8 different teams from the west made it to the finals? It was far from a top heavy conference during that period. There's no reason to claim the jazz were expected to go to the finals every year or something. T

he suns and nash peaked for 2 seasons, and then he had a nice run to the WCF in 2010 where they essentially had no chance. I don't fault nash for perfectly fitting a narrative that MVP voters fell in love with, but there are clear judgments to be made with the 2nd win at the very least. Your perception of these 2 guys is strange, that's all i can say.

[Baller2014]

Your reply is strange. First you try to shift the goal posts, by asking why we demand the Jazz make the finals every year. Nobody suggested that was the standard they are being held to (though gee, with a top 15 all-time player next to him you'd think they should have made it more, not to mention the often better than average role players they had, from DPOY Eaton to all-stars Jeff Malone or Hornacek, even Thurl Bailey was closer to an all-star than a role player). In reality the Jazz had 7 first round losses under Stockton and Malone. They had an average win total of 50 games from 87-94. They often were not a contender. And Stockton played with a top 15 player all-time, a great coach, and often great role players. Nash was far more impressive. For instance, in 2006 he started next to 4 small forwards, and got them to win 54 games and got them to the WCFs (where they were competitive). The contrast is a glaring one.

It's not about arbitrary benchmarks like "did he make the finals", it's about assessing the context and asking if they met or exceeded expectations (or in the case of Stockton, constantly underachieved them). Nash kills Stockton on that assessment, and if you dispute that go back and reply to some of the posts in this thread that break down Stockton's teams year by year.

And obviously the reference to the top heavy West refers to Nash's playing time, not Stocktons.

[Okada]

Stockton for me, comfortably. I don't know how someone could put Nash as top 20 all-time honestly.

[Clyde Frazier]

Your reply is strange. First you try to shift the goal posts, by asking why we demand the Jazz make the finals every year. Nobody suggested that was the standard they are being held to (though gee, with a top 15 all-time player next to him you'd think they should have made it more, not to mention the often better than average role players they had, from DPOY Eaton to all-stars Jeff Malone or Hornacek, even Thurl Bailey was closer to an all-star than a role player). In reality the Jazz had 7 first round losses under Stockton and Malone. They had an average win total of 50 games from 87-94. They often were not a contender. And Stockton played with a top 15 player all-time, a great coach, and often great role players. Nash was far more impressive. For instance, in 2006 he started next to 4 small forwards, and got them to win 54 games and got them to the WCFs (where they were competitive). The contrast is a glaring one.

It's not about arbitrary benchmarks like "did he make the finals", it's about assessing the context and asking if they met or exceeded expectations (or in the case of Stockton, constantly underachieved them). Nash kills Stockton on that assessment, and if you dispute that go back and reply to some of the posts in this thread that break down Stockton's teams year by year.

And obviously the reference to the top heavy West refers to Nash's playing time, not Stocktons.

Ok, again, then, assessing the context: relative to expectations, the jazz under stockton / malone / sloan succeeded more than they failed. The strong competition they faced was a constant. They didn't have the advantage of playing in a weak eastern conference we've seen over the last 10 years. When they finally did get to the finals, they lost to a duo who'd been undefeated in 4 previous finals.

The ultimate goal is to win a championship. Making it to the finals is at least a baseline when comparing HOFers. No, it isn't the definitely tie-breaker, but nash played with his fair share of talent over the years, and still fell short. I've been more pro nash over the years than most people, but the guy had blemishes on his career. You just seem to sway in exaggerated directions when evaluating both players.

[Baller2014]

"Succeeded more than they failed" is not much of an achievement. It's certainly not the benchmark we apply to all-time greats, and say "yeh, he got embarrassed in the first round 45% of the time, but the other 55% he basically met expectations... mostly". The Jazz faced plenty of teams they should have beaten, this is all addressed in lengthy posts earlier in the thread, and the claim they were in a tough conference I reject categorically. The West was often weaker than the East back then actually. In contrast Nash often played in a historically unbalanced NBA, where the East was a complete joke, and the West was outstandingly strong.

You continue to assert that making the finals is some kind of meaningful measure, but that's complete nonsense. Whether you make the finals depends on your situation. Oscar Robertson would never have made the finals if he hadn't teamed up with Kareem at the end of his career (and he was joining a team who won 56 games without him, when Kareem was still a rookie, and who played at a 60 win pace in the games he missed during his time there). Is Oscar Robertson not a HOFer? Perhaps you believe he is worse than Jason Kidd, who led 2 teams to the finals in his prime? Of course, the context was that the East sucked, and the Nets would have lost in the first round had they played out West those years (they were basically a 500. ball team against the West, as were many pretend contenders in those days).

[trex_8063]

What follows may be a bit tl;dr, sorry. But there were a few things I wanted to reply to and a lot of stuff I wanted to present…...not so much by way of argument as simply additional information for your consideration.

The argument for Stockton is that his two-way impact gives him the edge

This is the argument that has some legs, imo. Considering for instance that in 2001 (post-prime, nearly twilight of his career) Stockton's Off/Def combined +/- was 5.6 (3rd in league) by one source I'm looking at, 7.0 (4th in league) by the other source. And in 2002 (twilight era Stockton), I got one source saying combined +/- at 5.7 (8th in league), another source showing RAPM of 2.2 (12th in league)/NPI RAPM at 3.0 (17th in league).........sure makes me wonder if in the late 80's/early 90's he was routinely putting up combined +/- stats that were every bit as impressive as anything Nash did.

And again, Stockton wins the longevity comparison, too. jsia......

I find the data compelling too. I apply caution though:

1. That '90s data seems to have WTF-level variance than the more recent data.
2. We've still yet to see much data from the year's where Stockton played star-level minutes. This is a big deal because there are clearly times where a player in more limited minutes is being put in in circumstances where he is disproportionately likely to be successful both due to matchup and endurance.

To be more specific, Stockton's last big minute year was '96-97, which was also the first year we have +/- data for. In that year his NPI RAPM ranked him barely in the Top 20 overall, and far weaker than Malone on offense. These are not things that would give suggestion that that version of Stockton is superior in up there with Nash.

This is the data from ascreamingcomesacrossthecourt, yes?
While this source lists him significantly behind Malone offensively, it also places him significantly ahead of him defensively (and thus not terribly far behind him overall).

At any rate, I don’t pretend to understand the methodology enough to know why/how there can be so much variance between sources, but this is one source. Here’s another which has +/- for the entire 90’s: http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/
Admit I don’t know the credibility of the source, particularly for the 90’s data. But this source indicated Stockton’s typical combined +/- in his late years was very consistent with his +/- of ‘91 thru ‘97. Which I would more or less expect to be a semi-consistent finding with many other players when the reason for the reduced minutes is advanced age. It’s a means for an older player to perhaps maintain similar “per minute” effectiveness (is this not basically what we’ve been seeing in San Antonio the last few years?).

And fwiw, here’s “star minutes” John Stockton (‘91 thru ‘97---pre-’91 not being available) +/- numbers (and league rank where relevant):

‘91---Off +/-: 4.0 (7th), Def +/-: 0.7, Total +/-: 4.7 (tied for 5th)
‘92---Off +/-: 5.7 (2nd), Def +/-: 0.8, Total +/-: 6.5 (2nd)
‘93---Off +/-: 4.7 (tied 5th), Def +/-: 0.8, Total +/-: 5.5 (tied 4th)
‘94---Off +/-: 4.5 (2nd), Def +/-: 0.6, Total +/-: 5.1 (5th)
‘95---Off +/-: 5.1 (1st), Def +/-: 0.7, Total +/-: 5.8 (4th)
‘96---Off +/-: 4.9 (1st), Def +/-: 0.0, Total +/-: 4.9 (tied 9th)
‘97---Off +/-: 4.7 (2nd), Def +/-: 0.4, Total +/-: 5.1 (6th)

Offensive +/- ranges from 4.0 to 5.9, with an average of 4.8, and average rank of just better than 3rd (“2.9th”).
Defensive +/- ranges from 0.0 to 0.8, average of 0.6.
Total +/- ranges from 4.7 to 6.5, average of 5.37, and an average league rank just worse than 5th (“5.2nd”).


Compare that to “star minutes” Nash (‘01 thru ‘12; we’ll omit ‘13 because he was banged up and obviously significantly into decline):

‘01---Off +/-: 3.1 (19th), Def +/-: -2.4, Total +/-: 0.7 (tied for 87th)
‘02---Off +/-: 3.7 (tied 7th), Def +/-: -1.7, Total +/-: 1.9 (tied 47th)
‘03---Off +/-: 4.4 (tied 7th), Def +/-: -2.5, Total +/-: 1.9 (tied 48th)
‘04---Off +/-: 4.1 (tied 8th), Def +/-: -2.6, Total +/-: 1.5 (tied 62nd)
‘05---Off +/-: 6.8 (1st), Def +/-: -2.0, Total +/-: 4.8 (15th)
‘06---Off +/-: 6.8 (1st), Def +/-: -1.4, Total +/-: 5.3 (13th)
‘07---Off +/-: 8.6 (1st), Def +/-: -2.6, Total +/-: 6.0 (tied 8th)
‘08---Off +/-: 7.6 (1st), Def +/-: -2.2, Total +/-: 5.5 (tied 11th)
‘09---Off +/-: 5.9 (4th), Def +/-: -2.2, Total +/-: 3.8 (tied 22nd)
‘10---Off +/-: 6.6 (3rd), Def +/-: -2.0, Total +/-: 4.6 (16th)
‘11---Off +/-: 6.8 (1st), Def +/-: -1.8, Total +/-: 5.0 (12th)
‘12---Off +/-: 5.6 (3rd), Def +/-: -1.4, Total +/-: 4.2 (22nd)

Offensive +/- ranges from 3.1 to 8.6, average of 5.83, and average league rank just better than 5th (“4.8th”).
Defensive +/- ranges from -1.4 to -2.6, avg of -2.07.
Combined +/- ranges from 0.7 to 6.0, avg of 3.77, average league rank just worse than 30th.

If we look ONLY at Nash’s 8 years in PHX….
AVERAGE Off +/- is 6.84 (better than any single year mark from Stockton), avg league rank just better than 2nd (“1.9th”). Avg Def +/- is -1.95. Avg combined +/- is 4.9 (average league rank of 15th).

No question Nash appeared capable of higher offensive impact than Stockton. But if we’re going to use RAPM data as a means of evaluating and comparing “player wholes” (the thrust of this thread), it seems to me the combined +/- number is the one we should be primarily focused on.
And what data exists (and this is consistent in the data from the source I suspect you’re citing, too) suggests that Stockton’s advantage defensively more or less makes up the difference in offensive +/-. In fact, the above source I’m citing would suggest it was Stockton who had the larger overall impact.

Again, I don’t know of the credibility of this source. The data and ranks look to some degree reasonable (few “glitches”). But “glitches” or hits against the reliability are seen with the source I suspect you’re citing, too: for example, while it does show MJ near the top (which makes one think it might be credible), there’s also weirdness like Christian Laettner being #1; also Terry Mills being #3, Bo Outlaw at #5, Greg Ostertag at #12, Gheorghe Muresan at #15, etc.

So let us agree that while +/- data is both intriguing and useful, its implications are far from absolute. Merely one more piece of info to look at when making these comparisons.

Here are a few other pieces I feel are worth looking at, and are part of why I personally rank Stockton ahead of Nash all-time (some of below is recap)......

CAREER
Stockton----13.1 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 10.5 apg, 2.2 spg, 2.8 topg on .608 TS%
PER 21.8, .209 WS/48 on 31.8 mpg
Nash---14.3 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 8.5 apg, 0.7 spg, 2.9 topg on .605 TS%
PER 20.0, .164 WS/48 on 31.3 mpg

PRIME
Stockton (‘88 thru ‘97)---15.6 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 12.8 apg, 2.6 spg, 3.3 topg on .619 TS%
PER 22.7, .221 WS/48 on 36.2 mpg
Nash (‘01 thru ‘11)---16.6 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 9.8 apg, 0.8 spg, 3.2 topg on .612 TS%
PER 21.4, .182 WS/48 on 34.0 mpg

BEST 3-YR STRETCH
Stockton (‘89 thru ‘91)---17.2 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 14.1 apg, 2.9 spg, 3.6 topg on .612 TS%
PER 23.4, .230 WS/48 on 38.0 mpg
Nash (‘05 thru ‘07)---17.7 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 11.2 apg, 0.8 spg, 3.5 topg on .631 TS%
PER 23.0, .214 WS/48 on 35.0 mpg

PEAK (statistical) YEAR
Stockton (‘90)---17.2 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 14.5 apg, 2.7 spg, 3.5 topg on .607 TS%
PER 23.9, .238 WS/48 on 37.4 mpg
Nash (‘07)---18.6 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 11.6 apg, 0.8 spg, 3.8 topg on .654 TS%
PER 23.8, .225 WS/48 on 35.3 mpg

Some other “statistical footprint” stuff…..
CAREER POINTS
Stockton---19,711 (41st all-time)
Nash---17,387 (76th all-time)

CAREER ASSISTS
Stockton---15,806 (1st all-time)
Nash---10,335 (3rd all-time)

CAREER STEALS
Stockton---3,265 (1st all-time)
Nash---899 (197th all-time)

CAREER PLAYOFF POINTS
Stockton---2,436 (37th all-time)
Nash---2,072 (49th all-time)

CAREER PLAYOFF ASSISTS
Stockton---1,839 (2nd all-time)
Nash---1,061 (5th all-time)

CAREER PLAYOFF STEALS
Stockton---338 (4th all-time)
Nash---66 (tied for 173rd all-time)

Team stuff…..
Measures of Team Success
Stockton---career rs record: 966-560 (.633), career playoff record: 89-93 (.489), 2 finals appearances (no rings), 5 times as far as WCF
Nash---career rs record: 854-574 (.598), career playoff record: 58-65 (.472), no finals appearances, 4 times as far as WCF

Nash has a clear and substantial edge in MVP Award Shares.
Have already gone over awards/honors/accolades in prior post…...maybe slight edge to Nash (2 MVP’s, one more 1st team nod than Stockton), but it’s awfully close (significantly more All-Star appearances and 2nd Team nods for Stockton, as well as Def honors).

So yeah, it’s not that it isn’t close. But I still feel the balance of ALL available info and measures tips in Stockton’s favor.

[Baller2014]

If Stockton is more impactful than Nash, how come his teams generally did worse, despite the fact Stockton only had to be Robin for those teams?

Stockton's supporters just keep quoting his stats. But myself, and others, have explained repeatedly that stats and impact are not the same thing. If they were you wouldn't need to discuss the value of players, you'd just have a computer tell us who the best was. Even the most zealous advanced stat junkie will tell you that they are not always accurate, and once you concede that then you've basically conceded the whole argument, especially when it amounts to "such and such had a marginal advantage in advanced stats, so such and such is better". They could tell us something, or they could be way off base. In that light, it is even more reasonable for fans like myself to say "well, if Stockton's impact was so big, why didn't it show up in the team's results? Why did the team constantly achieve less than your valuation of Stockton suggests they should have?" Was it Karl Malone's fault, was it Sloan's fault? No explanation really seems to be forthcoming, his fans seem to be ignoring these questions, and just repeating his career stats and accolades like they matter, and generally act like his career pre-1994 didn't exist.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

LOL, this is like reading the same thread every few days with always the same people arguing exactly the same way!

Sent with my Nokia 3210 using Tapatalk

[trex_8063]

If Stockton is more impactful than Nash, how come his teams generally did worse, despite the fact Stockton only had to be Robin for those teams?

......

Team stuff…..
Measures of Team Success
Stockton---career rs record: 966-560 (.633), career playoff record: 89-93 (.489), 2 finals appearances (no rings), 5 times as far as WCF
Nash---career rs record: 854-574 (.598), career playoff record: 58-65 (.472), no finals appearances, 4 times as far as WCF

Also, single best team success seasons:
Nash ('05)--->62-20, WCF
Stockton ('97)--->64-18, finals appearance
Stockton ('98)--->62-20, finals appearance

I suppose we can say Nash never had a teammate as good as prime/peak Malone (didn't play with Dirk during his PEAK years). However, we can also say that Stockton/Malone never had a third wheel as good as Shawn Marion, nor a fourth wheel as good as Joe Johnson ('05) or Raja Bell ('06-'08), and a fifth wheel like Grant Hill or Boris Diaw......

Stockton's supporters just keep quoting his stats. But myself, and others, have explained repeatedly that stats and impact are not the same thing. If they were you wouldn't need to discuss the value of players, you'd just have a computer tell us who the best was. Even the most zealous advanced stat junkie will tell you that they are not always accurate, and once you concede that then you've basically conceded the whole argument, especially when it amounts to "such and such had a marginal advantage in advanced stats, so such and such is better".

You're right, you can't look at one advanced stat and say that. However, when we look at multiple advanced stats, multiple non-advanced metrics, +/- numbers, etc, and they all keep indicating the same thing........

[Baller2014]

You're trying to look at career win%, which is silly. You should be looking at how they did in their primes, and how they did carrying teams. And that's another key point... Stockton's context is totally different, because unlike Nash he wasn't the man on his teams, he was Robin. You say Stockton never was on a team where the 3rd best player was as good as Marion. I'm actually not sure that's true, but it's irrelevant in any case, because there are years like 2006 or 2010 where Nash didn't have such a player either, yet the team was a WCFs and a contender, with Nash leading them. Meanwhile some of the 3rd best guys on Karl Malone's Jazz teams include DPOY Mark Eaton, All-star Jeff Malone and All-star talent Jeff Hornacek. I wouldn't sniff at guys like Kelly Tripuka or Thurl Bailey either. Tripuka actually was an all-star, he just accepted a lesser role on the Jazz, and Bailey was closer to being an all-star than a role-player.

The results don't support those metrics at all. When Nash was out the Suns looked hopeless (stats provided already) whereas when Stockton got hurt and played a far less role in 1998 the Jazz were just as good as the previous year. A pretty stark contrast, which reminded us all that Karl Malone was the guy who made the team run, and Stockton was... well, just some guy on his team, albeit a very good one.

[Ancalagon]

You're trying to look at career win%, which is silly. You should be looking at how they did in their primes, and how they did carrying teams. And that's another key point... Stockton's context is totally different, because unlike Nash he wasn't the man on his teams, he was Robin. You say Stockton never was on a team where the 3rd best player was as good as Marion. I'm actually not sure that's true, but it's irrelevant in any case, because there are years like 2006 or 2010 where Nash didn't have such a player either, yet the team was a WCFs and a contender, with Nash leading them. Meanwhile some of the 3rd best guys on Karl Malone's Jazz teams include DPOY Mark Eaton, All-star Jeff Malone and All-star talent Jeff Hornacek. I wouldn't sniff at guys like Kelly Tripuka or Thurl Bailey either. Tripuka actually was an all-star, he just accepted a lesser role on the Jazz, and Bailey was closer to being an all-star than a role-player.

The results don't support those metrics at all. When Nash was out the Suns looked hopeless (stats provided already) whereas when Stockton got hurt and played a far less role in 1998 the Jazz were just as good as the previous year. A pretty stark contrast, which reminded us all that Karl Malone was the guy who made the team run, and Stockton was... well, just some guy on his team, albeit a very good one.

It doesn't seem you can be reasoned with on this subject. Your entire point is predicated on lack of team success for Stockton, when posters have repeatedly shown his team success was greater than Nash's. You bring up a number of embarrassing playoff losses but ignore my earlier posts showing how Stockton was not to blame and played extremely well in those series. You repeatedly bring up Malone and his Jazz teammates while not recognizing that A) Hornacek joined the Jazz when he was past his prime, and that was enough to push the Jazz to the Finals, 2) the Jazz were very competitive against the Bulls in both Finals and actually won Game 6 of the 1998 Finals under modern replay rules (3-pointer by Eisley wrongly erased, 3-pointer by Harper wrongly counted). You also mention guys like Thurl Bailey and Jeff Malone who played on incomplete Jazz teams. Go back and look at the box scores from the era you are talking about (the 1989 Warriors series, for instance, or the 1988
Lakers series). You will see statistical performances by Stockton that Nash never equaled. In fact, you will see Stockton outplaying a prime Magic head to head but coming up just short because the Lakers were head and shoulders above the Jazz. You will see that your narrative of Stockton's ability is shaped by one of two things.
Either a) you are too young to remember prime Stockton and you are remembering him as he was as an old man or b) you were around in the Eighties but didn't pay any attention to the Western Conference until the Lakers made the Finals.
I live in Los Angeles and here more than anywhere they respect John Stockton and what he did with inferior Jazz teams, not to mention what he did to the Lakers as an old man in 1997 and 1998.

[trex_8063]

You're trying to look at career win%, which is silly. You should be looking at how they did in their primes, and how they did carrying teams. And that's another key point... Stockton's context is totally different, because unlike Nash he wasn't the man on his teams, he was Robin.

The results don't support those metrics at all. When Nash was out the Suns looked hopeless (stats provided already) whereas when Stockton got hurt and played a far less role in 1998 the Jazz were just as good as the previous year. A pretty stark contrast, which reminded us all that Karl Malone was the guy who made the team run, and Stockton was... well, just some guy on his team, albeit a very good one.

The bolded parts are the two actual valid points you make. I don't have a significant retort for either because they're essentially true statements, though with a fair bit of hyperbole on the second point: Stockton was "just some guy"?? That's analogous to saying Westbrook is "just some guy Durant plays with". After all, Westbrook only played 46 games this season--->the Thunder were 34-12 (.739) with him, and 25-11 (.694) without him. It's analogous to when Stockton missed games (which was awfully damn rare---22 games....in 19 years!---and that IS worth noting; it means his team was more consistently able to glean the positive effects of his play): Jazz were 953-551 (.634) with him, 13-9 (.591) without him (and this was largely just losing an aging post-prime Stockton; we'll never know what significant loss of a PRIME Stockton would have done to them, 'cause the guy almost never missed a game until '98).

Also, saying the Jazz were exactly the same in '98 with his reduced role isn't exactly true: aside from finishing 2 games better in the rs in '97, the '97 Jazz team SRS was 7.97 (2nd in league). In '98 SRS was 5.73 (5th in league). His reduced role hurt them a little; they were still just good enough to get the same end result (a finals loss).

[Clyde Frazier]

"Succeeded more than they failed" is not much of an achievement. It's certainly not the benchmark we apply to all-time greats, and say "yeh, he got embarrassed in the first round 45% of the time, but the other 55% he basically met expectations... mostly". The Jazz faced plenty of teams they should have beaten, this is all addressed in lengthy posts earlier in the thread, and the claim they were in a tough conference I reject categorically. The West was often weaker than the East back then actually. In contrast Nash often played in a historically unbalanced NBA, where the East was a complete joke, and the West was outstandingly strong.

You continue to assert that making the finals is some kind of meaningful measure, but that's complete nonsense. Whether you make the finals depends on your situation. Oscar Robertson would never have made the finals if he hadn't teamed up with Kareem at the end of his career (and he was joining a team who won 56 games without him, when Kareem was still a rookie, and who played at a 60 win pace in the games he missed during his time there). Is Oscar Robertson not a HOFer? Perhaps you believe he is worse than Jason Kidd, who led 2 teams to the finals in his prime? Of course, the context was that the East sucked, and the Nets would have lost in the first round had they played out West those years (they were basically a 500. ball team against the West, as were many pretend contenders in those days).

You're really not worth responding to any further if you keep exaggerating every point you try to make.

When figuring out where players rank all time, you take everything into account: personal accolades, longevity, team success, era they played in, who they played with, etc. One doesn't trump all the others.

[Doctor MJ]

No its not dumb luck. That's the point here. The point is that while we rightfully give Steve Nash a ton of credit for the vast improvement in the Suns, we should be intellectually honest and point out the Mavs didnt drop off despite losing the guy who went on to win the next 2 MVPS for absolutely no return.

No one denies the improvement he made on the Suns. Kidd has the same type of effect on teams he joins. The difference is that when Kidd leaves a franchise they face as significant drop. The same can't be said for Nash.

I really have had a tough time getting a handle on what you're saying in this thread, and now I see why: Because your thinking just seems weird.

You insisted you were giving tons of credit to Nash, and even that you were praising Nash's time in Dallas, but you kept pushing in a negative direction that I wasn't sure where it was coming from. So now I see evidently it's based on you think that Nash only has the ability to help teams improve when he comes over but lacks the ability to destroy his exes when he leaves. Yeah, that's weird my friend.

Simply put I think you're attempting to establish meta-causality that just doesn't exist, and therefore your preference here is based entirely on luck.

How can I say this so definitively? Well, maybe you can craft a comeback here, but to me it's pretty clear cut that when you looking at a tiny sample size and not even all of that lines up with the putative meta-causality that the theory is bogus.

Theory: Nash helps teams improve, but then they can do fine when he's gone.
Key Observations: Nash helped Phoenix improve a ton, but Dallas was fine when he left.

Testing the theory: Did Nash improve Dallas in any way like he did Phoenix? No

Right there the more standard idea that Nash's impact is more about Phoenix vs Dallas than it is about coming vs going.

Theory: Kidd helps teams improve like Nash, and they fall off similarly without him.
Key Observations: Presumably the '01-02 shifts in New Jersey & Phoenix. But for crying out loud Jersey's SRS went up 8.97, Phoenix's only went down 2.93. Those aren't even remotely similar. The latter is very clearly not worth even mentioning in comparison to the others.

Then of course there's the matter that the entire presumption behind Kidd having a transformative impact is that somehow he as a point guard had a night & day impact on the Jersey defense, which all nuanced data analysis says never happened in Jersey, and never happens in general with point guards.

All of this stuff you're saying here where you're making it out like people are putting extreme words in your mouth, to me you've just made clear you have pretty extreme thinking here. The fact that you're not literally saying Nash is a bad player does not change this.

Also speaking more generally:

This notion of assymetrical player impact in regards to arrivals and departures is something only makes sense if there's something about the time in between the prepares the team for his departure. In general I think you're fooling yourself if there's something more to that than the luck of surrounding context, but to the extent there's actually something real about the asymmetry, I would submit that that's actually something worth high praise. That's how it would be seen with a CEO or any other kind of leader, why wouldn't we say the same about an athlete?

[Texas Chuck]

Doc,

Those comments are being taken out of the context of the discussion I was having with Baller where all his arguments were narrative based and so i was painting a different narrative for him. If you go back to the beginning of the exchange I offered to help him see where pro-Stockton guys were coming from after he accused them of dodging specific arguments he was making. He made no real arguments other than narrative so I tried to make his narrative more accurate in regards to what actually happened in Dallas because he had so many details wrong and had a very strange interpretation of why they won.

I agree those comments you quote are intellectually lacking and thats my mistake. Please don't take those comments as anything other than me getting caught up into a stupid narrative based argument and me getting tired of hearing how everything Nash is amazing and everything Kidd is trash. I admit Im a passionate basketball fan and get caught up in the moment from time to time.

Also, I still disagree with the idea that Kidd can only have a transformative impact by making team's offense great. It's just a perplexing argument that ignores all the other aspects of his game that imo at least have signficance. That seems as flawed to me as my comments to do you.

[Doctor MJ]

What follows may be a bit tl;dr, sorry. But there were a few things I wanted to reply to and a lot of stuff I wanted to present…...not so much by way of argument as simply additional information for your consideration.

This is the argument that has some legs, imo. Considering for instance that in 2001 (post-prime, nearly twilight of his career) Stockton's Off/Def combined +/- was 5.6 (3rd in league) by one source I'm looking at, 7.0 (4th in league) by the other source. And in 2002 (twilight era Stockton), I got one source saying combined +/- at 5.7 (8th in league), another source showing RAPM of 2.2 (12th in league)/NPI RAPM at 3.0 (17th in league).........sure makes me wonder if in the late 80's/early 90's he was routinely putting up combined +/- stats that were every bit as impressive as anything Nash did.

And again, Stockton wins the longevity comparison, too. jsia......

I find the data compelling too. I apply caution though:

1. That '90s data seems to have WTF-level variance than the more recent data.
2. We've still yet to see much data from the year's where Stockton played star-level minutes. This is a big deal because there are clearly times where a player in more limited minutes is being put in in circumstances where he is disproportionately likely to be successful both due to matchup and endurance.

To be more specific, Stockton's last big minute year was '96-97, which was also the first year we have +/- data for. In that year his NPI RAPM ranked him barely in the Top 20 overall, and far weaker than Malone on offense. These are not things that would give suggestion that that version of Stockton is superior in up there with Nash.

This is the data from ascreamingcomesacrossthecourt, yes?
While this source lists him significantly behind Malone offensively, it also places him significantly ahead of him defensively (and thus not terribly far behind him overall).

At any rate, I don’t pretend to understand the methodology enough to know why/how there can be so much variance between sources, but this is one source. Here’s another which has +/- for the entire 90’s: http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/
Admit I don’t know the credibility of the source, particularly for the 90’s data. But this source indicated Stockton’s typical combined +/- in his late years was very consistent with his +/- of ‘91 thru ‘97. Which I would more or less expect to be a semi-consistent finding with many other players when the reason for the reduced minutes is advanced age. It’s a means for an older player to perhaps maintain similar “per minute” effectiveness (is this not basically what we’ve been seeing in San Antonio the last few years?).

And fwiw, here’s “star minutes” John Stockton (‘91 thru ‘97---pre-’91 not being available) +/- numbers (and league rank where relevant):

‘91---Off +/-: 4.0 (7th), Def +/-: 0.7, Total +/-: 4.7 (tied for 5th)
‘92---Off +/-: 5.7 (2nd), Def +/-: 0.8, Total +/-: 6.5 (2nd)
‘93---Off +/-: 4.7 (tied 5th), Def +/-: 0.8, Total +/-: 5.5 (tied 4th)
‘94---Off +/-: 4.5 (2nd), Def +/-: 0.6, Total +/-: 5.1 (5th)
‘95---Off +/-: 5.1 (1st), Def +/-: 0.7, Total +/-: 5.8 (4th)
‘96---Off +/-: 4.9 (1st), Def +/-: 0.0, Total +/-: 4.9 (tied 9th)
‘97---Off +/-: 4.7 (2nd), Def +/-: 0.4, Total +/-: 5.1 (6th)

Offensive +/- ranges from 4.0 to 5.9, with an average of 4.8, and average rank of just better than 3rd (“2.9th”).
Defensive +/- ranges from 0.0 to 0.8, average of 0.6.
Total +/- ranges from 4.7 to 6.5, average of 5.37, and an average league rank just worse than 5th (“5.2nd”).


Compare that to “star minutes” Nash (‘01 thru ‘12; we’ll omit ‘13 because he was banged up and obviously significantly into decline):

‘01---Off +/-: 3.1 (19th), Def +/-: -2.4, Total +/-: 0.7 (tied for 87th)
‘02---Off +/-: 3.7 (tied 7th), Def +/-: -1.7, Total +/-: 1.9 (tied 47th)
‘03---Off +/-: 4.4 (tied 7th), Def +/-: -2.5, Total +/-: 1.9 (tied 48th)
‘04---Off +/-: 4.1 (tied 8th), Def +/-: -2.6, Total +/-: 1.5 (tied 62nd)
‘05---Off +/-: 6.8 (1st), Def +/-: -2.0, Total +/-: 4.8 (15th)
‘06---Off +/-: 6.8 (1st), Def +/-: -1.4, Total +/-: 5.3 (13th)
‘07---Off +/-: 8.6 (1st), Def +/-: -2.6, Total +/-: 6.0 (tied 8th)
‘08---Off +/-: 7.6 (1st), Def +/-: -2.2, Total +/-: 5.5 (tied 11th)
‘09---Off +/-: 5.9 (4th), Def +/-: -2.2, Total +/-: 3.8 (tied 22nd)
‘10---Off +/-: 6.6 (3rd), Def +/-: -2.0, Total +/-: 4.6 (16th)
‘11---Off +/-: 6.8 (1st), Def +/-: -1.8, Total +/-: 5.0 (12th)
‘12---Off +/-: 5.6 (3rd), Def +/-: -1.4, Total +/-: 4.2 (22nd)

Offensive +/- ranges from 3.1 to 8.6, average of 5.83, and average league rank just better than 5th (“4.8th”).
Defensive +/- ranges from -1.4 to -2.6, avg of -2.07.
Combined +/- ranges from 0.7 to 6.0, avg of 3.77, average league rank just worse than 30th.

If we look ONLY at Nash’s 8 years in PHX….
AVERAGE Off +/- is 6.84 (better than any single year mark from Stockton), avg league rank just better than 2nd (“1.9th”). Avg Def +/- is -1.95. Avg combined +/- is 4.9 (average league rank of 15th).

No question Nash appeared capable of higher offensive impact than Stockton. But if we’re going to use RAPM data as a means of evaluating and comparing “player wholes” (the thrust of this thread), it seems to me the combined +/- number is the one we should be primarily focused on.
And what data exists (and this is consistent in the data from the source I suspect you’re citing, too) suggests that Stockton’s advantage defensively more or less makes up the difference in offensive +/-. In fact, the above source I’m citing would suggest it was Stockton who had the larger overall impact.

Again, I don’t know of the credibility of this source. The data and ranks look to some degree reasonable (few “glitches”). But “glitches” or hits against the reliability are seen with the source I suspect you’re citing, too: for example, while it does show MJ near the top (which makes one think it might be credible), there’s also weirdness like Christian Laettner being #1; also Terry Mills being #3, Bo Outlaw at #5, Greg Ostertag at #12, Gheorghe Muresan at #15, etc.

So let us agree that while +/- data is both intriguing and useful, its implications are far from absolute. Merely one more piece of info to look at when making these comparisons.

Here are a few other pieces I feel are worth looking at, and are part of why I personally rank Stockton ahead of Nash all-time (some of below is recap)......

CAREER
Stockton----13.1 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 10.5 apg, 2.2 spg, 2.8 topg on .608 TS%
PER 21.8, .209 WS/48 on 31.8 mpg
Nash---14.3 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 8.5 apg, 0.7 spg, 2.9 topg on .605 TS%
PER 20.0, .164 WS/48 on 31.3 mpg

PRIME
Stockton (‘88 thru ‘97)---15.6 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 12.8 apg, 2.6 spg, 3.3 topg on .619 TS%
PER 22.7, .221 WS/48 on 36.2 mpg
Nash (‘01 thru ‘11)---16.6 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 9.8 apg, 0.8 spg, 3.2 topg on .612 TS%
PER 21.4, .182 WS/48 on 34.0 mpg

BEST 3-YR STRETCH
Stockton (‘89 thru ‘91)---17.2 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 14.1 apg, 2.9 spg, 3.6 topg on .612 TS%
PER 23.4, .230 WS/48 on 38.0 mpg
Nash (‘05 thru ‘07)---17.7 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 11.2 apg, 0.8 spg, 3.5 topg on .631 TS%
PER 23.0, .214 WS/48 on 35.0 mpg

PEAK (statistical) YEAR
Stockton (‘90)---17.2 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 14.5 apg, 2.7 spg, 3.5 topg on .607 TS%
PER 23.9, .238 WS/48 on 37.4 mpg
Nash (‘07)---18.6 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 11.6 apg, 0.8 spg, 3.8 topg on .654 TS%
PER 23.8, .225 WS/48 on 35.3 mpg

Some other “statistical footprint” stuff…..
CAREER POINTS
Stockton---19,711 (41st all-time)
Nash---17,387 (76th all-time)

CAREER ASSISTS
Stockton---15,806 (1st all-time)
Nash---10,335 (3rd all-time)

CAREER STEALS
Stockton---3,265 (1st all-time)
Nash---899 (197th all-time)

CAREER PLAYOFF POINTS
Stockton---2,436 (37th all-time)
Nash---2,072 (49th all-time)

CAREER PLAYOFF ASSISTS
Stockton---1,839 (2nd all-time)
Nash---1,061 (5th all-time)

CAREER PLAYOFF STEALS
Stockton---338 (4th all-time)
Nash---66 (tied for 173rd all-time)

Team stuff…..
Measures of Team Success
Stockton---career rs record: 966-560 (.633), career playoff record: 89-93 (.489), 2 finals appearances (no rings), 5 times as far as WCF
Nash---career rs record: 854-574 (.598), career playoff record: 58-65 (.472), no finals appearances, 4 times as far as WCF

Nash has a clear and substantial edge in MVP Award Shares.
Have already gone over awards/honors/accolades in prior post…...maybe slight edge to Nash (2 MVP’s, one more 1st team nod than Stockton), but it’s awfully close (significantly more All-Star appearances and 2nd Team nods for Stockton, as well as Def honors).

So yeah, it’s not that it isn’t close. But I still feel the balance of ALL available info and measures tips in Stockton’s favor.

In the spirit of just adding information:

Yes, the data I got '97 from was across the court, and it does show him not that far behind Malone, but it doesn't make Malone look that great either. The only reason I bring up Malone as it relates to offense is that its basically always been a given that Stockton supporters think that Stockton had tremendous offensive impact that comes close to at least one of Nash or Malone, and the data there says otherwise.

For comparison, here are the offensive ratings for Stockton & Malone that year compared to peak Nash

Stockton 3.67
Malone 6.70
Nash 10.22

Again, it proves nothing against the peak of Stockton for whom we don't have this data for, but it's a really big gap.

Re: RAPM of the '90s. Ignore all of that. I respect Engelmann for his mathematical knowledge, and I use some of his data, but what you're seeing there is the reason why he cannot be cited as an honest source.

His '90s data is him "approximating" RAPM for that time period using box score stats. For those keeping track at home: The entire reason anyone uses +/- stats (of which RAPM is one) is that it provides data beyond the box score and that has proven just how limited it is to try to do analysis on the box score alone. For him to then use the same label while taking out the actual +/- is basically him advertising wine when he's only got grape juice from concentrate.

Re: +/- is not absolute. True, but the only reason worth talking about any of these point guards is that their impact transcends the box score. You basically can't tell at all Nash's impact in Phoenix by looking at the basic stuff, so you simply have to use +/- or you won't get anywhere. Fine to apply caution in your use of it of course, and I'm always looking at new data and re-evaluating my analysis, but at whatever point you do analysis, you have settle on how you're coming to conclusions.

Re: longevity numbers. Sure. I totally get favoring Stockton based on his longevity.