John Stockton Day article.

[MHSL82]

Reason why I say assists is easier, is because if you look at assist %, Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Deron Williams, Rondo, and Jose Calderon are within striking distance of Stockton.

Paul, Nash, and Williams aren't as durable in terms of games played per year. They'll likely have long careers, but miss games per year.

But when they do play, they can assist like the best.

Rondo, probably got off to too slow of a start in his career to get total assists. He wasn't a polished player when he came out. It took him about 4 years to get going.

Jose, he is good, but his defense keeps him off the floor. He can't play huge minutes because of that. He's only averages 28.5 minutes in his career, which is not complete. Stockton averaged 31.8 minutes.

My point is that there are players every now and then that can rack up assists. Heck, most of the best guys in assist % are from the modern era. They just don't play as many games per year, or in Rondo's case, took a few years to develop, or in Jose's case, he starts to become a liability in certain situations.

None of them will play enough games and their assist percentages would go down the longer they play. I'll amend my statement to say "no one who is playing today will break the assists record," but I just don't see it happening in the modern era, even if the modern era has a lot of high assist percentages. I don't care about the assist percentages quite frankly, because we're talking about an accumulated stat, not a rate stat. If a player came in and averaged 8 assists in 25 minutes (higher than Stockton) but always played 25 minutes, he would not pass Stockton. If he got assists on 80% of his team's shots, but averaged 8 assists per game, he would not pass Stockton. I don't see anyone with the combination of assist percentage, length of career, or averages. I know I don't "know" length of careers yet, but that's the way I feel.

 

[nuraman00]

Also, think about it this way. It's easier to create an assist than to steal.

The best assist rate guys assist on 40-50% of their possessions.

The best steal guys steal on 4% of their possessions, and 2.75% is considered good too.

Yes, that's why the assist totals are what they are, and steals are what they are.

But steals just occur so infrequently compared to assists, that's why I think it's harder.

Rebounding is probably the hardest to break. Wilt has 23924 rebounds. Karl Malone only had 14968.

It's a different era now though. Guards and wing players rebound.

Not only PGs like Kidd, Rondo, and Westbrook. But you'll have SFs like Dominic McGuire, Wade, Pierce, Bonzi Wells getting 14-18 rebound games once in a while.

It's a different era now, with all positions rebounding.

Also, if you've looked at the FG% in the 50s and 60s, they were horrible. You need missed shots for rebounds. Offense is a little better now, so there's less missed shots. I also think defense is good too. Before, in the 40s-60s, it was just bad offense, not good defense. So easier to get rebounds then.

 

[MHSL82]

Magic averaged more assists per game in his career than Stockton, but had a shorter career for other reasons.

While this is not conclusive, Stockton averaged more assists in the same number of games as Magic. Stockton's overall numbers declined after that number of games. So, while I don't know for a fact to what degree Magic's assists averages would go down, I can safely say they would if he played 598 more games. Think about that. Five-hundred and ninety-eight more games. I can confidently say over that span Magic's assists would go down. Longevity helped Stockton's overall total numbers but it hurt his assists per game rate. So I know you weren't making the claim that Magic was better assist wise, but I HATE when people cite that as a reason for Magic over Stockton. Cite the points or rebounds or heck, even chanmpionships!

 

[MHSL82]

Steals, on the other hand, is different for a different reason.

Stockton wasn't the best guy at steal % or steals per game, he's 8th-9th in both:

But the players that were more prolific at steals in terms of steal % or steals per year, had much shorter careers, 10-13 years typically. That's 68% of a 19 year career.

Meanwhile, someone like Nash is having a long career, has played in a greater percentage of games, with respect to Stockton: 1159/1504 = 77% of games, and counting.

So Nash, is in his 17th year right now. But he's had 9 seasons with 75 games or less, including one year with 56. So there are passing players that have a large number of seasons, thus playing in at least a large amount of games, with respect to Stockton. Just not 82 per year.

And my contention is that there will never be a point guard who plays in as many games per season nor as many seasons as Stockton did and if they did, they too, would drop in steals or assist percentages as they aged. I won't say that Stockton was better than 8/9th in his prime, because I don't know, but age affected Stockton as age would affect anyone. I think part of Stockton's record is fighting that drop and doing well despite it.

When I have more time, I'd like to see where Stockton was in the same number of games the 7 or 8 that are better than Stockton was overall. Like if Michael Jordan played 1000 games, where was Stockton at 1000 games? I can't extrapolate Jordan to 1504 games. I'm sure Stockton is still around 8th, but I'd be interested in finding out. I know there are more factors like how slowly Stockton started (off the bench, etc.) but if we're talking about rate and if Stockton presumably got the nod because of doing well, the rate should be related.

Jordan had a higher rate than Stockton, but only played 15 years. Maybe if he played 4 more years, he could have done it. But he probably wouldn't have been a good enough player to have on the floor for very much, in 4 years. 1078 / 1504 = 71.6%.

I'd love to see you tell Jordan this. Or maybe back when he was still playing.

 

[nuraman00]

None of them will play enough games and their assist percentages would go down the longer they play. I'll amend my statement to say "no one who is playing today will break the assists record," but I just don't see it happening in the modern era, even if the modern era has a lot of high assist percentages. I don't care about the assist percentages quite frankly, because we're talking about an accumulated stat, not a rate stat. If a player came in and averaged 8 assists in 25 minutes (higher than Stockton) but always played 25 minutes, he would not pass Stockton. If he got assists on 80% of his team's shots, but averaged 8 assists per game, he would not pass Stockton. I don't see anyone with the combination of assist percentage, length of career, or averages. I know I don't "know" length of careers yet, but that's the way I feel.

You have to have at least 15000 career minutes to qualify for assist %.

That's why I used it, because the players that didn't play as many minutes per game, such as the 25 in your example, were filtered out.

FYI, if someone did have an assist % of 80 (the best do 40-50%), he would average over 25 assists per game.

And really my post was about explaining why I thought steals was harder than assists, not saying it was likely for someone to break either.

You mentioned 3 factors:

* assist %
* length of career
* Averages

I think players come closer on #1 and 3, and a little short on # 2.

If I translate that to steals:

* steal %
* length of career
* averages

Players either meet # 1 but fall way short of #2, or fall medium short of # 2 and medium-long short of # 3.

 

[MHSL82]

FYI, if someone did have an assist % of 80 (the best do 40-50%), he would average over 25 assists per game.

I meant 80% of when he was on the court, which I know is not what you were talking about before. 80% is too high, but it was only meant as illustrative. (A player that averaged that high of a rate would get a lot of minutes, but if he didn't...) I just meant that a player could be really effective when on the court, but if he's not on the court long enough, he's not breaking Stockton's record. And I don't think anyone will be on the court as long as Stockton and maintain that efficiency.

 

[MHSL82]

You mentioned 3 factors:

* assist %
* length of career
* Averages

I think players come closer on #1 and 3, and a little short on # 2.

If I translate that to steals:

* steal %
* length of career
* averages

Players either meet # 1 but fall way short of #2, or fall medium short of # 2 and medium-long short of # 3.

Which is why I claim none of them will be broken. Players, despite medical advantages (look at Adrian Peterson coming back from his injury), are not going to play as long as Stockton. That's one factor, but I'll do you one more. IF, and that's a big IF, IF anyone plays as long as Stockton does, he will not get #3. #1 is attainable, but he will have declined in minutes, etc. IMO.

 

[nuraman00]

I meant 80% of when he was on the court, which I know is not what you were talking about before. 80% is too high, but it was only meant as illustrative. (A player that averaged that high of a rate would get a lot of minutes, but if he didn't...) I just meant that a player could be really effective when on the court, but if he's not on the court long enough, he's not breaking Stockton's record. And I don't think anyone will be on the court as long as Stockton and maintain that efficiency.

I took that into account in my assists per game calculation. It was quick dirty math though.

Here's another quick dirty way to show it:

If Stockton averaged 14.5 apg with an assist rate of 57%, then he would have averaged 20.3 assists with an assist % of 80.

 

[nuraman00]

Which is why I claim none of them will be broken. Players, despite medical advantages (look at Adrian Peterson coming back from his injury), are not going to play as long as Stockton. That's one factor, but I'll do you one more. IF, and that's a big IF, IF anyone plays as long as Stockton does, he will not get #3. #1 is attainable, but he will have declined in minutes, etc. IMO.

If someone did play as long as Stockton, I think their spg would be at least 0.5 less (career wise), and as much as 1.0.

It takes more physical skills to steal.

 

[MHSL82]

Just my opinion, but I don't care about assist % when you divorce it from games played or minutes played or whatnot. It means absolutely nothing to me in terms of anyone breaking Stockton's records or Kareem's records. If you wanted to say someone could get to 10,000 quicker, fine. Don't think so, but maybe.

Case in point, Karl Malone only needed to average 17.4 points for 84 more games (to match Abdul-Jabbar's game total) to pass Kareem. However, he didn't. The man of steel, the durable Malone averaged more points per game than Jabbar but couldn't pass him. Jordan couldn't either - but I blame the guy who killed his father.

Teams aren't as loyal as they were to Stockton and Malone. Not once did I think the Jazz drafted their replacement, even to the day they left Utah. Kidd is second all-time, teams kept dumping him. That made it harder. Stockton had the talent, will, and the perfect system and situation - a perfect storm in sports to get to his 15,806 assists.

 

[MHSL82]

I took that into account in my assists per game calculation. It was quick dirty math though.

Here's another quick dirty way to show it:

If Stockton averaged 14.5 apg with an assist rate of 57%, then he would have averaged 20.3 assists with an assist % of 80.

I'm really not as adept at statistics as you are, I tried to take an unrealistic percentage of 80% and then say that if he played, say 18 minutes, that 80% wouldn't matter. Obviously, no one would only play 18 minutes, but that's what I meant, rates and usage go hand in hand.

 

[MHSL82]

Hakeem's 2162 steals, 9th all-time, is unusual on one hand because it's a big man. On the other hand, big men have worse turnover rates than guards. So if Hakeem was primarily stripping big men, it's not as impressive as a guard stripping a guard, because big men are supposed to turn it over more. But if Hakeem was stripping a lot of guards too, then that's more impressive.

True. Malone got a lot of assists and is up there on the all-time list, but I remember you talking about how he got his versus others. What do you think of Malone's turnover rate compared to other big men? Keep in mind the assist rate, as more attempts at assists lead to more turnovers, versus a black hole (though dribbling may also contribute equally and peripheral vision of defenders - a PG should be better at that).

 

[MHSL82]

Just to clarify, I have not lost the fact that you aren't claiming either to be broken. I haven't really addressed steals or assists being easier. I was just basically saying neither will for the aforementioned reasons. I do think steals require more physical stamina and all, though you can compensate a little by smarts and anticipation. The fact that this is hard to do and Stockton by definition, did it, is what draws me to him more.

 

[nuraman00]

True. Malone got a lot of assists and is up there on the all-time list, but I remember you talking about how he got his versus others. What do you think of Malone's turnover rate compared to other big men? Keep in mind the assist rate, as more attempts at assists lead to more turnovers, versus a black hole (though dribbling may also contribute equally and peripheral vision of defenders - a PG should be better at that).

I'll look up some stats to see how Malone fits in later, for his turnovers.

But I'll say this, even though Hakeem might be my favorite player.

After watching bigs like Kaman, Mourning, etc. turn it over a lot, and studying bigs turnover rates, there are a lot of bigs that can't handle the ball. Nor are they supposed to, if they could, they'd be guards. But because bigs lose the ball a lot, I feel Hakeem's stat is more likely just due to him having a long career and being around a bunch of bumbling bigs who can't hold onto the ball.

It's also true that I just don't have memories of Hakeem stealing the ball.

I have a lot more memories of guys like Malone, Webber, Marion, AK actually stealing the ball.


I will say that I saw less Houston games than even Seattle, San Antonio, Indiana, NY in the 90s. So perhaps if I had watched Hakeem for a year and really watched for his steals, I'd have a greater appreciation for them.

And, as I mentioned, I look for different things now than I did in the 90s.


And usually, bigs don't get turnovers because they make a bad pass. They get turnovers when they try to dribble in traffic (the Mourning special), or they lose the ball off their foot (Kaman). Or they get offensive fouls (Webber). Or they can't catch (Mutombo, Adonal Foyle).

Sometimes, yes, you try to create some space by dribbling in traffic, but sometimes that leads to turnovers too.

Bigs that could pass like Malone, Webber, Divac, Shaq, Hakeem, Duncan, they rarely turned it over while attempting to pass. Maybe it's because of their height.

I'm not saying they only could pass because of their height. I'm saying that they were good passers first, and their height made it easier.

 

[nuraman00]

What do you think of Malone's turnover rate compared to other big men?

Forget about comparing Malone's turnover rate to other big men.

His TO% was lower than even the best PGs who have the lowest turnover rates!

Yes, he did average 3.1 turnovers per game, but then you have to take into account that he shot the ball more than others, so hence more opportunities to turn it over. Turnover rate normalizes it per possession. He probably shot or pass (used the ball) as as much or more than anyone, yet still turned it over less than the most protective PGs.

Comparing it to a few other bigs, there are other bigs that have comparable TO% (Malone's is still usually better), but again, he used the ball more than they did to. His per game is a little higher, but by about 0.5 turnovers, not a big deal IMO. Malone's is more impressive to me because of how often he had the ball.

 

[MHSL82]

Forget about comparing Malone's turnover rate to other big men.

His TO% was lower than even the best PGs who have the lowest turnover rates!

Yes, he did average 3.1 turnovers per game, but then you have to take into account that he shot the ball more than others, so hence more opportunities to turn it over. Turnover rate normalizes it per possession. He probably shot or pass (used the ball) as as much or more than anyone, yet still turned it over less than the most protective PGs.

Comparing it to a few other bigs, there are other bigs that have comparable TO% (Malone's is still usually better), but again, he used the ball more than they did to. His per game is a little higher, but by about 0.5 turnovers, not a big deal IMO. Malone's is more impressive to me because of how often he had the ball.

Interesting. Is there any way to figure out without going to play-by-plays of every game to know how many of them were offensive fouls? Not saying he's where Webber is in that category, just wondering. Malone, of course, got away with a lot of fouls, too.

Talking about getting away with fouls, I thought Malone got away with one in the Houston series when Stockton made his big shot.


I then read this in the comments, is this true?

"This is an inbounds play, therefore a player(back then) can keep two hands on a player and move with him(what Malone is doing) it's not setting a screen because clear possession isn't maintained. ONCE possession is maintained you can only make non moving picks for the ball handler. This was NOT an illegal screen...it was not even a screen. It was good offense free up by Malone."

 

[nuraman00]

From Clintonite33:

* Stockton is his 2nd favorite. (I'm waiting to find out his favorite)

* He does not post on a board, unlike what I thought.

* He debuts on utajazz.com on Tuesday.

* He then told me the stat about the Jazz not winning in Phoenix since 2010, but I wasn't impressed. It wasn't that long of a streak for the Jazz losing/ Phoenix winning.

 

[nuraman00]

Interesting. Is there any way to figure out without going to play-by-plays of every game to know how many of them were offensive fouls? Not saying he's where Webber is in that category, just wondering. Malone, of course, got away with a lot of fouls, too.

Talking about getting away with fouls, I thought Malone got away with one in the Houston series when Stockton made his big shot.


I then read this in the comments, is this true?

"This is an inbounds play, therefore a player(back then) can keep two hands on a player and move with him(what Malone is doing) it's not setting a screen because clear possession isn't maintained. ONCE possession is maintained you can only make non moving picks for the ball handler. This was NOT an illegal screen...it was not even a screen. It was good offense free up by Malone."

* I did not think Malone got away with one. I thought that was a good play.

* I do not know if any situation differentiating an inbounds play vs. a regular play, but I think I've seen two hands in a situation like that often, so it's probably true.

I agree it was barely a screen.

Here's a play where Webber freed up Bibby. There was more contact on this one. Webber didn't use his hands though, I don't think. Just his midsection.
[YOUTUBE]2i-dN7VEq4M[/YOUTUBE]


Here's a Webber game-typing 3-pointer. I don't think neither Webber nor Bibby set a screen on this play, but the action is similar. Go to 3:26.




Here's a Love 3-pointer. Minnesota runs one misdirection and Rubio screens out two guys. Does Rubio use two hands when doing that? I think so. Legal or not, it seems to happen.


* There was a game in 2003-2004, where Steve Nash set a screen on two players, Antione Walker dribbled around it, did a fancy dribbling move, and made a layup.

That was Dallas first win @ Lakers since 1990, a string of 26 straight losses. Also, the previous year during a Dallas @ Lakers game, Dallas had blown a 27 point 4th quarter lead.

 

[MHSL82]

* I did not think Malone got away with one. I thought that was a good play.

* I do not know if any situation differentiating an inbounds play vs. a regular play, but I think I've seen two hands in a situation like that often, so it's probably true.

I agree it was barely a screen.

Oh great, I was all ready to proceed in life with the rationalization that losing to Jordan in the second Finals was ok because Malone got away with one that put them in the first Finals. Now that Malone didn't get away with one, that leaves the Jordan push-off as an injustice - to go with the Eisley three that was taken away incorrectly and the Harper 2 that counted after the buzzer. They also didn't call a Pippen goal-tend in another game, the one Malone missed two free throws in. But since we didn't make the free throws, we deserved to lose.

I even tried to tell myself that the Jazz lost in seven, but then you told me how that wouldn't necessarily have happened. You are not helping my mental health by making me face reality that the Jazz may have lost something they could have won. Just tell me there was no way for them to win and I'll take the "good try" award home.

 

[nuraman00]

I even tried to tell myself that the Jazz lost in seven, but then you told me how that wouldn't necessarily have happened. You are not helping my mental health by making me face reality that the Jazz may have lost something they could have won. Just tell me there was no way for them to win and I'll take the "good try" award home.

I believe the Jazz were very talented and could have done anything. And by anything, I'm not referring to something improbable, I'm referring to something that had a 40-60% chance of happening.

Two keys to the series, in general:

1) Jazz stay out of foul trouble.

2) Stockton have less trouble when they put Pippen on him, especially in the 4th.