RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #23 (Chris Paul)

[Jordan Syndrome]

1. Steve Nash
2. Steph Curry
3. Bob Pettit

Quite clearly the two best offensive players in terms of peak left for me--the differences in their prime isn't as long as I originally thought but Nash has a clear lead in CORP. The different styles of Nash and Curry is an interesting clash yet both maximized offenses to a degree no other player in NBA History did while in those roles.

I keep going back between Pettit and Paul. I have Pettit's prime a smidge ahead of Paul here, the peaks roughly equal and Paul's longevity beginning to make the difference in the comparison. I have Stockton, Thomas and Frazier a tier down from these other Point Guards for now.

[Doctor MJ]

I kind of see the title of best player has vacant between Mikan and Russell - Neil Johnston might also have a claim with Arizin,Pettit Schayes, I have Pettit highest, but not sure if he was best long enough for me to give him the title.

I think you really need to look closely at the '55-56 season and not in particular that it was Arizin that carried the Warriors to the title, not Johnston. When you add in that Johnston had remarkably little correlation between his stats and team record, to me that goes further. It's very hard for me to see an argument between the two teammates there.

And when when you're looking at those '55-56 playoff numbers, compare them to the best of what Pettit & Schayes had to offer. Certainly neither Pettit nor Schayes was as dominantly "the man" as Arizin was in those playoffs. That club really seems to have been the peak of basketball offense in history to that point, and Arizin was the driving force of it.

Now as mentioned, because of longevity issues I've always had Pettit over Arizin and I can see the case for Schayes over Arizin too. Additionally, you can certainly argue that what Pettit & Schayes displayed in the '60s makes them more impressive overall than Arizin.

But in terms of having a moment where you resoundingly knock the rest of the world on its back, to me Arizin is the only one of that group to have it.

Neil Johnston- I can't remember if it was Wilt or Connie Hawkins (or both) who slammed Johnston as a coach. But what an odd career - 3rd in scoring, 1st in fg% at age 27, all-star next year. a sub next year and out of the league the next. Four times first team all-nba, and no consideration at all for Top 100.

And look at '52-53. That's his break out year, and the Warriors completely fell apart. I find it awfully hard to look at the arc of those Warriors and not conclude that Arizin's impact was drastically larger than Johnston's. But in terms of why Johnston's play didn't seem to cause much impact, I'm not confident enough to pontificate.

[Doctor MJ]

1

Recap:
-The Jazz lost to 10 opponents who averaged 59 wins and a 6.66 SRS (better than the 2020 Lakers).
-If the Jazz beat their opponent during the 8 years they lost before the finals, they would have face an average 2 more teams each year with an average record of 60-22, 6.43 SRS (same SRS as the 2019 Warriors).

How do you expect them to beat teams as good as the championship LeBron Lakers, then beat a team as good as the 2019 Warriors in the WCF, then beat another team as good as the KD/Curry Warriors in the finals? That's a near impossible task.

They never beat the best or second best team in the league. Really hard to win the title if you don't beat on of the top two teams in the league.

Yeah, I really think it needs to be emphasized that there are times when the SRS deviation tends to get more extreme than others and I'm uncomfortable with the notion that competition was simply tougher in that time span. We know that inflation was a thing in the '90s, we also know that the mid-90s was dominated by old guys in part because there were a ton of disappointing drafts.

I don't know how much younger folks think about this, but Larry Johnson had a major advertising campaign for a reason. He was supposed to be a superstar talent who would have been in his prime around the time Chicago & Utah were playing in the finals, and instead he just wasn't.

I'm not trying to say "So the Jazz weren't really very good" because I think they were excellent, but I'm uncomfortable with notions trying to build them up too much. Yes, the Bulls were tough, but if their 2nd best offensive player was comparable to a guy like Nash, isn't it strange that the Bulls could basically put the clamps on them in a way they couldn't do with other teams with lesser RS ORtgs?

[Doctor MJ]

So the questions that occur to me are

How valuable is variance in scoring in a point guard?
How valuable is variance in scoring in a point guard given a known average performance (given known average in box scoring, overall box, impact)?
Is it intrinsically valuable (Abdul-Rauf)? Or requiring other factors/contexts?
Is it different to supporting high scoring games in teammates?
How valuable is, twice/thrice in a lifetime 40 point games to a career evaluation? Can be adjusted to point per 75, or where the target threshold for the top half a percent or quarter of a percent of scoring games should be?
Does whether your team wins those big point games matter to your evaluation?

It's not so much that variance is valuable so much as that a certain amount of variance is normal, and Stockton stands out as the exception. From there, you have to ask yourself, why the difference?

Here's something that I see in general: If a guy shoots more than normal, he was probably seeing opportunities he was confident to exploit.

The classic game for Steve Nash on this regard came in the '04-05 series when Dallas decided in general, and in particular in Game 4, that the Mavs defense would just concentrate on eliminating Nash's passing by staying hard on their defensive assignments, which meant Nash was free to work one on one.

The result? Nash went 20 for 28. He scored 48 points with a TS% of 80.6. And in the end, despite the fact that Dallas won the game with their offense, the defensive strategy was a clear failure and they and everyone else backed off.

Stockton by contrast played his entire career with teams more concerned with Malone than Stockton, and yet this literally never happened with him. If I do a query asking for the Top 100 scoring games from a guard for the Utah Jazz, Stockton's name doesn't even come up.

As I've said, the fact that Stockton didn't do this isn't prove he couldn't do it, but it is quite the assumption to just project Stockton toward accomplishments like this.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #64:

Stephen Curry - 6 (Clyde Frazier, Doctor MJ, Dutchball97, Joao Saraiva, Magic Is Magic, penbeast0)
Chris Paul - 4 (DQuinn1575, LA Bird, sansterre, trex_8063)
Bob Pettit - 3 (Cavsfansince84, Dr Positivity, Odinn21)
Dwyane Wade - 2 (ccameron, Joey Wheeler)
Steve Nash - 2 (eminence, Jordan Syndrome)


About 4 hours left for this thread.
NOTE: a single line of vague(ish) conjecture regarding a candidate does not constitute an adequate argument for a counted vote guys (this is stated in project main thread). In any close vote, it's not fair to the other participants who took the time to articulate their thinking more extensively.

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[trex_8063]

Not sure if it's appropriate for me to vote because, full disclosure, I'm kind of jumping in because I think Wade should be getting more traction and want to open that discussion, but here is what I would vote, count it or don't count it:

Tenured posters in good standing are welcome to join at any point in the project. I'll add you to the voter panel.

[eminence]

About 4 hours left for this thread.
NOTE: a single line of vague(ish) conjecture regarding a candidate does not constitute an adequate argument for a counted vote guys (this is stated in project main thread). In any close vote, it's not fair to the other participants who took the time to articulate their thinking more extensively.

Just checking to see if I've been doing alright on this front, my voting posts often aren't overly detailed, but I'm trying to get good participation in throughout the thread. Just let me know if you're looking for a bit more!

[Owly]

I think you really need to look closely at the '55-56 season and not in particular that it was Arizin that carried the Warriors to the title, not Johnston. When you add in that Johnston had remarkably little correlation between his stats and team record, to me that goes further. It's very hard for me to see an argument between the two teammates there.

And when when you're looking at those '55-56 playoff numbers, compare them to the best of what Pettit & Schayes had to offer. Certainly neither Pettit nor Schayes was as dominantly "the man" as Arizin was in those playoffs. That club really seems to have been the peak of basketball offense in history to that point, and Arizin was the driving force of it.

Now as mentioned, because of longevity issues I've always had Pettit over Arizin and I can see the case for Schayes over Arizin too. Additionally, you can certainly argue that what Pettit & Schayes displayed in the '60s makes them more impressive overall than Arizin.

But in terms of having a moment where you resoundingly knock the rest of the world on its back, to me Arizin is the only one of that group to have it.

Neil Johnston- I can't remember if it was Wilt or Connie Hawkins (or both) who slammed Johnston as a coach. But what an odd career - 3rd in scoring, 1st in fg% at age 27, all-star next year. a sub next year and out of the league the next. Four times first team all-nba, and no consideration at all for Top 100.

And look at '52-53. That's his break out year, and the Warriors completely fell apart. I find it awfully hard to look at the arc of those Warriors and not conclude that Arizin's impact was drastically larger than Johnston's. But in terms of why Johnston's play didn't seem to cause much impact, I'm not confident enough to pontificate.

In mitigation

Not only has Arizin (25.5 PER, .261 WS/48) gone ...
Philip goes, heck Budko (the other guy in the top four TS% guys) goes.

'53 Philly have 8 rookies on their roster (including "Trader" Jack McCloskey) and go through 17 players.

Of their top 12 players in minutes and FTA, one is Johnston, three others (including 12 games of Philip) have a FT% north of 70% - only Philip north of 73%). Two more are north of 65%. That's six south of 65%. It doesn't look like a non-functioning offense so much as a bunch of guys that can't shoot straight.

They seem to compound their misfortunes (and negative points dif) by playing at a near '91 Westhead Nuggets relative pace.

But when Arizin returns (not at his best, admittedly) the comparison to '54 Warriors with more stability and fewer sub-replacement level players is less complementary to him.

It's not a good look for Johnston, but I do think there's a lot of noise there and that with the league still relatively new (and recently off massive contraction) it's possible not all teams necessarily found, knew and were able to acquire, the best players.

[Doctor MJ]

Neil Johnston- I can't remember if it was Wilt or Connie Hawkins (or both) who slammed Johnston as a coach. But what an odd career - 3rd in scoring, 1st in fg% at age 27, all-star next year. a sub next year and out of the league the next. Four times first team all-nba, and no consideration at all for Top 100.

And look at '52-53. That's his break out year, and the Warriors completely fell apart. I find it awfully hard to look at the arc of those Warriors and not conclude that Arizin's impact was drastically larger than Johnston's. But in terms of why Johnston's play didn't seem to cause much impact, I'm not confident enough to pontificate.

In mitigation

Not only has Arizin (25.5 PER, .261 WS/48) gone ...
Philip goes, heck Budko (the other guy in the top four TS% guys) goes.

'53 Philly have 8 rookies on their roster (including "Trader" Jack McCloskey) and go through 17 players.

Of their top 12 players in minutes and FTA, one is Johnston, three others (including 12 games of Philip) have a FT% north of 70% - only Philip north of 73%). Two more are north of 65%. That's six south of 65%. It doesn't look like a non-functioning offense so much as a bunch of guys that can't shoot straight.

They seem to compound their misfortunes (and negative points dif) by playing at a near '91 Westhead Nuggets relative pace.

But when Arizin returns (not at his best, admittedly) the comparison to '54 Warriors with more stability and fewer sub-replacement level players is less complementary to him.

It's not a good look for Johnston, but I do think there's a lot of noise there and that with the league still relatively new (and recently off massive contraction) it's possible not all teams necessarily found, knew and were able to acquire, the best players.

All good things to point out, but I think it's also a thing where we realize that not everyone who puts up big efficiency scoring numbers is helping his team's offense that much. I see enough issues with Johnston that I'm just frankly not comfortable talking about him as a top tier impactor.

[Magic Is Magic]

Harden also has better playoff per-game stats at the moment and isn't far behind in total stats in the playoffs

I think this analysis doesn't hold up at all. If you are talking about playoffs and beginning to think Harden is a better playoff performer than Wade, something is off and needs to be reassessed. I know I'm just quoting one line out of your response but when you take something like career playoff stats as a point of comparison you need to take this into more context. As No-more-rings pointed out, Wade was in the playoffs well past his prime/injured (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018), so Harden doesn't have that yet.

Wade is very clearly a better playoff performer, and comparing points per game and TS across eras, as you know, does not tell the whole story.I don't agree with all of Ben Taylor's analysis but I would recommend this podcast comparing Harden, Kobe, and Wade:

https://www.stitcher.com/show/thinking-basketball-podcast/episode/34-harden-vs-kobe-vs-wade-great-debates-65452113

I guess I can dig a little deeper if we are doing Harden vs Wade here. Wade's only major edge is his excellent defensive abilities. Aside from that he has no argument over Harden and I'll explain in detail below.

In the RS Harden has now averaged 30 ppg or more for 3 straight seasons (2018, 2019, 2020). Wade has only ever done this once in his career. Harden also came off the bench when he was playing with OKC and will still end up passing Wade in total points scored in the RS. Harden also has 8x consecutive 25 ppg seasons, which is good for 5th all time? So he has consistency and is already among those with great longevity.

Most consecutive 25 ppg years in the RS:

1. 16x LBJ
2. 11x KD, Malone, MJ, West
3. 10x Shaq, AI
4. 9x Kobe, Wilt, Kareem
5. 8x Harden

Wade has also averaged 7 or more apg 2x in the RS. Harden has done this 6x in a row including leading the entire league one year. As we can easily see, Harden > Wade in the RS in both scoring, passing, and consistency. (Also 3x Scoring title, MVP and Assist title for Harden vs. 1 Scoring Title for Wade). Not really close...

Playoffs

Harden has averaged 25 ppg in the PO for 8x consecutive years now! The most Wade ever did is 2x consecutively and 4x overall. Wade has never averaged 7 apg in any playoff run, Harden has done this 4x. I like Wade, especially for his defensive prowess, but he really pales in comparison and is living very high off of his 2006 playoff run (which was really good, no doubt) but he isn't there when you really peel back the numbers. Harden beats him up and down in RS and PO. Harden also has a better OBPM and DBPM than Wade in the PO and RS--AND--Harden didn't get to play with Prime LeBron for 4 straight years.

By the way: I'd rather have Wade over Harden all things considered, I like him more as a player, but I can't be biased and ignore Harden's accomplishments because he takes tons of step-back 3s. He has earned this spot. 5th all time in most consecutive 25 ppg seasons, 6x All-NBA 1st team, an Assist and Scoring title, etc. These are big time accomplishments and Wade is not close to either.

[trex_8063]

About 4 hours left for this thread.
NOTE: a single line of vague(ish) conjecture regarding a candidate does not constitute an adequate argument for a counted vote guys (this is stated in project main thread). In any close vote, it's not fair to the other participants who took the time to articulate their thinking more extensively.

Just checking to see if I've been doing alright on this front, my voting posts often aren't overly detailed, but I'm trying to get good participation in throughout the thread. Just let me know if you're looking for a bit more!

No worries, you're passing the minimum bar for content (and particularly given you're also fairly consistently contributing to the discussion outside of your vote-post).

[ccameron]

Harden also has better playoff per-game stats at the moment and isn't far behind in total stats in the playoffs

I think this analysis doesn't hold up at all. If you are talking about playoffs and beginning to think Harden is a better playoff performer than Wade, something is off and needs to be reassessed. I know I'm just quoting one line out of your response but when you take something like career playoff stats as a point of comparison you need to take this into more context. As No-more-rings pointed out, Wade was in the playoffs well past his prime/injured (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018), so Harden doesn't have that yet.

Wade is very clearly a better playoff performer, and comparing points per game and TS across eras, as you know, does not tell the whole story.I don't agree with all of Ben Taylor's analysis but I would recommend this podcast comparing Harden, Kobe, and Wade:

https://www.stitcher.com/show/thinking-basketball-podcast/episode/34-harden-vs-kobe-vs-wade-great-debates-65452113

I guess I can dig a little deeper if we are doing Harden vs Wade here. Wade's only major edge is his excellent defensive abilities. Aside from that he has no argument over Harden and I'll explain in detail below.

In the RS Harden has now averaged 30 ppg or more for 3 straight seasons (2018, 2019, 2020). Wade has only ever done this once in his career. Harden also came off the bench when he was playing with OKC and will still end up passing Wade in total points scored in the RS. Harden also has 8x consecutive 25 ppg seasons, which is good for 5th all time? So he has consistency and is already among those with great longevity.

Most consecutive 25 ppg years in the RS:

1. 16x LBJ
2. 11x KD, Malone, MJ, West
3. 10x Shaq, AI
4. 9x Kobe, Wilt, Kareem
5. 8x Harden

Wade has also averaged 7 or more apg 2x in the RS. Harden has done this 6x in a row including leading the entire league one year. As we can easily see, Harden > Wade in the RS in both scoring, passing, and consistency. (Also 3x Scoring title, MVP and Assist title for Harden vs. 1 Scoring Title for Wade). Not really close...

Playoffs

Harden has averaged 25 ppg in the PO for 8x consecutive years now! The most Wade ever did is 2x consecutively and 4x overall. Wade has never averaged 7 apg in any playoff run, Harden has done this 4x. I like Wade, especially for his defensive prowess, but he really pales in comparison and is living very high off of his 2006 playoff run (which was really good, no doubt) but he isn't there when you really peel back the numbers. Harden beats him up and down in RS and PO. Harden also has a better OBPM and DBPM than Wade in the PO and RS--AND--Harden didn't get to play with Prime LeBron for 4 straight years.

By the way: I'd rather have Wade over Harden all things considered, I like him more as a player, but I can't be biased and ignore Harden's accomplishments because he takes tons of step-back 3s. He has earned this spot. 5th all time in most consecutive 25 ppg seasons, 6x All-NBA 1st team, an Assist and Scoring title, etc. These are big time accomplishments and Wade is not close to either.

Appreciate the response but I don't think this addresses my concern with your analysis. Harden has more points, and is an all time great scorer, and there is no argument there. But you seem to be saying it's as straight forward as comparing their stats 25 point games and scoring titles, while ignoring the era, the context, and what their coaching has asked that they do. I made this point earlier, but Wade has always been on defense first teams, with shockingly little attention to planning offense by the coaching staff (you can find Spoelstra and Fizdale admitting this). I'm not attributing all of Harden's scoring success to D'Antoni or his team or the era, Harden is great in any era, but there is no question that if you switch their teams/coaching staff/era, each of their numbers would look drastically different, so the scoring titles to me are irrelevant. I don't think the comparison on offense is so straightforward as your numbers suggest, and we're not even talking about the defensive side.

[Doctor MJ]

Playoffs

Harden has averaged 25 ppg in the PO for 8x consecutive years now! The most Wade ever did is 2x consecutively and 4x overall. Wade has never averaged 7 apg in any playoff run, Harden has done this 4x. I like Wade, especially for his defensive prowess, but he really pales in comparison and is living very high off of his 2006 playoff run (which was really good, no doubt) but he isn't there when you really peel back the numbers. Harden beats him up and down in RS and PO. Harden also has a better OBPM and DBPM than Wade in the PO and RS--AND--Harden didn't get to play with Prime LeBron for 4 straight years.

By the way: I'd rather have Wade over Harden all things considered, I like him more as a player, but I can't be biased and ignore Harden's accomplishments because he takes tons of step-back 3s. He has earned this spot. 5th all time in most consecutive 25 ppg seasons, 6x All-NBA 1st team, an Assist and Scoring title, etc. These are big time accomplishments and Wade is not close to either.

So I do think you make some good points for Harden over Wade based on longevity, but something I'll note with Harden is that there seems to be an issue with Harden being able to get his game fully working in the playoffs the way it does in the regular season.

In '05-06 Wade's FTr went from .568 in the RS to .567 in the PS. Basically, same story regardless of the competition.

In '17-18 Harden's FTr went from .502 in the RS to to .345 in the PS.

Now, fine to accuse me of cherry picking - I'm just looking specifically at the year Harden had a chance to lead a team to a championship - and it's fine to note that it's not like we've seen such a massive drop off in the playoffs every year, but it does have to be pointed out that's not exactly a debate whether sometimes Harden's game seems to lack some of its regular season oomph in the playoffs, and that's the thing that we've been waiting to see Harden solve.

I also worry that people think Harden's solved it just because he put up numbers against the Lakers given that that the Lakers basically coasted the whole way despite having pretty much nothing in the backcourt. Big numbers in such a blowout loss should not be making people think he turned the corner.

Might he have turned the corner? Sure, but to this point in his career, it makes sense to see Harden as a weaker playoff performer in general compared to prime Wade between this and Wade's superior playing outside of glamour offense.

Then you factor in that Wade's attitude is basically what the Heat's culture was made out of and that's a good thing, whereas the Rocket's locker room has been an ugly place repeatedly ever since Harden got there. I don't blame Harden alone for this, but I think it's awfully hard to say that Harden did more for the Rockets than Wade did for the Heat.

Re: 5th all time in most consecutive 25 ppg seasons, 6x All-NBA 1st team, an Assist and Scoring title, etc. These are big time accomplishments... these are literally all the same type of accomplishments. Harden has become the king of production in the most heliocentric offense since either Wilt in '61-62 or ever. I think the question is what you can expect that to give you in terms of building a playoff champion.

Again, fine to look at the comparison with Wade and point to Harden's longevity, but in terms of just looking at Harden as the superior player at his best, I think you have to ask what it means to a potential Harden contender that there are times when he just doesn't get the calls he feasts on in the RS. Yes, he still ends up with a TS% ahead of Wade in the playoffs, and that's important not to forget, but with Harden you're choosing to build everything in your offense around a guy whose game to this point is effectively tailored to the regular season.

Last note, that final point above may make people think "Isn't it the same with Curry?", and I think there you should actually look at what the playoff numbers say about him (they don't in general show the drop off people tend to assume) and remember that Curry has a game where when you keep him from shooting, you're allowing him to manipulate the defense to help other scorers take over.

Anyway, I say all this as a guy who has been pulling for Harden for forever and who will readily acknowledge that if he could do the same thing in the playoffs as the regular season he's got a case for best player in the game. But I still feel like I'm waiting for him to get there.

[Owly]

So the questions that occur to me are

How valuable is variance in scoring in a point guard?
How valuable is variance in scoring in a point guard given a known average performance (given known average in box scoring, overall box, impact)?
Is it intrinsically valuable (Abdul-Rauf)? Or requiring other factors/contexts?
Is it different to supporting high scoring games in teammates?
How valuable is, twice/thrice in a lifetime 40 point games to a career evaluation? Can be adjusted to point per 75, or where the target threshold for the top half a percent or quarter of a percent of scoring games should be?
Does whether your team wins those big point games matter to your evaluation?

It's not so much that variance is valuable so much as that a certain amount of variance is normal, and Stockton stands out as the exception. From there, you have to ask yourself, why the difference?

Here's something that I see in general: If a guy shoots more than normal, he was probably seeing opportunities he was confident to exploit.

The classic game for Steve Nash on this regard came in the '04-05 series when Dallas decided in general, and in particular in Game 4, that the Mavs defense would just concentrate on eliminating Nash's passing by staying hard on their defensive assignments, which meant Nash was free to work one on one.

The result? Nash went 20 for 28. He scored 48 points with a TS% of 80.6. And in the end, despite the fact that Dallas won the game with their offense, the defensive strategy was a clear failure and they and everyone else backed off.

Stockton by contrast played his entire career with teams more concerned with Malone than Stockton, and yet this literally never happened with him. If I do a query asking for the Top 100 scoring games from a guard for the Utah Jazz, Stockton's name doesn't even come up.

As I've said, the fact that Stockton didn't do this isn't prove he couldn't do it, but it is quite the assumption to just project Stockton toward accomplishments like this.

Stockton varies less than normal (at least from what I can tell, I haven't looked too deeply) agreed.

From there, you have to ask yourself, why the difference?

Start leaning disagree here. I mean maybe you want to out of curiosity. But if variance isn't valuable it doesn't really matter.

If a guy shoots more than normal, he was probably seeing opportunities he was confident to exploit.

Okay. And if he does so efficiently and as part of an efficient team offense he was probably right to.

The classic game for Steve Nash on this regard came in the '04-05 series when Dallas decided in general, and in particular in Game 4, that the Mavs defense would just concentrate on eliminating Nash's passing by staying hard on their defensive assignments, which meant Nash was free to work one on one.

The result? Nash went 20 for 28. He scored 48 points with a TS% of 80.6. And in the end, despite the fact that Dallas won the game with their offense, the defensive strategy was a clear failure and they and everyone else backed off.

1) Peak adjacent Nash offense is a high bar. (Also Stockton has longevity, and defense and the poster I was quoting didn't invoke Nash and did invoke, among others Isiah Thomas ... but I'll try to speak to where you're going with this.)

2) Nash has 3 40 point games in his career. One in a double OT game. One in an OT game. They lose two of the three. They have a (very?) good offense offense in each game but also get outshot (efg%, and at a glance TS%) in each game. One can hypothesize that Nash saw the right openings. One can hypothesize he didn't keep teammates feeling involved enough to motivate them to defend or manage the games (this seems mean, but maybe). Or one can not put much weight into 3 (or 1) games.

If Nash doesn't have this one 48 minute game with over 40 points do you see him differently? If so, what if Dallas hadn't given him the looks? This takes me back to the questions how one systematically looks at this.

I'm not sure I'm following "everyone else backed off" is this to suggest no one else guarded him in such a way ever again (based off one 117.2 Phoenix Ortg game)?

Stockton by contrast played his entire career with teams more concerned with Malone than Stockton, and yet this literally never happened with him.

I won't assume that I know what team's scouting reports and coaching plans were. I tend to lean skeptical of anyone else claiming such. If I were to speculate I'd suggest it was a false dichotomy and that team's likely focused heavily on both. But I guess if you mean specifically scoring-wise maybe ... though whether it teams stopped Stockton/ the Jazz getting the shots they wanted ... in general I'm inclined to say no - though I don't dig too deep into the playoffs and think the Jazz tended toward a slightly flawed construction more broadly.

If I do a query asking for the Top 100 scoring games from a guard for the Utah Jazz, Stockton's name doesn't even come up.

Okay, I struggle with the relevance of this. At best it's a reiteration that Stockton is low variance. But doing so in a way that invokes Pistol Pete (assuming your search isn't Utah-era specific).

As I've said, the fact that Stockton didn't do this isn't prove he couldn't do it, but it is quite the assumption to just project Stockton toward accomplishments like this.

I don't assume that he can (or moreso that he would - anyone can shoot more, Stockton has high efficiency 30 or 27 point games where so if he can shoot an extra say 10-13 TSA at a pedestrian clip and get to 40 and look efficient overall) and whilst it's hard to know what Stockton without Malone or Stockton as first option looks like, based on the way he chose to play I don't assume he could/would do it (depending somewhat on what "it" is).

Spoiler:

As ever I don't really have a process because I can't get happy with one. But broadly speaking I don't care what someone didn't do. I guess there'd be some attempt to look beyond specific context so rating the player more than the career they happened to have at the margins (moreso within the small sample of the playoffs, I'd guess). If there's evidence that there is a big flaw that fundamentally undermines a player's impact maybe ...

The question though circles back to does it matter?

Spoiler:

Sidenote: After all this I looked up a couple of the Barry guides and there are things like "only when the Jazz are in dire need of a hoop, does Stockton think shot first" (after '96) or "It's been said before but we'll say it again: Stockton could easily average 20 points a night" (after '95). My reading of their opinions is that he has the skills to score more, but has a pass first mentality based on a belief that getting teammates involved is the best option. Of course even if true, if he applied it too rigidly in the face of defenses daring him to shoot that theoretical capacity would be irrelevant.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #74:

Stephen Curry - 6 (Clyde Frazier, Doctor MJ, Dutchball97, Joao Saraiva, Magic Is Magic, penbeast0)
Chris Paul - 4 (DQuinn1575, LA Bird, sansterre, trex_8063)
Bob Pettit - 3 (Cavsfansince84, Dr Positivity, Odinn21)
Dwyane Wade - 2 (ccameron, Joey Wheeler)
Steve Nash - 2 (eminence, Jordan Syndrome)



17 requires 9 for a majority, so we’ll start with eliminating Nash and Wade. That transfers two to Chris Paul, one to Curry, and one gets ghosted….

Curry - 7
Paul - 6
Pettit - 3

So we’ll next eliminate Pettit, which transfers two to Chris Paul and one to Curry….

Curry - 8
Paul - 8
(ghosted) - 1

I contacted the one ghost vote to see his preference between these two, and he chose Chris Paul.

Somewhat a surprise finish, and sort of underscores the emphasis on putting some time into your arguments if you want a counted vote (e.g. “best peak” isn’t going to cut it).

I’ll have the next up in a moment…..

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[Doctor MJ]

From there, you have to ask yourself, why the difference?

Start leaning disagree here. I mean maybe you want to out of curiosity. But if variance isn't valuable it doesn't really matter.

"Variance" simply happens to the lens you're looking at that can lead you to something useful if you take it the right place. I'm trying to lead folks to the right place, though granted, one doesn't need to talk in terms of variance to get to the right place.

The classic game for Steve Nash on this regard came in the '04-05 series when Dallas decided in general, and in particular in Game 4, that the Mavs defense would just concentrate on eliminating Nash's passing by staying hard on their defensive assignments, which meant Nash was free to work one on one.

The result? Nash went 20 for 28. He scored 48 points with a TS% of 80.6. And in the end, despite the fact that Dallas won the game with their offense, the defensive strategy was a clear failure and they and everyone else backed off.

1) Peak adjacent Nash offense is a high bar. (Also Stockton has longevity, and defense and the poster I was quoting didn't invoke Nash and did invoke, among others Isiah Thomas ... but I'll try to speak to where you're going with this.)

2) Nash has 3 40 point games in his career. One in a double OT game. One in an OT game. They lose two of the three. They have a (very?) good offense offense in each game but also get outshot (efg%, and at a glance TS%) in each game. One can hypothesize that Nash saw the right openings. One can hypothesize he didn't keep teammates feeling involved enough to motivate them to defend or manage the games (this seems mean, but maybe). Or one can not put much weight into 3 (or 1) games.

If Nash doesn't have this one 48 minute game with over 40 points do you see him differently? If so, what if Dallas hadn't given him the looks? This takes me back to the questions how one systematically looks at this.

I'm not sure I'm following "everyone else backed off" is this to suggest no one else guarded him in such a way ever again (based off one 117.2 Phoenix Ortg game)?

Yes. No one ever guarded Nash the same way again as far as I'm aware.

You need to understand we're not talking about a random game where Nash happened to score 48 points. We're talking about arguably the most significant team offensive season in NBA history in terms of deviation from standard thought, about a major part of that being based on a pass-first point guard rather than the team's scorers, and we're talking about Dallas trying to disrupt that by taking away the passing. They said "Beat us yourself Steve", and as a result Nash got to show off a repertoire of shots from all over the half court that made clear "Ah, yeah, he can volume score."

It was a very specific experiment that everyone watched - it was a highly anticipated playoff series between a star and the team he was on the previous year - and had it worked - as in shut down the Phoenix offense - the entire league would have pivoted to that approach from that point forward. But it didn't work, so that was that.

I think it's important to separate out the "worried about low sample size" part of your basketball brain from the "watch team strategies while knowing every other team is looking to copy what works". This is the deal with scouting in general. Nothing gives you rapid insight into a player's capacity in various skill domains like scouting does. You can't gauge efficiency well with this approach, and this is where scouting-oriented people tend to go wrong when gauging player impact, but once you see that a guy can volume score using a variety of tools if you leave him one on one, you know that he has those tools and you're not crafting approaches hoping he doesn't have them any more.

Re: What if Dallas hadn't given him the looks? Someone else would have tried it. Again, Nash on the court had the best ORtg in the league for 7 years running, and this was year 1.

Also noteworthy: This was his previous team who hadn't used him that way. This was a clear statement that they did not actually think Nash could do what he did even though they believed in him more than most.

But I will say this: When you ask "But what would you say if you hadn't seen Fact X, might you rate the player differently without that information?", the answer is "Yes, but why would a more ignorant version of myself have a leg to stand on compared to a more knowledgeable one?"

That said, while I was absolutely one of those folks wondering how Nash would do at the time, something else I soon learned was that Nash was frequently in volume scoring mode in the clutch. I think this is actually a pretty common phenomenon among those who live with the ball in their hands even in they are known for pass-first play, and it pertains I think to why it makes sense that these players sometimes naturally rack up more numbers. (Our knowledge of Stockton is incomplete here I'll note.) I'll note that on that clutch PER list, Jason Kidd is 11th and is also clearly in volume scoring mode in crunch time.

Also, here's data from a bkref query that this post made me do on 30+ point games:

Ricky Rubio had 5 such games. In those games his median FG% was 60.0%. His career peak was 41.8%.
Rajon Rondo had 9 such games. In those games his median FG% was 57.9%. His career peak was 50.8%.
John Stockton had 13 such games. In those games his median FG% was 69.2%. His career season peak was 57.4%.
Andre Miller had 19 such games. In those games his median FG% was 60.0%. His career season peak was 49.2%.
Mark Price had 23 such games. In those games his median FG% was 64.7%. His career season peak was 52.6%.
Mike Conley had 25 such games. In those games his median FG% was 58.8%. His career season peak was 46.0%.
Jason Kidd had 42 such games. In those games his median FG% was 52.4%. His career season peak was 44.4%
Steve Nash had 48 such games. In those games his median FG% was 63.2%. His career season peak was 53.2%.
Chauncey Billups had 52 such games. In those games his median FG% was 55.6%. His career season peak was 44.8%
Deron Williams had 59 such games. In those games his median FG% was 55.6% His career season peak of was 50.7%
Kevin Johnson had 81 such games. In those games his median FG% was 56.3%. His career season peak was 51.6%.
Chris Paul had 87 such games. In those games his median FG% was 59.1%. His career season peak was 50.3%.
Isiah Thomas had 118 such games. In those games his median FG% was 50.0%. His career season peak was 48.8%.

And just for good measure:

Allen Iverson had 381 such games. In those games his median FG% was 45.7%. His career season peak was 46.1%.

I think there's a lot of juicy stuff in there I don't want to get in the way of with judgments of good or bad, but I think clearly the overarching thing here is that guys who score 30 points less frequently tend to achieve 30 points on particularly efficient games relative to their own norms, and thus it's almost certainly a case of "a thing going well" as opposed to them being forced/choosing to a ton of bad shots.

I'd say the obvious question here is whether we think we can identify a predictable "sweet spot" where we can say with some confidence "This is range that's reasonable. If you're FG% (or whatever) is above X, then you should be calling your own number more". I don't think we really can, but I'm sure I'm not the only one seeing these numbers on a map.

Stockton by contrast played his entire career with teams more concerned with Malone than Stockton, and yet this literally never happened with him.

I won't assume that I know what team's scouting reports and coaching plans were. I tend to lean skeptical of anyone else claiming such. If I were to speculate I'd suggest it was a false dichotomy and that team's likely focused heavily on both. But I guess if you mean specifically scoring-wise maybe ... though whether it teams stopped Stockton/ the Jazz getting the shots they wanted ... in general I'm inclined to say no - though I don't dig too deep into the playoffs and think the Jazz tended toward a slightly flawed construction more broadly.

My stance on speculation is that it needs to be done to optimize performance, but it's an mistake-fraught process and you need to look to recognize any assumptions you're making.

When defensive schemes are designed specific to a given opponent, they are generally done against the primary vectors of attack. On a team like Utah that operated by getting Malone the ball, letting him work with it, and then either shoot or pass, those vectors are the primary things you've got to be looking to address, no? I'm not saying Stockton isn't apart of that, or that the defense wasn't guarding Stockton when he had the ball, or that the defense didn't have multiple goals, but every offense has a primary mode of attack and every defense scheming against that offense looks to identify it and mitigate for it. The face of that attack was Malone.

Sidenote: After all this I looked up a couple of the Barry guides and there are things like "only when the Jazz are in dire need of a hoop, does Stockton think shot first" (after '96) or "It's been said before but we'll say it again: Stockton could easily average 20 points a night" (after '95). My reading of their opinions is that he has the skills to score more, but has a pass first mentality based on a belief that getting teammates involved is the best option. Of course even if true, if he applied it too rigidly in the face of defenses daring him to shoot that theoretical capacity would be irrelevant.

Taking this out of the spoilers because I think it's part of the same conversation and should be read by others.

In terms of my opinion on the matter, and looking at data such as the stuff above, to me it's not remotely a question of whether Stockton was too pass-oriented for his own good, it's a question of whether a guy like Nash was too pass-oriented for his own good. Stockton's WAAAAY out there in a place you would not expect a capable scoring threat to be, and it's one of those things where even if we "blame it on Sloan" means that what we've seen from Stockton is quite stunted. But it also has to be noted that Jerry Sloan allowed his perimeter playmakers to score more than Stockton before and after Stockton, and when he was a player he played with guys who didn't just pass. In Stockton we're really not talking about a "typical Sloan point guard", he's his own thing.

I do think the reality is that there are a lot of folks a bit stat-struck by Stockton's assist totals and efficiency and who really don't see that performance as missing anything, but I think based on what I've seen in my analyses that if you're "taking what they give you" as a point guard, you're going to end up volume scoring considerably more often than Stockton did, and I'm sure that absence had a cost.

[No-more-rings]

Harden also has better playoff per-game stats at the moment and isn't far behind in total stats in the playoffs

I think this analysis doesn't hold up at all. If you are talking about playoffs and beginning to think Harden is a better playoff performer than Wade, something is off and needs to be reassessed. I know I'm just quoting one line out of your response but when you take something like career playoff stats as a point of comparison you need to take this into more context. As No-more-rings pointed out, Wade was in the playoffs well past his prime/injured (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018), so Harden doesn't have that yet.

Wade is very clearly a better playoff performer, and comparing points per game and TS across eras, as you know, does not tell the whole story.I don't agree with all of Ben Taylor's analysis but I would recommend this podcast comparing Harden, Kobe, and Wade:

https://www.stitcher.com/show/thinking-basketball-podcast/episode/34-harden-vs-kobe-vs-wade-great-debates-65452113

I guess I can dig a little deeper if we are doing Harden vs Wade here. Wade's only major edge is his excellent defensive abilities. Aside from that he has no argument over Harden and I'll explain in detail below.

In the RS Harden has now averaged 30 ppg or more for 3 straight seasons (2018, 2019, 2020). Wade has only ever done this once in his career. Harden also came off the bench when he was playing with OKC and will still end up passing Wade in total points scored in the RS. Harden also has 8x consecutive 25 ppg seasons, which is good for 5th all time? So he has consistency and is already among those with great longevity.

Most consecutive 25 ppg years in the RS:

1. 16x LBJ
2. 11x KD, Malone, MJ, West
3. 10x Shaq, AI
4. 9x Kobe, Wilt, Kareem
5. 8x Harden

Wade has also averaged 7 or more apg 2x in the RS. Harden has done this 6x in a row including leading the entire league one year. As we can easily see, Harden > Wade in the RS in both scoring, passing, and consistency. (Also 3x Scoring title, MVP and Assist title for Harden vs. 1 Scoring Title for Wade). Not really close...

Playoffs

Harden has averaged 25 ppg in the PO for 8x consecutive years now! The most Wade ever did is 2x consecutively and 4x overall. Wade has never averaged 7 apg in any playoff run, Harden has done this 4x. I like Wade, especially for his defensive prowess, but he really pales in comparison and is living very high off of his 2006 playoff run (which was really good, no doubt) but he isn't there when you really peel back the numbers. Harden beats him up and down in RS and PO. Harden also has a better OBPM and DBPM than Wade in the PO and RS--AND--Harden didn't get to play with Prime LeBron for 4 straight years.

By the way: I'd rather have Wade over Harden all things considered, I like him more as a player, but I can't be biased and ignore Harden's accomplishments because he takes tons of step-back 3s. He has earned this spot. 5th all time in most consecutive 25 ppg seasons, 6x All-NBA 1st team, an Assist and Scoring title, etc. These are big time accomplishments and Wade is not close to either.

So let me put this out there and you can either offer a direct answer, or it can just be something you can think about going forward.

If Wade isn't really better at anything offensive related as you seem to imply, how do you explain him being arguably better as a postseason scorer in his prime than Harden despite being a much worse 3 point shooter?

I don't have league postseason ts% averages, nor do i think using an average from that small a number of games and players really makes sense so we can use regular season as a baseline.

We can look at what they did in their more notable seasons and playoff runs, I'll be generous to Harden and leave out his first 2 postseasons in Houston just like i'll leave out Wade's injury riddles playoff series in 2007.

Wade 2005 playoffs: 27.4 ppg 56.1 ts%(+3.1 relative to league avg), facing off against the 7th ranked drtg, 19th and 3rd ranked.

Wade 2006 playoffs: 28.4 ppg 59.3 ts%(+5.7 relative to league avg) facing off against the 7th, 4th, 5th and 11th ranked drtg.

Wade 2009 playoffs: 29.1 ppg 56.5 ts%(+2.1 relative to league avg) facing the 12th ranked drtg

Wade 2010 playoffs: 33.2 ppg on 65 ts%(+10.7 relative to league avg) facing 5th ranked drtg Celtics although even that's misleading, since they were obviously the best defense in the league in the playoffs. They coasted and KG was hobbled playing just 29.9 mpg in the regular season, so that has a lot to do with them not ranking 1st or 2nd in drtg.

Wade 2011 playoffs: 24.5 ppg on 57 ts%(+2.9 relative to league avg), his scoring volume isn't really huge but it's drug down by one unusually bad performances against Chicago, plus look at Lebron he scored even less ppg in those playoffs. They faced insane defensive competition in the playoffs, going against the 7th, 2nd, 1st and 8th ranked drtgs.

Now let's compare that to Harden.

Harden 2015 playoffs: 27.2 ppg on 62 ts%(+8.6 relative to league avg), facing off against the 20th, 15th and 1st ranked drtg. This is one of Harden's most efficient playoff runs to date, though he faced one bad defense and one average one in there.

Harden 2016 playoffs: 26.6 ppg on 55.5 ts%(+1.4 relative to league avg)

Harden 2017 playoffs: 28.5 ppg on 58.3 ts%(+3.1 relative to league avg), facing the 10th ranked drtg and 1st

Harden 2018 playoffs: 28.6 ppg on 54.8 ts%(-0.8 relative to league avg) facing the 27th, 2nd and 11th ranked drtg although i'll allow Golden state was arguably the best defense in the playoffs, but at the same time Iggy missed most of the series so i don't know how to weigh that.

Harden 2019 playoffs: 31.6 ppg on 56.7 ts%(+0.7 relative to league avg) facing the 2nd ranked and 13th ranked drtg

Harden 2020 playoffs: 29.6 ppg on 63.6 ts%(+7.3 relative to league avg) facing the 7th ranked and 3rd ranked drtg

So just looking at those numbers, i don't think Harden has an inherent advantage as a postseason scorer on average in their primes, and that's not even accounting for the fact that in those seasons Wade never had good spacing to work with, not at all comparable to Harden's from 2017-2020 and at times had outright bad spacing(09 and 10) without really the benefit of a seemingly softer whistle for superstars today. Also it does seem like Harden's performances against some of the better defenses in the league remains questionable, for example 2/4 times he played the Warriors he struggled, he had a bad series against the Spurs, and 2 sort of meh series against the Jazz at least scoring wise. Wade looking through his career, dominated the elite Nets defense both times he faced them, the Pistons once and may have done it both times if not for getting hurt in the first one, and twice destroyed the Celtics a team that kept giving Kobe and Lebron fits.

I don't thinking bringing up Harden's assists is that big of an argument for him, where from 2015-2020 he averaged 7.4 apg, but 4.4 tov, where Wade between 2005-2011 averaged 5.6 apg to 3.9 tov. But again looking at systems, i don't think Wade would have much problem averaging 7+ apg if called for in D'Antoni's system. I think Harden is a bit more capable of an on ball playmaker than Wade sure, but i don't think it's a real important factor when looking at their postseason offense.

I think there's also something to be said about Wade's offensive attack being more unpredictable, while that's not something that's going to show up in his averages i do think it's sort of something that seems to hurt Harden when push really comes to shove in big games.

So none of that necessarily means i think Wade is better offensively than Harden in the playoffs, but i do think he's comparable enough where defense should give him the edge pretty cleanly. If what Harden did in these past playoffs becomes the normal for him, then sure he takes it offensively but as of now he seems to be somewhat inconsistent from year to year and when his 3 point shot isn't going down it really hurts him.

[eminence]

When defensive schemes are designed specific to a given opponent, they are generally done against the primary vectors of attack. On a team like Utah that operated by getting Malone the ball, letting him work with it, and then either shoot or pass, those vectors are the primary things you've got to be looking to address, no? I'm not saying Stockton isn't apart of that, or that the defense wasn't guarding Stockton when he had the ball, or that the defense didn't have multiple goals, but every offense has a primary mode of attack and every defense scheming against that offense looks to identify it and mitigate for it. The face of that attack was Malone.

Any idea on when Stockton's higher scoring bursts were? Earlier in his career, later, or spread throughout?

I know he managed to up his volume a bit in the '89 series vs the Warriors in the face of Garland giving him a ton of space. It didn't really work big picture because the Jazz's defense sucked, but oh well.

[Doctor MJ]

When defensive schemes are designed specific to a given opponent, they are generally done against the primary vectors of attack. On a team like Utah that operated by getting Malone the ball, letting him work with it, and then either shoot or pass, those vectors are the primary things you've got to be looking to address, no? I'm not saying Stockton isn't apart of that, or that the defense wasn't guarding Stockton when he had the ball, or that the defense didn't have multiple goals, but every offense has a primary mode of attack and every defense scheming against that offense looks to identify it and mitigate for it. The face of that attack was Malone.

Any idea on when Stockton's higher scoring bursts were? Earlier in his career, later, or spread throughout?

I know he managed to up his volume a bit in the '89 series vs the Warriors in the face of Garland giving him a ton of space. It didn't really work big picture because the Jazz's defense sucked, but oh well.

'88-89 3
'89-90 4

'92-93 1
'93-94 1

'96-97 4

[freethedevil]

Thru post #64:

Stephen Curry - 6 (Clyde Frazier, Doctor MJ, Dutchball97, Joao Saraiva, Magic Is Magic, penbeast0)
Chris Paul - 4 (DQuinn1575, LA Bird, sansterre, trex_8063)
Bob Pettit - 3 (Cavsfansince84, Dr Positivity, Odinn21)
Dwyane Wade - 2 (ccameron, Joey Wheeler)
Steve Nash - 2 (eminence, Jordan Syndrome)


About 4 hours left for this thread.
NOTE: a single line of vague(ish) conjecture regarding a candidate does not constitute an adequate argument for a counted vote guys (this is stated in project main thread). In any close vote, it's not fair to the other participants who took the time to articulate their thinking more extensively.

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[quote=”sansterre”].

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