RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 (George Mikan)

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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#41 » by Jordan Syndrome » Fri Nov 20, 2020 5:57 pm

MO12msu wrote:I’m just an observer in this thing but if you’re going to downgrade Paul for durability (fair) you have to downgrade Curry the same amount.

Stephs injury history, including in the playoffs, is pretty dang similar to Cp3’s.


And Durant...
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#42 » by No-more-rings » Fri Nov 20, 2020 5:59 pm

Jordan Syndrome wrote:
No-more-rings wrote:
Jordan Syndrome wrote:
Aren't all the injuries the reason Chris Paul isn't borderline top 10?

Are we really going to be voting at 50 and using the same excuse to not vote CP3?

I don't really buy that Paul would be borderline top 10 even with great health. Looking at the competition he wouldn't for sure be top 15 either. Looking at the guys in that range, he's not clearly better than Kobe, Dirk, West, Oscar, or Dr J.

I feel like 15-20 range is more where he could've been had he actually not gotten hurt so much and made deep playoff runs.

I see a big problem with having a guy that can't stay healthy for 3 playoff rounds in the top 20. His injuries aren't just bad luck they're perpetually a problem. People voting for him in this spot are basically saying that getting hurt when it matters most doesn't matter.

Of course he doesn't belong out of the top 50, but we should ask what odds is giving you over his career to win championships compared to some of the other guys? Based on what actually occurred i don't feel very confident in it at all.


You mean like Kevin Durant who got hurt in 2015, 2019 and 2020?

KD's stayed healthy through 3 finals(2012, 17, 18) and 6 conference finals (11, 12, 14, 16, 17 and 18) that's way more than what Cp3 has proven, he got hurt the only time he made a conference finals. The one exception in all that was the 2 games in round 1 of 2017, but that was probably more pre-cautionary than something that really forced him to sit out.

How is that apples to apples?

BTW: Even with that I'm not saying i'd necessarily have Durant this high either, but i do think his case looks stronger.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#43 » by Doctor MJ » Fri Nov 20, 2020 6:04 pm

70sFan wrote:1990s Jazz offenses didn't struggle in postseason, this is a myth.


Is it?

Let's consider the 2 finals years.

In '96-97 the Jazz were the best non-Bulls ORtg in the regular season, thus in theory we should expect the Jazz ORtg to be the best among the Bulls' 4 opponents. Instead they were surpassed by both Washington (13th best RS ORtg) and Atlanta (8th).

In '97-98 the Jazz were literally the best ORtg in the regular season, and once again we should expect the Jazz ORtg to be the best among the Bulls' 4 opponents. Instead they posted the worst ORtg out of all the Bulls' opponents surpassed by Indiana (4th best in RS), New Jersey (5th), and Charlotte (11th).

We can debate whether those are apples-to-apples comparisons, but I'd say the struggle was real at least against the Bulls.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#44 » by Jordan Syndrome » Fri Nov 20, 2020 6:07 pm

No-more-rings wrote:
Jordan Syndrome wrote:
No-more-rings wrote:I don't really buy that Paul would be borderline top 10 even with great health. Looking at the competition he wouldn't for sure be top 15 either. Looking at the guys in that range, he's not clearly better than Kobe, Dirk, West, Oscar, or Dr J.

I feel like 15-20 range is more where he could've been had he actually not gotten hurt so much and made deep playoff runs.

I see a big problem with having a guy that can't stay healthy for 3 playoff rounds in the top 20. His injuries aren't just bad luck they're perpetually a problem. People voting for him in this spot are basically saying that getting hurt when it matters most doesn't matter.

Of course he doesn't belong out of the top 50, but we should ask what odds is giving you over his career to win championships compared to some of the other guys? Based on what actually occurred i don't feel very confident in it at all.


You mean like Kevin Durant who got hurt in 2015, 2019 and 2020?

KD's stayed healthy through 3 finals(2012, 17, 18) and 6 conference finals (11, 12, 14, 16, 17 and 18) that's way more than what Cp3 has proven, he got hurt the only time he made a conference finals. The one exception in all that was the 2 games in round 1 of 2017, but that was probably more pre-cautionary than something that really forced him to sit out.

How is that apples to apples?


Durant has missed 2 entire seasons to injury (2015 and 2020) while also costing his team the Finals in 2019.

This is the issue with Chris Paul injuries and I knew you would do this because of your disdain for him (others do it as well). They shift the goal post about injuries to make it seem like Chris Paul's were somehow more impactful.

Guess what? Kevin Durant never had the responsibility of Chris Paul on a basketball team. We was never asked to be a teams primary ball handler, playmaker nor anchor a defense. I stand corrected--Durant had this responsibility in 2014 and guess what happened to his body in 2015?

You put Paul on a team where he can coast or doesnt need to be the driving force for 35+ minutes and he is likely far more rested for the post-season. Hell, we saw it happen just last season.

If you are going to hold players accountable for their injuries, don't beat around the bush with "Oh he was held out for precautionary measures"...guess what, Chris Paul never had the luxury of precautions because his team desperately needed him to win.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#45 » by No-more-rings » Fri Nov 20, 2020 6:09 pm

MO12msu wrote:I’m just an observer in this thing but if you’re going to downgrade Paul for durability (fair) you have to downgrade Curry the same amount.

Stephs injury history, including in the playoffs, is pretty dang similar to Cp3’s.

He deserves downgraded too, but he still has 2015, 2017 and 2019 where he held up for finals runs with no missed games. Cp3 if he was physically capable of that never proved it.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#46 » by MO12msu » Fri Nov 20, 2020 6:22 pm

No-more-rings wrote:
MO12msu wrote:I’m just an observer in this thing but if you’re going to downgrade Paul for durability (fair) you have to downgrade Curry the same amount.

Stephs injury history, including in the playoffs, is pretty dang similar to Cp3’s.

He deserves downgraded too, but he still has 2015, 2017 and 2019 where he held up for finals runs with no missed games. Cp3 if he was physically capable of that never proved it.

How many teams has Paul been on that have been capable of finals runs? One? He hasn’t really had similar opportunities.

Steph missed time in 2016 and 2018 and his team still got to the finals. Steph also missed time in 2017 in the regular season and yet his team still was able to get the 1 seed.

Meanwhile half the time that Paul was hurt, his second best player was also hurt. And any missed time in the regular season resulted in being forced to play a 50 win team in the first round because the supporting cast couldn’t hold up without him to the same level Stephs could.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#47 » by colts18 » Fri Nov 20, 2020 6:22 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:
colts18 wrote:I'm not questioning Nash's offensive impact. All I'm saying is you can't analyze Nash's impact without mentioning the Offensive environment he played in. Nash's prime came in Mike D'Antoni's system which emphasized Offense by sacrificing defense. The same thing in Dallas with Nellie, another offensive minded coach. He played in a system that played to his strengths. The Suns played at a high pace, shot an absurd amount of 3 pointers, and he played after the handchecking ban came into effect.

Stockton's prime otoh came during handchecking, in a slow offense, and with oaf centers clogging the basket (Ostertag and Eaton).

Do you know where the Jazz were ranked in 3 point attempts during their 2 finals years? Last place both seasons even though they shot well from deep. Despite that, the Jazz finished 2nd and 1st in O rating. In 97, the Jazz shot just 11 3 Pointers per game with a shortened line. In 1998, they shot a measly 8 3 pointers per game. It was absurd how Jerry Sloan was holding back the Jazz from shooting 3's. Stockton was shooting just 2.2 3 pointers even though he was shooting over 42% from 3 and the line was shortened that year. Freakin Gary Payton was shooting over Double the amount 3 pointers and barely hitting above 30%. Their Pace in 1998 was 90 during those years, very slow.

Compare that to Nash's MVP 2005 year. The Suns were 1st in 3 point attempts at 24 per game (3x as many as the 98 Jazz). They played at a 96 pace, 1st in the league.

How does Nash do in an offense where he isn't allowed to shoot as many 3's, his teammates don't shoot 3s, the pace is slowed to a crawl, he has Greg Ostertag clogging up the paint, and teams are allowed to be physical with him? He would struggle. And that's what happened when Nash played from 96-2000.

How would John Stockton fare if his coach allowed him to release the shackles, shoot 3s, play with 4 3 point threats spacing the floor, no handcheck, with an uptempo offense? He would thrive in that scenario.


I'm all for asking how Stockton would do in a D'Antoni-like situation. I'm less interested in asking how Nash would do with a dumber coach because I see "good coaching" here as essentially just a) use strategy we now see as obviously correct and b) letting make the on-court decisions.

I don't see Stockton as having demonstrated the ability to do what Nash did.

I don't think Stockton was the same level of shooter as Nash. Nash was a drastically superior free throw shooter, more established shooting 3's at greater volume, and far more comfortable shooting basically anywhere in the half court with his arsenal of floaters and off-balanced shots.

I don't think Stockton was the same level of passer as Nash. You can argue that they were comparable in transition and that Stockton wasn't given the same chance to improvise in the half court, but Stockton wasn't probing and manipulating the defense on the regular like Nash was, and Nash was doing that long before his MVP season.


Nash isn't having the same impact if he doesn't have the perfect situation for him. No coach in history has given his PG's more freedom than D'Antoni. Nash isn't having that same impact if he is transported to the Jazz with an established Alpha like Malone. Nash would go along with the program and be Malone's sidekick. Only in Phoenix was he allowed to have a system revolve around his talents. We saw Nash in Dallas with another Alpha, Dirk, and his impact was not on the same level. He was a good, all-star level player in Dallas. It was only when he went to Phoenix did he elevate to MVP level.

I don't see Nash and Stockton that different as shooters. Both of them have a career TS%+ of 114. Stockton's peak is 122 and Nash is 121. From the data we have, Stockton shot 49.8% from 16-23 Ft (Nash is 48.5%) and 46.4% from 10-16 Ft (Nash is 46.8%). Stockton came into the league when the 3 pointer was a primitive strategy. Nash came in when it was an established strategy. If Stockton got to practice 3's, I'd imagine he is shooting close to what Nash was shooting.

I can't emphasize enough how PG friendly D'Antoni's system was. It's no coincidence that a number of PG's had their career best impact's with D'Antoni.

James Harden's Houston Career:
1st 4 years: 27/7/5, 6.9 3PA/Game
Last 4 years: 32/9/7, 11.4 3PA/Game

Can you guess the difference between those two 4 year runs?

Raymond Felton averages 12/7 with Denver, gets traded mid-season to New York and his numbers skyrocket to 17/9. Next season in Portland without D'Antoni, Felton drops back to 11/7.

Who was the coach during Jeremy Lin's Linsanity run where he averaged 19/8, career bests?

Look at Kendall Marshall's career Assists per game. Can you spot the outlier?
13: 3.0
14: 8.8
15: 3.1
16: 2.4

Wanna guess who his coach was during his outlier season?

Wanna guess who Steve Blake's coach was when he posted his career-best Assist numbers?

Who was the coach during Chris Duhon's best season?

Can you spot a theme here. If Raymond Felton can score 17 and Jeremy Lin can score 19 PPG with D'Antoni, why can't Stockton score 20 PPG on 14 Assists per game with D'Antoni?
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#48 » by No-more-rings » Fri Nov 20, 2020 6:24 pm

Jordan Syndrome wrote:
Durant has missed 2 entire seasons to injury (2015 and 2020) while also costing his team the Finals in 2019.


Ok on 19, but i was referring specifically to playoff injuries.

Jordan Syndrome wrote:If you are going to hold players accountable for their injuries, don't beat around the bush with "Oh he was held out for precautionary measures"...guess what, Chris Paul never had the luxury of precautions because his team desperately needed him to win.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/nba-playoffs-2017-warriors-rule-out-kevin-durant-for-game-2-against-blazers/

That's literally what it was. KD could've went if he really needed to, Cp3 often could not despite being desperately needed.

Jordan Syndrome wrote:This is the issue with Chris Paul injuries and I knew you would do this because of your disdain for him (others do it as well). They shift the goal post about injuries to make it seem like Chris Paul's were somehow more impactful.


Guess what? Kevin Durant never had the responsibility of Chris Paul on a basketball team. We was never asked to be a teams primary ball handler, playmaker nor anchor a defense. I stand corrected--Durant had this responsibility in 2014 and guess what happened to his body in 2015?

You put Paul on a team where he can coast or doesnt need to be the driving force for 35+ minutes and he is likely far more rested for the post-season. Hell, we saw it happen just last season.

You can accuse me of bias or hatred of Paul all you want, but i simply don't give credit to players for something they never proved they can do.

You want to make this about Durant? I showed you several seasons where his health held up in long playoff runs. We don't have a single solid example of that for Paul in his prime. Maybe he could've in 08, and a few of the Clippers years but it's just speculation.

Paul carried a typical superstar load in his prime, why does he get special treatment in regards to his injuries?
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#49 » by No-more-rings » Fri Nov 20, 2020 6:30 pm

MO12msu wrote:How many teams has Paul been on that have been capable of finals runs? One? He hasn’t really had similar opportunities.


That's not really the point though. The question of whether his teams were good enough is a different discussion. If he struggled to stay healthy in so many 1, 2 and 3 round postseasons, why should we believe he'd ever hold up for multiple finals runs? I see no real evidence to believe that. It's wishful thinking on a very high level.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#50 » by MO12msu » Fri Nov 20, 2020 6:55 pm

No-more-rings wrote:
MO12msu wrote:How many teams has Paul been on that have been capable of finals runs? One? He hasn’t really had similar opportunities.


That's not really the point though. The question of whether his teams were good enough is a different discussion. If he struggled to stay healthy in so many 1, 2 and 3 round postseasons, why should we believe he'd ever hold up for multiple finals runs? I see no real evidence to believe that. It's wishful thinking on a very high level.

I don’t think it’s wishful thinking when I’m comparing him to Steph. Steph has struggled to stay healthy at the same frequency as Paul. My point is that Steph’s situation gave him more opportunities and allow durability concerns to be more of an afterthought.

I don’t think I should assume that Paul could never finish a playoff run when a player of similar injury concerns has been able to.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#51 » by freethedevil » Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:07 pm

MO12msu wrote:I’m just an observer in this thing but if you’re going to downgrade Paul for durability (fair) you have to downgrade Curry the same amount.

Stephs injury history, including in the playoffs, is pretty dang similar to Cp3’s.


Contention worthy teams can survive their best player missing the first round usually. They can't survive their teams missing the conference finals, and finals.

We've seen curry manage multiple full playoff rusn al the way through the final anyway. Chris Paull on the other hand...
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#52 » by DQuinn1575 » Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:14 pm

Getting hard to keep interest as I copy the previous post:


Mikan played 7 games against the Harlem Globetrotters and 1 against the New York Rens. They each won a world championship, and were considered the two best black teams. The Trotters would tour and have winning records against the All-Americans each year - 1961 the AA team included Walt Bellamy, Don Kojis, Tom Meschery for example, so they weren't playing patsies even then. In the early 50s they would attract top talent.
Mikan was 5-2 against the Trotters and beat the Rens. The Rens were in the 1948 world championship, Mikan scored 40 in a 75-71 win.
Mikan scored 204 points in 7 games against the Trotters; the Lakers scored 473,averaging 68 versus the Trotters 58.
So he averaged 30.5 ppg against the top black talent of the day.

I took 1951, Mikan's last super dominant year. There was one starting center who was 6-10, Ron Livingstone, and 4 others who were 6-9 - Risen,Foust,Rocha,Halbert. In those 30 games Mikan scored 829 points, a 27.6 average; in the other 38 games scored 1,107 points, a 29.1 average. So he's scoring 27.6 a game against 6-9 guys. And realize the mid 70s still had 6-9 guys like Cowens, Reed, besides of course Unseld. And yes, the other games he is playing against 6-6, 6-7 guys, which benefitted him.

So he did well against guys his height, he did well against black teams.
Mikan was the best player on the best team seven times. So longevity doesn't bother me.

My vote:
1. Mikan
2. Moses
3. Barkley (may change next round)
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#53 » by MO12msu » Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:22 pm

freethedevil wrote:
MO12msu wrote:I’m just an observer in this thing but if you’re going to downgrade Paul for durability (fair) you have to downgrade Curry the same amount.

Stephs injury history, including in the playoffs, is pretty dang similar to Cp3’s.


Contention worthy teams can survive their best player missing the first round usually. They can't survive their teams missing the conference finals, and finals.

We've seen curry manage multiple full playoff rusn al the way through the final anyway. Chris Paull on the other hand...

All your first point is saying is that the Warriors w/out Curry > Clippers w/out Paul...

I don’t see how it’s a hot take to say that Curry and Paul have similar durability concerns. I believe Curry has actually missed a higher proportion of playoff games.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#54 » by DQuinn1575 » Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:55 pm

MO12msu wrote:
freethedevil wrote:
MO12msu wrote:I’m just an observer in this thing but if you’re going to downgrade Paul for durability (fair) you have to downgrade Curry the same amount.

Stephs injury history, including in the playoffs, is pretty dang similar to Cp3’s.


Contention worthy teams can survive their best player missing the first round usually. They can't survive their teams missing the conference finals, and finals.

We've seen curry manage multiple full playoff rusn al the way through the final anyway. Chris Paull on the other hand...

All your first point is saying is that the Warriors w/out Curry > Clippers w/out Paul...

I don’t see how it’s a hot take to say that Curry and Paul have similar durability concerns. I believe Curry has actually missed a higher proportion of playoff games.


Maybe there is a skill as to which round of the playoffs you get hurt that I don't know about.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#55 » by freethedevil » Fri Nov 20, 2020 8:00 pm

MO12msu wrote:
freethedevil wrote:
MO12msu wrote:I’m just an observer in this thing but if you’re going to downgrade Paul for durability (fair) you have to downgrade Curry the same amount.

Stephs injury history, including in the playoffs, is pretty dang similar to Cp3’s.


Contention worthy teams can survive their best player missing the first round usually. They can't survive their teams missing the conference finals, and finals.

We've seen curry manage multiple full playoff rusn al the way through the final anyway. Chris Paull on the other hand...

All your first point is saying is that the Warriors w/out Curry > Clippers w/out Paul...
All you're saying is you didn't read what I said. Pretty clearly I'm talking about chris paul always getting injured in the late rounds which has zero to do with how good his team is.
I don’t see how it’s a hot take to say that Curry and Paul have similar durability concerns. I believe Curry has actually missed a higher proportion of playoff games.

Curry's been healthy for 5 straight finals+conference finals, a,nd he was healthy throughout three of those runs. Chris Paul made the conference final once and got injured then and got injured in the second round multiple times. CP3 has never been healthy deep in the playoffs. They're not comaprable
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#56 » by Doctor MJ » Fri Nov 20, 2020 8:13 pm

colts18 wrote:
Doctor MJ wrote:
colts18 wrote:I'm not questioning Nash's offensive impact. All I'm saying is you can't analyze Nash's impact without mentioning the Offensive environment he played in. Nash's prime came in Mike D'Antoni's system which emphasized Offense by sacrificing defense. The same thing in Dallas with Nellie, another offensive minded coach. He played in a system that played to his strengths. The Suns played at a high pace, shot an absurd amount of 3 pointers, and he played after the handchecking ban came into effect.

Stockton's prime otoh came during handchecking, in a slow offense, and with oaf centers clogging the basket (Ostertag and Eaton).

Do you know where the Jazz were ranked in 3 point attempts during their 2 finals years? Last place both seasons even though they shot well from deep. Despite that, the Jazz finished 2nd and 1st in O rating. In 97, the Jazz shot just 11 3 Pointers per game with a shortened line. In 1998, they shot a measly 8 3 pointers per game. It was absurd how Jerry Sloan was holding back the Jazz from shooting 3's. Stockton was shooting just 2.2 3 pointers even though he was shooting over 42% from 3 and the line was shortened that year. Freakin Gary Payton was shooting over Double the amount 3 pointers and barely hitting above 30%. Their Pace in 1998 was 90 during those years, very slow.

Compare that to Nash's MVP 2005 year. The Suns were 1st in 3 point attempts at 24 per game (3x as many as the 98 Jazz). They played at a 96 pace, 1st in the league.

How does Nash do in an offense where he isn't allowed to shoot as many 3's, his teammates don't shoot 3s, the pace is slowed to a crawl, he has Greg Ostertag clogging up the paint, and teams are allowed to be physical with him? He would struggle. And that's what happened when Nash played from 96-2000.

How would John Stockton fare if his coach allowed him to release the shackles, shoot 3s, play with 4 3 point threats spacing the floor, no handcheck, with an uptempo offense? He would thrive in that scenario.


I'm all for asking how Stockton would do in a D'Antoni-like situation. I'm less interested in asking how Nash would do with a dumber coach because I see "good coaching" here as essentially just a) use strategy we now see as obviously correct and b) letting make the on-court decisions.

I don't see Stockton as having demonstrated the ability to do what Nash did.

I don't think Stockton was the same level of shooter as Nash. Nash was a drastically superior free throw shooter, more established shooting 3's at greater volume, and far more comfortable shooting basically anywhere in the half court with his arsenal of floaters and off-balanced shots.

I don't think Stockton was the same level of passer as Nash. You can argue that they were comparable in transition and that Stockton wasn't given the same chance to improvise in the half court, but Stockton wasn't probing and manipulating the defense on the regular like Nash was, and Nash was doing that long before his MVP season.


Nash isn't having the same impact if he doesn't have the perfect situation for him. No coach in history has given his PG's more freedom than D'Antoni. Nash isn't having that same impact if he is transported to the Jazz with an established Alpha like Malone. Nash would go along with the program and be Malone's sidekick. Only in Phoenix was he allowed to have a system revolve around his talents. We saw Nash in Dallas with another Alpha, Dirk, and his impact was not on the same level. He was a good, all-star level player in Dallas. It was only when he went to Phoenix did he elevate to MVP level.

I don't see Nash and Stockton that different as shooters. Both of them have a career TS%+ of 114. Stockton's peak is 122 and Nash is 121. From the data we have, Stockton shot 49.8% from 16-23 Ft (Nash is 48.5%) and 46.4% from 10-16 Ft (Nash is 46.8%). Stockton came into the league when the 3 pointer was a primitive strategy. Nash came in when it was an established strategy. If Stockton got to practice 3's, I'd imagine he is shooting close to what Nash was shooting.

I can't emphasize enough how PG friendly D'Antoni's system was. It's no coincidence that a number of PG's had their career best impact's with D'Antoni.

James Harden's Houston Career:
1st 4 years: 27/7/5, 6.9 3PA/Game
Last 4 years: 32/9/7, 11.4 3PA/Game

Can you guess the difference between those two 4 year runs?

Raymond Felton averages 12/7 with Denver, gets traded mid-season to New York and his numbers skyrocket to 17/9. Next season in Portland without D'Antoni, Felton drops back to 11/7.

Who was the coach during Jeremy Lin's Linsanity run where he averaged 19/8, career bests?

Look at Kendall Marshall's career Assists per game. Can you spot the outlier?
13: 3.0
14: 8.8
15: 3.1
16: 2.4

Wanna guess who his coach was during his outlier season?

Wanna guess who Steve Blake's coach was when he posted his career-best Assist numbers?

Who was the coach during Chris Duhon's best season?

Can you spot a theme here. If Raymond Felton can score 17 and Jeremy Lin can score 19 PPG with D'Antoni, why can't Stockton score 20 PPG on 14 Assists per game with D'Antoni?


Ah. Okay, so this is something I've thought a lot about for a long time.

#1 thing: It's a mistake to look at D'Antoni as if what his system is doing is systematically providing lots of assist opportunities. What it's doing in general is empowering one decision maker, and thus if that guy is someone who, say, generally isn't seen as worthy of getting such empowerment, his numbers are naturally going to get a lot higher.

Let's note that when D'Antoni came to NY, he had Stephon Marbury at his disposal. He chose instead to hand the offense to Chris Duhon. Worth noting that Marbury previously was in Phoenix with D'Antoni, and got traded the same season D'Antoni took over as head coach. I think that tells you a lot about the fact D'Antoni wasn't someone who was taking a player and adding X to his capabilities. D'Antoni was willing to side with a guy that pretty much the entire basketball world thought was drastically less talented than Marbury, which means it wasn't about Duhon being "the best point guard on the roster", it was about Duhon being someone that D'Antoni could work with.

And let's also note that that while the Knicks became better on offense that year, they were still a below average offense.

Felton was the next guy to take the reins and it has to be noted that in Felton you're talking about a guy who had previously averaged 7+ assists being able to crack 9 with D'Antoni's empowerment, it's not like Felton was making some clear cut difference from the impact side of things.

Nash & Harden are the two true success stories of D'Antoni in terms of actually producing something elite. D'Antoni's given other guys the reins to rack up stats, didn't do the same trick. D'Antoni's coached a variety of other stars in NY & LA, also didn't work. I think we need to acknowledge that Nash & Harden deserve specific credit here rather than trying to act as if they were D'Antoni's puppets.

#2 thing: It's a mistake to try to map Nash's APG in Phoenix in comparison to Dallas and think that APG addition can be assumed to have a direct causal link to Nash's impact improvement. In Dallas, Nash was clearly more impactful during his '01-02 & '02-03 seasons than '03-04 despite the fact his APG went up in '03-04. Why? Nash shot less and passed more because the Mavs brought in Jamison & Walker, and this represented Nash taking on a lesser primacy not a greater primacy. The causal relationship between APG and primacy is a complicated thing with many confounding variables.

#3 thing: Some systems actually do generate a lot of assists as a matter of course that doesn't necessarily relate to effectiveness. The '11-12 Celtics were 2nd in assists as Rondo lead the league in APG while playing at a relatively slow pace and and being only 27th in ORtg. The system involved a lot of Rondo making passes to mid-range shooters who then shot the ball. Rondo was getting tons of assist opportunities without really doing much to earn them, and moreover, the shots being generated by the scheme weren't actually that great.

This is where we get the term a "Rondo assist", meaning an assist that anyone could have gotten if they'd simply been allowed to be the point guard in Doc Rivers' offense.

#4 thing: Stockton came of age in a system that shows signs of being a bit similar to the Boston system.

In '86-87, before Stockton became a starter, the Jazz were 21st out of 23rd in ORtg, but 6th in assists. Not as glaring as the Boston discrepancy, but still, I'd say what you're seeing there is an offensive scheme that systematically produced scoring attempts that were assist-eligible, and thus could be said to "inflate" the passing effectiveness of the team.

To be clear: That Jazz would of course later on have a very effective offense with Stockton as the floor general so I'm not remotely looking to say that Stockton was doing something wrong or damning here. But if you only thought about D'Antoni as an "assist generator" and never considered that for what Stockton was experiencing, think again. Stockton may well have made more Rondo assists than Rondo, which is also part of the reason that while Stockton by far leads NBA history in assists, there really wasn't ever a time when Stockton was considered "by far the best passer in NBA history". The league at the time knew that Stockton's stats were a bit inflated, and I think over time we've forgotten this.

All this is to say, that while Nash got a slight boost in assists under D'Antoni and Duhon got a huge bump, it's entirely possible that Stockton's APG would go down under D'Antoni even if it turned out that he was more impactful than under Layden/Sloan.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#57 » by MO12msu » Fri Nov 20, 2020 9:21 pm

freethedevil wrote:All your first point is saying is that the Warriors w/out Curry > Clippers w/out Paul...
All you're saying is you didn't read what I said. Pretty clearly I'm talking about chris paul always getting injured in the late rounds which has zero to do with how good his team is.
I don’t see how it’s a hot take to say that Curry and Paul have similar durability concerns. I believe Curry has actually missed a higher proportion of playoff games.

Curry's been healthy for 5 straight finals+conference finals, a,nd he was healthy throughout three of those runs. Chris Paul made the conference final once and got injured then and got injured in the second round multiple times. CP3 has never been healthy deep in the playoffs. They're not comaprable

Sorry, your first point wasn’t very clear initially, but i don’t think it’s even true...

Chris Paul has went past the first round 5 times and had stretches of missed games due to injury in 2 of those runs.

Steph Curry has went past the first round 6 times and had stretches of missed games due to injury in 2 of those runs.

Essentially what you’re saying is that Curry gets credit for being injured earlier and I’m not even sure you can make the argument that there is clear evidence that Paul gets injured later than Curry.

I think they’re clearly comparable as small guards with nagging injuries. Paul’s injuries are usually just of more consequence due to varying circumstances so they get highlighted more than Curry’s.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#58 » by penbeast0 » Fri Nov 20, 2020 9:26 pm

The funny thing is that every time they tried to quantify this idea that Stockton's assists were inflated relative to other PGs, they failed. The one I remember best is Magic fans saying that the Utah scorekeepers were giving Stockton a lot of extra assists. So, someone actually ran the numbers and found that the player who benefitted most by getting extra assists at home rather than on the road was Magic. I've always felt Stockton (a) deserved his assists and (b) tended to be underrated as a playmaker rather than overrated because his assists weren't flashy. People love the Jason Williams's of the world much more than the machine like repetition of STockton. It's like people who won't admit that Harden is a great scorer because his style is such a straightforward grind.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#59 » by sansterre » Fri Nov 20, 2020 9:47 pm

Here's the thing. I don't know what to do with Mikan. A part of me isn't comfortable with him at all. But if we're giving him credit for six GOAT-level years (which doesn't seem like a stretch) then that puts his CORP value easily in the lead right now. And since this forum is clearly okay with him being on this list, I feel like I'm being a stick-in-the-mud for simply leaving him off my ballots.

1. George Mikan - either you ignore him, or you accept that six-ish world-beating seasons is probably better than anything remaining players have. Let's just get this over with.

2. Chris Paul - lots of longevity, actually got better in the playoffs, underrated because his teammates weren't as good as they needed to be, suffered from durability issues (totally true) but never debilitatingly so (he tended to miss lots of little stretches, not lose entire seasons like Durant). Had a success with a lot of teams, rosters and coaches, often without a lot to work with.

3. Charles Barkley - not an above average defender, and not a lot of range, but has an extremely dominant offensive skillset. Early on was super-athletic, but not a great passer. The older he got the less athletic he became, but he became a very capable playmaker toward the end. Also got a little better in the playoffs. Combine that, a long value curve and pretty respectable longevity and Barkley is my pick here. If I liked Playoff Durant better he'd be here. I just feel like his track record outside of Golden State is spotty. That may be petty so I'm open to changing this vote.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#60 » by Doctor MJ » Fri Nov 20, 2020 10:01 pm

penbeast0 wrote:The funny thing is that every time they tried to quantify this idea that Stockton's assists were inflated relative to other PGs, they failed. The one I remember best is Magic fans saying that the Utah scorekeepers were giving Stockton a lot of extra assists. So, someone actually ran the numbers and found that the player who benefitted most by getting extra assists at home rather than on the road was Magic. I've always felt Stockton (a) deserved his assists and (b) tended to be underrated as a playmaker rather than overrated because his assists weren't flashy. People love the Jason Williams's of the world much more than the machine like repetition of STockton. It's like people who won't admit that Harden is a great scorer because his style is such a straightforward grind.


Well funny thing on that: I recall data showing Nash to be the anomaly here. Whereas pretty much everyone else was getting more assists a home, Nash got more on the road.

Regardless, I'm not saying that Stockton got fudged assist numbers, I'm saying that depending on the types of shots your team is going for, it's going to affect your assist rate relative to your scoring rate. And I think the idea that that Stockton was literally 25%+ better at finding scoring opportunities than anyone else in history isn't something most would want to advocate for, so I think even if folks don't feel comfortable using the word "inflated", there's something systemic in play here.
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