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

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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#61 » by Hal14 » Fri Nov 20, 2020 10:29 pm

1. Moses Malone
2. Elgin Baylor
3. Bob Pettit

Moses is my top choice here.I actually have him slightly ahead of Dr. J because if Dr. J put up those numbers and had all of those accolades in the NBA, he'd have a stronger case. But his fist few years he did it in a slightly weaker league, the ABA - I only say slightly though. The ABA did have some very good teams and have a good amount of talent, but wasn't quite as good as the NBA, as evidenced by the Doctors individual stats and team success suffering a little bit after he went from ABA to NBA.

Moses meanwhile, matched up very well vs Kareem (the no. 3 GOAT according to this board), leadings his team to wins over Kareem's Lakers in the playoffs in both 81 and 83, leading his team to the finals in 81 and sweeping the defending champs Lakers in 83. Yes, Dr. J was on that 83 Sixers team but Moses was the MVP of the league that year and finals MVP. Moses won 3 NBA MVPs compared to 1 for Dr. J. Yes, Dr. J won 3 ABA MVPs, but again, it depends how much you value the level of competition in the ABA. IMO, 3 NBA MVPs is just as impressive as 3 ABA MVPs and 1 NBA MVP - possibly more.

Dr. J was a better defender and passer, but he was by no means GOAT level at either defending or passing, whereas Moses was a GOAT level rebounder.

Baylor gets the slight edge over Pettit because Baylor was faster, better passer and better ball handler. And in terms of impact, Baylor was Dr. J before Dr. J. Baylor was Connie Hawkins before Connie Hawkins. Jordan modeled his game after Dr. J, as did Dominique Wilkins. Kobe and LeBron modeled their game after Jordan. Baylor was a pioneer. He paved the way for all of the explosive, big, strong, athletic wings to come later.

And speaking of impact, you could also make the argument that Baylor is the one who invented the euro-step:



Also, Pettit's crowning achievement was his 50 point, 19 rebound game to led the Hawks to the win in game 6 over the Celtics to clinch the 1958 NBA championship. However, Russell only played 20 minutes that game because he had a severely sprained ankle suffered in game 3 of that series. Baylor meanwhile, scored 61 points and pulled down 22 rebounds to lead the Lakers to a win over the Celtics in game 5 of the 1962 NBA finals, so Baylor put up better numbers and did it against a healthy Russell who played all 48 minutes of that game. Baylor also played all 48 minutes that game. Jerry West? He had 26 points, 4 rebounds and 0 assists.

Baylor is the best all-around player left on the board IMO when you take into account his scoring, rebounding, passing, defense, ball handling and ability to score/defend both inside and outside.

Baylor and Pettit are both very close and it's definitely debatable which was the greater player. I think both have a case to be top 20 of all time. Scary to think how good they would have been if they played in the modern era with the advantage of 50 years of advances in basketball skills, more favorable rule changes, less days off between games, better equipment, better facilities, better weight training, better nutrition, better sports science, etc.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#62 » by colts18 » Fri Nov 20, 2020 11:12 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.

I don't think Stockton's Assists were getting inflated. He was a great passer from the beginning. He was 2nd in the league in Assist% in his 2nd year. In his 3rd year (as a backup), he started where he lead the league in his Assists 15 times in the next 17 years.

In 1998, we have a rare instance where John Stockton missed games. For the first 18 games of the season, he was out with a knee injury. Howard Eisley started all 18 games. Did Eisley's assist numbers get inflated during that stretch? No

Eisley 18 starts: 10.8 PPG, 5.8 Assists/game (7.1 per 36), 108.5 O Rating (+3.5)
Stockton 64 starts: 12.0 PPG, 8.5 Assists/game (10.5 per 36), 113.8 O Rating (+8.8)

During Eisley's career his Assists per 36 was 6.4 with Utah. His career average was 6.2 so not far off.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#63 » by WestGOAT » Sat Nov 21, 2020 12:00 am

I found some basketball-reference scrapers for Python and I figured why not play around with them since I'm learning how to use Python for data analysis.

A lot of people mention that Stockton could easily replace the production Isaiah Thomas was providing the Pistons, so why not just look at their offensive stats for ALL of their regular season games AND playoff games at their peak/prime. I added Nash as well since he's also often compared to Stockton.

I basically did a quick and dirty analysis and compared 6 years of each player:
(2004-2005 till 2009-2010) for Nash
(1987-1988 till 1992-1993) for Stockton
(1984-1985 till 1989-1990) for Thomas

Each dot corresponds to a game.
Upper-half is points scored per game starting with Nash, Stockton, and then Thomas while comparing RS vs PS production.
Bottom-half is TS% per game. I should perhaps adjust the y-axis, but Nash has some pretty crazy positive outliers.
Image

You can clearly note that Stockton lacks another scoring gear compared to Thomas. The difference with Nash is less striking, but it's still there. Thomas TS% is obviously lower, but that is the price of the heavy-lifting he had to do.

I have also scraped and plotted their assists/game, but I don't think that's fair to show without team ORtg data.
I actually already have collected their respective team's regular season ORtg and pace (and for other teams in the league) using the scrapers. Unfortunately, it's not possible for Playoff ORTg and pace so that needs to be done manually, so that could take some time.

Perhaps I will figure out how to plot a time-series comparing their teams ORTg during the regular season and playoffs. This should give a better impression of how important their offense was for their respective team than just simply only looking at points and assists.

P.S I decided to assists the plots for assists anyway:
Image

Just right-click and open the image in a new tab if you want to zoom in properly.
Image
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#64 » by 70sFan » Sat Nov 21, 2020 12:06 am

Hal14 wrote:And speaking of impact, you could also make the argument that Baylor is the one who invented the euro-step:


I've seen 1950s players doing euro-steps. I definitely remember Cliff Hagan and Richie Guerin using this move at least once. I can show these examples if you wish.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#65 » by trex_8063 » Sat Nov 21, 2020 1:00 am

Doctor MJ wrote:
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.


Citing results in TWO playoff series's [out of 24 total that they played in the 90's] is sort of cherry-picking, no?

Certainly they struggled against the Bulls in the post-season, but that hardly defines their post-season offense during the '90s.

I'll first cite Elgee's write-up on Malone for his top 40 project. If you scroll about 70% of the way down in the write-up, you come to a chart titled "5-Year Team Offenses", scrutinizing all of the shotclock era.
On it you see the 5-year stretch of '92-'96 Utah Jazz as being the *11th-best rs offense of [nearly] all-time in terms of rORTG (*one of the teams ahead of them did NOT make the playoffs all five years, fwiw), and the **13th-best ps offense in the shotclock era (*although THREE of the teams ahead of them did not make the playoffs all five years in this sample).
And their ps offense averaged out to notably BETTER THAN their rs offense during this span.

So I'll let Elgee's work stand on it's own for those five years and only look at the OTHER five years of the decade [relative to the defenses faced].....

90
They were a +2.1 rORTG in the playoffs (108.3 ORtg vs a 106.2 [6th/27] DRtg, 5 games)
Were a +2.2 rORTG [10th/27] in rs

91
1st round (4 games): +5.9 rORTG (112.0 ORtg vs 106.1 [8th/27] DRtg)
WCSF: +5.1 rORTG (109.4 ORtg vs 104.3 [3rd/27] DRtg)
Avg: +5.46 rORTG in playoffs (vs being a +0.7 rORTG [11th/27] in rs)

'97
1st round (3 games): +14.1 rORTG (121.7 ORtg vs 107.6 [16th/29] DRtg)
WCSF (5 games): +7.3 rORTG (111.0 ORtg vs 103.7 [8th/29] DRtg)
WCF (6 games): +8.8 rORTG (112.8 ORtg vs 104.0 [10th/29] DRtg)
Finals (6 games): +1.4 rORTG (103.8 ORtg vs 102.4 [4th/29] DRtg)
Avg: +7.0 rORTG (vs being a +6.9 rORTG [2nd] in rs)

'98
1st round (5 games): -4.9 rORTG (103.7 ORtg vs 108.6 [25th/29] DRtg)
WCSF (5 games): +2.4 rORTG (101.8 ORtg vs 99.4 [2nd/29] DRtg)
WCF (4 games): +12.4 rORTG (116.1 ORtg vs 103.7 [11th/29] DRtg)
Finals (6 games): -3.7 rORTG (96.1 ORtg vs 99.8 [3rd/29] DRtg)
Avg: +0.745 rORTG (vs being a +7.7 rORTG [1st] in rs)

'99
1st round (5 games): +0.1 rORTG (103.2 ORtg vs 103.1 [18th/29] DRtg)
WCSF (6 games): +2.2 rORTG (99.9 ORtg vs 97.7 [6th/29] DRtg)
Avg: +1.245 rORTG (vs being a +3.6 rORTG [tied 3rd] in rs)


So basically they substantially out-performed expectation in '91 and [collective, I haven't looked at individual years] in '92-'96, "held steady" in '90 and '97, and underperformed in '98 and '99 (fairly markedly so in '98).
And where Stockton is concerned, it's perhaps noteworthy that the relevant drop-offs happened AFTER his injury when he became a somewhat limited-minute (<30 mpg) player.

Looking at all of this together, I would say the notion that they were playoff under-achievers in the '90s is at best a half-truth (even "half-truth" is being to generous to the narrative, imo).
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#66 » by Hal14 » Sat Nov 21, 2020 1:13 am

70sFan wrote:
Hal14 wrote:And speaking of impact, you could also make the argument that Baylor is the one who invented the euro-step:


I've seen 1950s players doing euro-steps. I definitely remember Cliff Hagan and Richie Guerin using this move at least once. I can show these examples if you wish.

1) Baylor WAS a 1950s player
2) If you have footage of someone doing the move successfully in an NBA game before Baylor, by all means...I'd love to see it.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#67 » by 70sFan » Sat Nov 21, 2020 1:36 am

Hal14 wrote:
70sFan wrote:
Hal14 wrote:And speaking of impact, you could also make the argument that Baylor is the one who invented the euro-step:


I've seen 1950s players doing euro-steps. I definitely remember Cliff Hagan and Richie Guerin using this move at least once. I can show these examples if you wish.

1) Baylor WAS a 1950s player
2) If you have footage of someone doing the move successfully in an NBA game before Baylor, by all means...I'd love to see it.

Cliff Hagan in 1957 Finals:



Richie Guerin vs Celtics 1959:

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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#68 » by penbeast0 » Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:05 am

WestGOAT wrote:... Thomas TS% is obviously lower, but that is the price of the heavy-lifting he had to do....


I've heard this before and I don't see it. His highest usage season (other than his last partial one) corresponds with his highest efficiency season. There doesn't seem to be any sort of strong correlation between either usage or points and efficiency.

Even if it was true to some degree, I find it hard to see him approaching the levels of efficiency that Nash and Stockton achieved regularly with his offensive game. He only had one season over .530ts% averaging only .516 for his career while Nash averaged .605 over his career and Stockton averaged .608. That's a huge differential.

That doesn't mean Stockton could score like Thomas if he were on the Pistons, obviously it's not his style. The argument instead is that you might expect Stockton on the Pistons to produce a more efficient offense than Isiah did both because he was a more efficient scorer, because the rest of the Pistons were roughly at Isiah's level (or better some years) in terms of efficiency, and because Stockton is a better playmaker (at least to the Stockton supporters).

Whether he could have fit with the nasty Bad Boys is hard to tell, since Stockton was a notorious choirboy and clean player in Utah. :wink:
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#69 » by Joao Saraiva » Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:15 am

I swear winning bias is a real thing. Let's excuse Isiah for his lowe ts% because he put such a burden on his back... yeah, whoever reads this feels like he's averaging 30 PPG or something. He isn't. Dude was scoring like 5 PPG more than Stockton in his prime... and assisting way less. If anyone had more of a burden to carry on offense it was Stockton. And Thomas turned the ball over more than Stockton in the playoffs...

I really can't understand why people give so much flack to Stockton. Yes he didn't win a ring. It's not like he collapsed and played poor in most playoffs and had early exits his entire career.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#70 » by Odinn21 » Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:34 am

Joao Saraiva wrote:I swear winning bias is a real thing. Let's excuse Isiah for his lowe ts% because he put such a burden on his back... yeah, whoever reads this feels like he's averaging 30 PPG or something. He isn't. Dude was scoring like 5 PPG more than Stockton in his prime... and assisting way less. If anyone had more of a burden to carry on offense it was Stockton. And Thomas turned the ball over more than Stockton in the playoffs...

I really can't understand why people give so much flack to Stockton. Yes he didn't win a ring. It's not like he collapsed and played poor in most playoffs and had early exits his entire career.

I give Stockton flack because his peak and average prime quality don't stack up against many of the top PGs ever.

Zeke was one of the best playoff performers around and Stockton was below the average range in that regard. If someone picks Zeke because he got rings, yes - it's a winning bias. If someone picks Zeke because his postseason resilience was superior enough, then I think it's preference and not winning bias.

Also, 5 ppg difference is huge... It's not something to scoff at like "big deal".
The issue with per75 numbers;
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Per75 is efficiency rate, not actual production.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#71 » by LA Bird » Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:37 am

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.

A stat not having the same meaning for different players doesn't mean that there is inflation involved. Peak Ewing scored at similar volume and efficiency as peak Shaq but the actual impact from his scoring is nowhere close. There is no need to accuse Ewing of having inflated stats because we already know that 2 points from Ewing is not the same as 2 points from Shaq. The same goes for Stockton's passing compared to Magic. Stockton can average more assists without any stat inflation and still be a less impactful playmaker than Magic.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#72 » by colts18 » Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:49 am

We have 10 years of Plus/Minus data for Stockton and Malone, from 1994-2003. The data we have shows them practically even in terms of impact. Stockton needed Malone and Malone needed Stockton.

Code: Select all

   Malone   Stockton
MP    29246   24585
+/-   +4496   +4483
On     8.2   9.7
Off   -2.1   -1.3
Net   10.3   11.0
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#73 » by colts18 » Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:56 am

Odinn21 wrote:
Joao Saraiva wrote:I swear winning bias is a real thing. Let's excuse Isiah for his lowe ts% because he put such a burden on his back... yeah, whoever reads this feels like he's averaging 30 PPG or something. He isn't. Dude was scoring like 5 PPG more than Stockton in his prime... and assisting way less. If anyone had more of a burden to carry on offense it was Stockton. And Thomas turned the ball over more than Stockton in the playoffs...

I really can't understand why people give so much flack to Stockton. Yes he didn't win a ring. It's not like he collapsed and played poor in most playoffs and had early exits his entire career.

I give Stockton flack because his peak and average prime quality don't stack up against many of the top PGs ever.

Zeke was one of the best playoff performers around and Stockton was below the average range in that regard. If someone picks Zeke because he got rings, yes - it's a winning bias. If someone picks Zeke because his postseason resilience was superior enough, then I think it's preference and not winning bias.

Also, 5 ppg difference is huge... It's not something to scoff at like "big deal".


Stoton wasn't that bad in the playoffs. He lead the playoffs in Assists per game 10 different times. His BPM is 6.01, 16th all-time (Zeke is 17th). His Playoff VORP is 10th all-time. During his prime years of 1988-1997, He averaged 16-12-4, 57.4 TS%, 2 stl, 6.6 BPM. Those are pretty good numbers.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#74 » by Hal14 » Sat Nov 21, 2020 3:00 am

colts18 wrote:We have 10 years of Plus/Minus data for Stockton and Malone, from 1994-2003. The data we have shows them practically even in terms of impact. Stockton needed Malone and Malone needed Stockton.

Code: Select all

   Malone   Stockton
MP    29246   24585
+/-   +4496   +4483
On     8.2   9.7
Off   -2.1   -1.3
Net   10.3   11.0

Not surprising. Both had amazing longevity and durability. Most have Malone ranked higher all-time, but it's hard to justify Stockton being more than a few spots lower.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#75 » by DQuinn1575 » Sat Nov 21, 2020 3:14 am

colts18 wrote:We have 10 years of Plus/Minus data for Stockton and Malone, from 1994-2003. The data we have shows them practically even in terms of impact. Stockton needed Malone and Malone needed Stockton.

Code: Select all

   Malone   Stockton

MP    29246   24585
+/-   +4496   +4483
On     8.2   9.7
Off   -2.1   -1.3
Net   10.3   11.0


Didnā€™t they play together virtually all the time, other than the period Stockton was hurt? Iā€™m guessing there are very few if any players who played more minutes together, making it very hard to separate them
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#76 » by Hal14 » Sat Nov 21, 2020 3:30 am

colts18 wrote:
Odinn21 wrote:
Joao Saraiva wrote:I swear winning bias is a real thing. Let's excuse Isiah for his lowe ts% because he put such a burden on his back... yeah, whoever reads this feels like he's averaging 30 PPG or something. He isn't. Dude was scoring like 5 PPG more than Stockton in his prime... and assisting way less. If anyone had more of a burden to carry on offense it was Stockton. And Thomas turned the ball over more than Stockton in the playoffs...

I really can't understand why people give so much flack to Stockton. Yes he didn't win a ring. It's not like he collapsed and played poor in most playoffs and had early exits his entire career.

I give Stockton flack because his peak and average prime quality don't stack up against many of the top PGs ever.

Zeke was one of the best playoff performers around and Stockton was below the average range in that regard. If someone picks Zeke because he got rings, yes - it's a winning bias. If someone picks Zeke because his postseason resilience was superior enough, then I think it's preference and not winning bias.

Also, 5 ppg difference is huge... It's not something to scoff at like "big deal".


Stoton wasn't that bad in the playoffs. He lead the playoffs in Assists per game 10 different times. His BPM is 6.01, 16th all-time (Zeke is 17th). His Playoff VORP is 10th all-time. During his prime years of 1988-1997, He averaged 16-12-4, 57.4 TS%, 2 stl, 6.6 BPM. Those are pretty good numbers.

I haven't voted for either Zeke or Stockton yet. I do have Zeke ranked slightly ahead of Stockton, though. Part of the reason was because Isiah was more of a duel thread - scoring and passing. Both players were consistently among the league leaders in assists in their prime. Sure, Stockton was usually higher in assists but a) he had Malone to pass to and b) Isiah was double digits in assists 4 times, 9+assists 6 times and 8.3+ assists 9 times. However, Stockton, never once averaged more than 17.2 PPG. Isiah averaged more than 17.2 PPG 10 times...despite the fact that he played 6 less seasons.

Stockton was great, I love Stockton with his ability to run the point, run an offense, distribute the ball, score when he was left open and defend. But he couldn't take over a game like Isiah could and he couldn't be THE guy on a team like Isiah could, let alone be THE guy on a championship team TWICE, and be THE guy on a team that beat Jordan's Bulls in the playoffs 3 times, beat Bird's Celtics in 88, came VERY close to beating Bird's Celtics in 87 who were the defending champs, he beat Magic's Lakers in 89..yeah Magic got hurt but c'mon, we all know the Pistons win that series even with a healthy Magic considering the Pistons should have won the finals in 88 if not for the phantom foul call on Laimbeer and the Pistons were better in 89 than they were in 88 but the Lakers got worse in 89 compared to 88 so obviously the Pistons still win in 89 even with a healthy Magic and should have won the finals in 88 too. You wanna say, "oh, but Isiah only won because of his supporting cast"...let's see here, Isiah had Dumars, Laimbeer and Aguirre in 89 and 90. Stockton had Karl Malone (now officially in his prime and WAY better than any of Isiah's teammates), Mark Eaton (exceptional interior defender, shot blocker, rebounder) and Thurl Bailey (not as good as Aguirre but at that point in both player's careers it was close). Sure, Detroit had more depth with guys like Salley and Vinnie Johnson, but Malone was MUCH better than Dumars. And the Pistons had MUCH more team success than the Jazz. That's why I give Isiah the slight edge over Stockton, even though Isiah obviously has the longevity edge (Stockton did get drafted 3 years later than Isiah so therefore slightly easier for Stockton to have a longer career, since Stockton played more of his career during s time with more advances in strength and conditioning, nutrition, sports science, Isiah played more of his career in a physical, rugged league with no hand checking calls, no flagrant fouls, etc.)

Magic describes why "there's no comparison" between Isiah and Stockton here:



And Magic says why Isiah was better than Stockton and Curry here:

https://lakersnation.com/magic-johnson-isiah-thomas-better-than-stephen-curry-john-stockton/2016/01/16/
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#77 » by DQuinn1575 » Sat Nov 21, 2020 3:38 am

Hal14 wrote: even though Isiah obviously has the longevity edge (Stockton did get drafted 3 years later than Isiah so therefore slightly easier for Stockton to have a longer career, since Stockton played more of his career during s time with more advances in strength and conditioning, nutrition, sports science, Isiah played more of his career in a physical, rugged league with no hand checking calls, no flagrant fouls, etc.)


You realize that Isiah is only about a year older than Stockton? Thomas left Indiana after his sophomore year, while Stockton played 4 years at Gonzaga. He doesn't really have an excuse for having a shorter career.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#78 » by Hal14 » Sat Nov 21, 2020 3:42 am

DQuinn1575 wrote:
Hal14 wrote: even though Isiah obviously has the longevity edge (Stockton did get drafted 3 years later than Isiah so therefore slightly easier for Stockton to have a longer career, since Stockton played more of his career during s time with more advances in strength and conditioning, nutrition, sports science, Isiah played more of his career in a physical, rugged league with no hand checking calls, no flagrant fouls, etc.)


You realize that Isiah is only about a year older than Stockton? Thomas left Indiana after his sophomore year, while Stockton played 4 years at Gonzaga. He doesn't really have an excuse for having a shorter career.

Yeah but Isiah's rookie year (81-82) was 3 years earlier than Stockton's (84-85). Those 3 years Isiah was playing 82 games against NBA competition compared to Stockton played 38 games a year against college players for small college Gonzaga.

Not only that, but the difference in longevity is also largely because of luck. Isiah happened to suffer a very serious wrist injury in 91 - it was the wrist on his shooting handL

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-01-25-sp-947-story.html

Isiah then had to cut his career short and retire in 94 due to his achilles injury:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1994/04/20/thomass-injury-may-end-career/b5c18ad5-05b8-430c-b43d-cad93e419ce1/

Stockton meanwhile, didn't suffer any serious injuries like those. Do you rank Stockton higher because of that luck? Maybe. But me, I look at what both players did while healthy, see that Isiah was clearly better, and then factor in the longevity difference but only factor it in a little but, so I rank Isiah ahead by a close margin.
1/11/24 The birth of a new Hal. From now on being less combative, avoiding confrontation - like Switzerland :)
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Odinn21
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#79 » by Odinn21 » Sat Nov 21, 2020 3:43 am

colts18 wrote:Stoton wasn't that bad in the playoffs. He lead the playoffs in Assists per game 10 different times. His BPM is 6.01, 16th all-time (Zeke is 17th). His Playoff VORP is 10th all-time. During his prime years of 1988-1997, He averaged 16-12-4, 57.4 TS%, 2 stl, 6.6 BPM. Those are pretty good numbers.

Stockton's obpm change from regular season to playoffs was below the average range as I said.
His performances against good or better than good defenses were not good.

The Jazz did not face a -2.0 or better defense in the playoffs until 1990, so I'll start from there. From 1990 to 1997, Stockton against -2.0 or better defenses in the playoffs;
14.5/3.4/11.2/1.7 and 3.0 tpg on .559 ts (73 games)

Considering he was 15.5/2.9/12.6/2.4 and 3.3 tpg on .616 ts in regular seasons in that time frame, and 14.7/3.4/11.3/1.8 and 3.1 tpg on .566 ts in playoffs on overall; yeah, Stockton's postseason resilience was not good.

In the series Stockton faced proper positional competition directly, such as 1993/1996 Sonics series or 1991/1992 Blazers series, he was 13.5/3.3/11.7/1.8 and 3.1 tpg on .545 ts (44 games).

Surely Stockton was still a good player to have. Doesn't mean he was a good playoff performer. He struggled to keep his scoring and efficiency on that volume. Come on...
The issue with per75 numbers;
36pts on 27 fga/9 fta in 36 mins, does this mean he'd keep up the efficiency to get 48pts on 36fga/12fta in 48 mins?
The answer; NO. He's human, not a linearly working machine.
Per75 is efficiency rate, not actual production.
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Re: RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #19 

Post#80 » by Jordan Syndrome » Sat Nov 21, 2020 4:10 am

I have Reggie Miller ahead of Stockton.

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