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

[Doctor MJ]

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.

Cool, would you might linking/directing? This is something I should learn how to do.

[Jordan Syndrome]

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.

Cool, would you might linking/directing? This is something I should learn how to do.

You definitely should.

[url]
https://realpython.com/beautiful-soup-web-scraper-python/
[/url]

[Doctor MJ]

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

colts I remember you and I have talked about this before, though I don't remember the details of what was said. Feel free to chime in, and apologies if I'm a broken record for you, but in the context of this project I think this calls for us checking on details.

So, some things:

1. The fact their raw +/- is about the same doesn't say they had the same impact, and I'm not quibbling about noise which is of course a whole nother issues. I mean that when one guy plays a lot more than the other, leading that team to .500 ball can actually be a pretty significantly positive indication of impact. Or not. Really depends, but what's definitely the case is that a +/- of zero doesn't mean zero impact, because zero +/- isn't replacement level.

I realize that we have APM-style stats that may give Stockton the edge based on this, but pretty sure that if Malone rides the pine as much as Stockton, the Jazz don't get that far.

2. It's important to split the numbers up by years I think because Malone's impact seems to fall off dramatically at a certain point.

From '96-97 to '98-99 (3 years, just so we're clear), all-season numbers, the Jazz leaderboard looks like this:

1. Malone 1891
2. Hornacek 1724
3. Stockton 1573

From '99-00 to '02-03 (4 years, so a year longer)

1. Stockton 1473
2. Malone 1013
3. Russell 925

Basically, Stockton and his more careful, efficient game aged more gracefully than Malone's alpha game did, which I don't think is really a big surprise. But of course, it means that Stockton specifically has the clear edge after the Jazz ceased to be contenders.

Malone would seem to have the edge in the 3 contending years, and he has a similar type of edge if you take the previous 3 years ('93-94 to '95-96) which isn't on bkref. It's entirely possible that Malone has the same type of advantage continuing all the way back to the time Stockton became a starter for all I know.

Not looking to bash Stockton here, but my general feeling from the +/- data I've seen thus far is that the gap between them isn't huge, but I do think Malone was the right MVP candidate ahead of Stockton.

[Doctor MJ]

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.)

It has to be pointed out that the Pistons won with defense which was arguably the strong sustained-over-years playoff defense since Russell's Celtics, and guys like Laimbeer, Rodman, Dumars, and Salley were the guys who made the Bad Boy defense something brutal the rest of the league feared. The specific allegation for Isiah skeptics is that Isiah gets too much praise for the championships because he was the established offensive star when that wasn't the team's competitive advantage.

Not saying you can't disagree with the assessment, but it's problematic to try to simplify championship teams down to their lead playmaker always, and particularly so when playmaking isn't what got them the championship.

[Doctor MJ]

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.

I'm curious what you see the term "inflation" defined as in this context.

[eminence]

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

colts I remember you and I have talked about this before, though I don't remember the details of what was said. Feel free to chime in, and apologies if I'm a broken record for you, but in the context of this project I think this calls for us checking on details.

So, some things:

1. The fact their raw +/- is about the same doesn't say they had the same impact, and I'm not quibbling about noise which is of course a whole nother issues. I mean that when one guy plays a lot more than the other, leading that team to .500 ball can actually be a pretty significantly positive indication of impact. Or not. Really depends, but what's definitely the case is that a +/- of zero doesn't mean zero impact, because zero +/- isn't replacement level.

I realize that we have APM-style stats that may give Stockton the edge based on this, but pretty sure that if Malone rides the pine as much as Stockton, the Jazz don't get that far.

2. It's important to split the numbers up by years I think because Malone's impact seems to fall off dramatically at a certain point.

From '96-97 to '98-99 (3 years, just so we're clear), all-season numbers, the Jazz leaderboard looks like this:

1. Malone 1891
2. Hornacek 1724
3. Stockton 1573

From '99-00 to '02-03 (4 years, so a year longer)

1. Stockton 1473
2. Malone 1013
3. Russell 925

Basically, Stockton and his more careful, efficient game aged more gracefully than Malone's alpha game did, which I don't think is really a big surprise. But of course, it means that Stockton specifically has the clear edge after the Jazz ceased to be contenders.

Malone would seem to have the edge in the 3 contending years, and he has a similar type of edge if you take the previous 3 years ('93-94 to '95-96) which isn't on bkref. It's entirely possible that Malone has the same type of advantage continuing all the way back to the time Stockton became a starter for all I know.

Not looking to bash Stockton here, but my general feeling from the +/- data I've seen thus far is that the gap between them isn't huge, but I do think Malone was the right MVP candidate ahead of Stockton.

'94-'96 looks notably closer to me than '97-'99

Malone (9568 minutes):
4496
-1891
-1013
=1592

Stockton (8751 minutes):
4483
-1573
-1473
=1473

[WestGOAT]

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.

Cool, would you might linking/directing? This is something I should learn how to do.

https://jaebradley.github.io/basketball_reference_web_scraper/
To collect player regular season and playoff box scores by season.

https://github.com/vishaalagartha/basketball_reference_scraper
used to collect regular season team "Miscellaneous Stats", includes stuff like Age W L PW PL MOV SOS SRS ORtg DRtg NRtg Pace FTr 3PAr TS% eFG% TOV% ORB% FT/FGA eFG% TOV% DRB% FT/FGA by season.

[LA Bird]

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.

I'm curious what you see the term "inflation" defined as in this context.

Here, inflation is when a player is credited with more stats than they actually deserve. If one assumes stats hold equal meaning across players and that they are an accurate measure of the players' value, the necessary conclusion when a weaker player has higher stats is that their stats must be inflated. 'If X > Y as playmaker but X < Y in assists, Y must have been benefiting from inflation' is essentially the logic the Magic fans penbeast referenced are following. I am arguing that you don't need to tear down Stockton's stats by claiming they are "inflated" because having higher assist numbers does not make him a better playmaker than Magic in the first place.

[Odinn21]

Mistake.

[LA Bird]

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

Spoiler:

colts I remember you and I have talked about this before, though I don't remember the details of what was said. Feel free to chime in, and apologies if I'm a broken record for you, but in the context of this project I think this calls for us checking on details.

So, some things:

1. The fact their raw +/- is about the same doesn't say they had the same impact, and I'm not quibbling about noise which is of course a whole nother issues. I mean that when one guy plays a lot more than the other, leading that team to .500 ball can actually be a pretty significantly positive indication of impact. Or not. Really depends, but what's definitely the case is that a +/- of zero doesn't mean zero impact, because zero +/- isn't replacement level.

I realize that we have APM-style stats that may give Stockton the edge based on this, but pretty sure that if Malone rides the pine as much as Stockton, the Jazz don't get that far.

2. It's important to split the numbers up by years I think because Malone's impact seems to fall off dramatically at a certain point.

From '96-97 to '98-99 (3 years, just so we're clear), all-season numbers, the Jazz leaderboard looks like this:

1. Malone 1891
2. Hornacek 1724
3. Stockton 1573

From '99-00 to '02-03 (4 years, so a year longer)

1. Stockton 1473
2. Malone 1013
3. Russell 925

Basically, Stockton and his more careful, efficient game aged more gracefully than Malone's alpha game did, which I don't think is really a big surprise. But of course, it means that Stockton specifically has the clear edge after the Jazz ceased to be contenders.

Malone would seem to have the edge in the 3 contending years, and he has a similar type of edge if you take the previous 3 years ('93-94 to '95-96) which isn't on bkref. It's entirely possible that Malone has the same type of advantage continuing all the way back to the time Stockton became a starter for all I know.

Not looking to bash Stockton here, but my general feeling from the +/- data I've seen thus far is that the gap between them isn't huge, but I do think Malone was the right MVP candidate ahead of Stockton.

Spoiler:

'94-'96 looks notably closer to me than '97-'99

Malone (9568 minutes):
4496
-1891
-1013
=1592

Stockton (8751 minutes):
4483
-1573
-1473
=1473

Here are the same numbers in year by year on/offs:

Malone vs Stockton (Regular season)
1994: +17.4 vs +7.3
1995: +9.6 vs +6.4
1996: +13.5 vs +14.5
1997: +21.9 vs +7.6
1998: +17.4 vs +12.4
1999: +13.0 vs +10.5
2000: +14.4 vs +14.6
2001: +6.2 vs +18.5
2002: -0.6 vs + 6.9
2003: +2.5 vs +6.2

Malone vs Stockton (Playoffs)
1997-99: +19.0 vs +3.1
2000-03: +12.3 vs +17.7

Malone had the better numbers when both were in their primes and the Jazz were at their best.

[Doctor MJ]

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.

I'm curious what you see the term "inflation" defined as in this context.

Here, inflation is when a player is credited with more stats than they actually deserve. If one assumes stats hold equal meaning across players and that they are an accurate measure of the players' value, the necessary conclusion when a weaker player has higher stats is that their stats must be inflated. 'If X > Y as playmaker but X < Y in assists, Y must have been benefiting from inflation' is essentially the logic the Magic fans penbeast referenced are following. I am arguing that you don't need to tear down Stockton's stats by claiming they are "inflated" because having higher assist numbers does not make him a better playmaker than Magic in the first place.

I do understand your objection to the connotation of the term, but I think the term is pretty much established. You can choose not to use it of course, but in all honesty I'm not sure what other succinct term would suffice to communicate the phenomenon.

[freethedevil]

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

Draymond = Curry confirmed.

Why do people keep using raw on/off?

[eminence]

1. George Mikan
2. Steve Nash
3. Charles Barkley

Mikan - I've said a lot on him in the past few threads. Dominance is the word that does it here for me, his is far beyond anyone else available. Longevity not that bad, with 8 largely healthy seasons.

Nash - Solid longevity ('01-'12 for me), top tier offensive force, just a really fun player.

Barkley - Bit up and down, squeaks in to the spot for now, very strong offensive big, decent longevity, better durability than some competition. Several of the modern guys seem likely to pass him soon.

[Jordan Syndrome]

1. Steve Nash
2. Charles Barkley
3. Bob Pettit

I'm comfortable with championing Steve Nash as a top 20 Player of all-time. He is the best offensive player left and his offensive CORP is the highest left (Again, Reggie may beat him here). Nash revolutionized the game as a player and his chaotic nature led to shattering the ceilings of what great offenses can achieve. He empowered limited offensive players by taking on a massive playmaking burden but unlike someone like Kidd Nash was an all-time great shooter, arguably the best ever until Curry came.

Charles Barkley is a player I loved growing up and, while advanced stats love him I always questioned certain aspects about him as I grew older. I'm actually impressed once again by his consistency, extended Peak length and relative portability.

Bob Pettit is someone who is in this next tier and I can't decide between him, Paul and a handful of others. I'm going Pettit here on the basis of a "healthier" prime while being at a similar level as Paul.

[trex_8063]

So i’m curious to how much Chris Paul’s habitual playoff injuries play a role in his ranking to you.

Are you really? Because....

This crap has gotten so ridiculous when it comes to him.

Seems like you're already quite entrenched in this viewpoint and have no intention at all to entertain another.

As to how it plays into my ranking, I'll reveal that I have several gauging or ball-parking formulas and tools I've created to, well.....ball-park players [not that it's exactly how I order/rank them]. They each valuate things slightly different, but they all take into account accumulated production and efficiency above replacement level [and some even place a numeric value on finals appearances, titles, etc]. So regular season time AND playoff time missed (either games directly missed due to injury, or theoretical playoff games that never occurred [due to injury preventing advancement]) is sort of baked right into the pie.

Yet every ball-parking formula I've made places Paul comfortably inside the top 25 (if not on the fringes of the top 20). And considering his impact profile is also superb, it does seem empirically like we're near the place where he should be getting serious consideration.


That said, you're right, he has missed some games at key points (2018 is the most notable, imo). otoh, you lambaste him for playing somewhat below his usual standard because he was playing while hampered by injury. But isn't Chris Paul playing at 80% better than Chris Paul not playing at all?

I note that he's missed a grand total of 6 playoff games in 15 seasons; he played in 109/115 (94.8% of all his team's ps games).

As an example, Steph Curry has missed 12 playoff games in 11 seasons; he played in 112/124 (90.3% of all his team's ps games). Sure is fortunate they occurred on a team that was able to continue winning and advance even without him in most instances. If someone wanted to scrutinize his durability with the same harsh(ish) angle you've outlined Paul's, it might look like this:

'12: missed most of year to injury, no playoffs for him (they were 13-13 when he played even limited minutes, 10-30 without him).
'16: missed 6 playoff games, though all in early rounds (luckily team able to advance without him). Lost in finals, Curry having a garbage series (many speculating it was injury-related).
'18: missed 6 playoff games, though all in early rounds; luckily team strong enough to win first round 4-1 without him AND take game 1 of the WCSF without him.
'20: injured, missing entire year; no playoffs for him.

That's the relevant injury time he's accumulated so far, in a career that spans four fewer seasons than Paul.
In terms of the regular season, Curry has missed 187 rs games in 11 years. Paul has missed 184 rs games in 15 years.


We could also talk about Kawhi Leonard, who has missed a lot of relevant time already: he's missed 188 rs games in 9 years. He's also missed 11 playoff games so far.
I speculate on potential missed time [and/or playing at <100%] in the playoffs in '19, if he'd not had the luxury to take 22 games off [and coast] during the rs because his team was capable of nabbing the #2 seed with or without him.


Or perhaps Durant, too???...

'15: Misses most of year to injury, so no playoffs for Thunder.
'17: Misses 20 games in rs, but his team nabs the #1 seed rather easily all the same. Misses 2 playoff games in 1st round [which his team wins anyway].
'19: Misses 10 playoff games at the worst possible time (LATE series's); really, he missed ALL of their last 11 playoff games [playing just 12 minutes in one of them]. His team is able to close out the WCSF in game 6 without him, SWEEP the WCF without him, and then lose the finals 2-4 playing [almost entirely] without him.
'20: Misses ENTIRE season to injury; no playoffs for him.

So in a 13-year career, he's already missed more playoff games than Chris Paul, and the majority of them late playoffs; also missed the playoffs ENTIRELY [likely due to his absence in the rs] twice.
Counting '20, Durant has now missed ~191 rs games [estimating 72 games in Covid-shortened '20] in 13 years.


This is not to say that you don't have a solid point regarding Chris Paul, btw. I merely suggest that you apply this criticism equitably to the other players who deserve it. It's not really a distinguishing feature, even among other players receiving traction at this stage......those candidates merely got a little further even without their presence.


I mean, among these four players, Chris Paul has actually missed the FEWEST rs games, and the FEWEST playoff games, despite having played the MOST seasons among them. ALL three of the others have missed time and/or played at <100% during LATE playoff series's, too.

So presumably if Paul's team were able to advance without him and or get high playoff seeding without him, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.....which makes it feel somewhat like Paul [or Curry, or Durant/Kawhi, or all of them] is [are] being graded based on the quality of his supporting cast(s).


Anyway---not so much due to you question as to some other things I've been mulling over---I have reconsidered on the order of my three [who were sort of in a floating order for me anyway]......and I'm going to go Barkley > Stockton > Paul for my three votes.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #95:

George Mikan - 4 (DQuinn1575, eminence, penbeast0, sansterre)
Moses Malone - 3 (Hal14, Joao Saraiva, Odinn21)
Kevin Durant - 2 (Joey Wheeler, Magic Is Magic)
Charles Barkley - 2 (Cavsfansince84, trex_8063)
Chris Paul - 1 (Whopper_Sr)
Stephen Curry - 1 (freethedevil)
Steve Nash - 1 (Jordan Syndrome)


About 6(ish) hours left for this thread. If your handle isn't shown above, you HAVE NOT VOTED in this thread.

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[Dr Positivity]

1. Bob Pettit
2. Moses Malone
3. Kevin Durant

Voted for Pettit in previous threads, I think he has best mix of peak play in his time, accolades and solid longevity

I have gone back and forth on Moses in the past, but I respect the 3x MVP, the passion he played with, and he dominated some centers one on one in his time. Solid longevity as he continued to play well after 83 for the rest of the decade.

Durant I don't have as a top 20 regular season player, and I don't love his personality (narcissistic) but he makes up for a lot by stellar finals performances. His scoring game translates really well to that environment as he is hard to stop by any defense.

[Cavsfansince84]

1. Bob Pettit
2. Moses Malone
3. Kevin Durant

Voted for Pettit in previous threads, I think he has best mix of peak play in his time, accolades and solid longevity

I have gone back and forth on Moses in the past, but I respect the 3x MVP, the passion he played with, and he dominated some centers one on one in his time. Solid longevity as he continued to play well after 83 for the rest of the decade.

Durant I don't have as a top 20 regular season player, and I don't love his personality (narcissistic) but he makes up for a lot by stellar finals performances. His scoring game translates really well to that environment as he is hard to stop by any defense.

My semi issue with Moses is that he was only 28 in 83. Yet he started declining from there and most all of the advanced metrics we have don't see him as being an elite player after that. Good to very good but not really great. So I'm just not that high on his prime in terms of overall value despite it being fairly long. Also don't like his lack of passing ability and defense for a big man compared to most of his contemporaries.

[Dr Positivity]

1. Bob Pettit
2. Moses Malone
3. Kevin Durant

Voted for Pettit in previous threads, I think he has best mix of peak play in his time, accolades and solid longevity

I have gone back and forth on Moses in the past, but I respect the 3x MVP, the passion he played with, and he dominated some centers one on one in his time. Solid longevity as he continued to play well after 83 for the rest of the decade.

Durant I don't have as a top 20 regular season player, and I don't love his personality (narcissistic) but he makes up for a lot by stellar finals performances. His scoring game translates really well to that environment as he is hard to stop by any defense.

My semi issue with Moses is that he was only 28 in 83. Yet he started declining from there and most all of the advanced metrics we have don't see him as being an elite player after that. Good to very good but not really great. So I'm just not that high on his prime in terms of overall value despite it being fairly long. Also don't like his lack of passing ability and defense for a big man compared to most of his contemporaries.

I agree but he's still a perennial all-star from 84-90, 85 is a pretty strong season (1st team All NBA, top 5 in WS). I think there is value in that in addition to the 5 superstar seasons, and he was a solid player his first four years. I suppose his longevity should be looked at a bit like Nash (post title Moses vs Mavs Nash being not as strong) but I value peak Moses more than Nash. Or to make another comp if you take away Barkley's 5 best years (88-91, 93), he drops off as well, I'm not any bigger fan of 94-96 Barkley than I am 84-86 Moses.

[colts18]

Here are the same numbers in year by year on/offs:

Malone vs Stockton (Regular season)
1994: +17.4 vs +7.3
1995: +9.6 vs +6.4
1996: +13.5 vs +14.5
1997: +21.9 vs +7.6
1998: +17.4 vs +12.4
1999: +13.0 vs +10.5
2000: +14.4 vs +14.6
2001: +6.2 vs +18.5
2002: -0.6 vs + 6.9
2003: +2.5 vs +6.2

Malone vs Stockton (Playoffs)
1997-99: +19.0 vs +3.1
2000-03: +12.3 vs +17.7

Malone had the better numbers when both were in their primes and the Jazz were at their best.

First off, both of them weren't in their prime at that time. Stockton's prime was 88-92 when we don't have data. However, those years were Malone's prime. It's no shame for Stockton to be behind Malone during that timeframe. Those were Malone's best years. He won 2 MVP's during that span. He won an MVP over frickin Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan. So having impact stats 95% of the guy who finished ahead of MJ is not a bad thing. That shows just how good Stockton was.