Lattimer wrote:Slava wrote:Funny you say that when enough people have questioned their role in inflating Stockton's assists throughout his career.
Some may question it, but its totally and completely bogus.
Teams win more at home, so home versus away stats are going to be a little bit different.
Stockton averaged 11.2 assists per game at home and 10.4 assists per game away.
Compare that to Rondo who at one point was averaging 8.7 assists at home and 7.3 assists on the road.
Stockton was incredible, no reason to question his stats and his success just because he was so dominant and durable and played for so long. Not many players are as durable and have as long a career as him. He was productive so many years.
Ah, well I guess I'll take this up. Sorry to be a downer in a thread where we're all excited:
Stockton was absolutely fantastic, but his assist numbers are also inflated.
Part of it can relate to what you've already addressed here: Home numbers ahead of away. It's actually the norm among point guards, but it's not the case for all. So to a degree, those with a home edge can be argued to be inflated on that front. That's not the big issue though.
The big issue is that the Jazz that Stockton rose to prominence on were an assist-generating machine even when their offense was utterly incompetent...somewhat like Rondo's Celtics at times. This is something that predates Stockton's time as a starter. Jazz just got a ton of assists even when getting totally shut down as an offense. When this occurs it tells us that the offense in question simply has an attack plan where the shots taken are more likely to qualify for being assisted than other team offenses are, and hence you cannot equate the assist in this scheme to the assist in other schemes in terms of value.
Frankly, the value of a playmaker is always more complex than the assists given so this isn't truly different, it's just that the Jazz were particularly noteworthy on this front.
Also to be clear: I'm not saying Stockton was doing anything wrong. Just saying, there is clear evidence to indicate that quality point guard play on those Jazz teams was more likely to be rewarded with an assist on a given possession than comparable quality on other comparably successful offenses, and thus while Stockton's APG is indeed a reason to first notice Stockton and wonder if he was awesome...it's not a reason to proclaim him as clearly superior to all other point guards.
