John Stockton Day article.

[nuraman00]

Jolly John Stockton Day | Hardwood Paroxysm

 

[nuraman00]

That article was full of a lie. Stockton was not a flopper.

He was a cheap hitter.

 

[MHSL82]

Do you know who Clintonite's favorite player is?

 

[nuraman00]

Do you know who Clintonite's favorite player is?

I think he was joking. It was Stockton. But I'll check to make sure.

(In addition to email and FB, I also have his cell #. I text more with him than with anyone. About random sports stuff. It it waxes and wanes.

One time, I accidentally mislead him and said I was going to "tweet" and watch the game with him. He thought I had finally joined Twitter.

No, I just meant text. The way I had thought about it, was that texting while watching was like tweeting.)

 

[beardown07]

Stockton was a badass. I don't think he was cheap. I think he was a brick shit-house, not afraid to set a tough pick. A rarity among guards.

 

[beardown07]

I have his autograph.

another rarity

 

[beardown07]

talk about records that will never be broken..

 

[nuraman00]

I have his autograph.

another rarity

Pic?

 

[nuraman00]

talk about records that will never be broken..

I could see someone doing the assists, eventually.

But the steals is even harder.

 

[beardown07]

Pic?

I guess I should say, my Mother has it....it was mine at one point, but she's a diehard Jazz fan, so I just left it when I moved out. I know she still has it, and would only assume it's mine when she passes.

A friend of hers is a close friend of Karl Malone. Got the whole team on a ball too...can't remember the exact year, but John and Karl's is on there...Eaton's, Sloan's. Chocolate Thunder...Darryl Dawkins.


***edit...Thunder's is on a piece of paper...totally separate occurrence. Ran into him and Karl in a restaraunt/bar in SLC. I thought Karl was big....DD dwarfed him.

 

[beardown07]

I could see someone doing the assists, eventually.

But the steals is even harder.

I suppose all records are meant to be broken, but there is no one even close to it playing currently, so it will be a long time before it is.

Just to play that long and be such a true iron man...the longevity alone, makes it a tough one to reach.

 

[nuraman00]

I suppose all records are meant to be broken, but there is no one even close to it playing currently, so it will be a long time before it is.

Just to play that long and be such a true iron man...the longevity alone, makes it a tough one to reach.

Yeah. You have a few players that have been very healthy, such as Andre Miller and Russell Westbrook. Miller has only missed 4 games in his career, 3 due to injury (all separate years), 1 due to suspension.

Westbrook has never missed a game.

You just need one of them to have a game closer to Stockton.

Rondo took a few years to develop, so he won't do the assists.

I think he's a little closer to steals, but would come in 2nd place at best. Chris Paul has been injured too much in his career.

I think if they ever are broken, it's very unlikely that both assists and steals will be done by the same person.

 

[nuraman00]

I guess I should say, my Mother has it....it was mine at one point, but she's a diehard Jazz fan, so I just left it when I moved out. I know she still has it, and would only assume it's mine when she passes.

A friend of hers is a close friend of Karl Malone. Got the whole team on a ball too...can't remember the exact year, but John and Karl's is on there...Eaton's, Sloan's. Chocolate Thunder...Darryl Dawkins.


***edit...Thunder's is on a piece of paper...totally separate occurrence. Ran into him and Karl in a restaraunt/bar in SLC. I thought Karl was big....DD dwarfed him.

Cool. Thanks for sharing.

 

[beardown07]

Yeah. You have a few players that have been very healthy, such as Andre Miller and Russell Westbrook. Miller has only missed 4 games in his career, 3 due to injury (all separate years), 1 due to suspension.

Westbrook has never missed a game.

You just need one of them to have a game closer to Stockton.

Rondo took a few years to develop, so he won't do the assists.

I think he's a little closer to steals, but would come in 2nd place at best. Chris Paul has been injured too much in his career.

I think if they ever are broken, it's very unlikely that both assists and steals will be done by the same person.

puts it into perspective, how impressive it is.

 

[MHSL82]

I have his autograph.

another rarity

I got his autograph at a movie theatre. The funny thing is, my brother is the one who recognized him and he's the last person to be into sports. In my defense, I wasn't looking and he was looking around. I probably would have recognized him if I saw him walking around. But, I think I was so excited that I ended up asking him, he gave it to me, I thanked him, and he nodded. If I were the one to spot him, I probably would have decided not to bug him, it was just the quickness of the whole thing (he was about to get his ticket ripped to enter.

When I met Jerry Seinfeld at the Bee Movie premiere, I decided against asking him for an autograph because I was invited by my brother who works at DreamWorks and I can imagine Seinfeld thinking, "this is exactly why I don't do these things." I instead just told him that I liked his movie, thinking that saying anything about the show would be like, "remember that thing you did years ago and now haven't done anything since?" I think I remember him doing a sketch or saying in an interview that wanting another human being to write his name on something is odd. The funny thing is, I might be confusing this with handshakes, why would one human being want to shake another human being's hands and say "I touched his hand!" I shook his hand.

If I got his autograph, I wouldn't sell it, so I don't care about its value. I probably wouldn't post it, either, I'd just have it in some room with other memories. I didn't have a pen and neither did my brother at the time so asking him both for an autograph, pen, and paper would have been really awkward. Worth it perhaps, as he won't remember me, but just shaking his hands was good enough for me. I like that I got to meet him, he was nice, and he didn't seem impatient or anything. He's my second favorite comedian, after Steve Martin.

 

[MHSL82]

Wow, I spelled theater as "theatre." What has come into me?! I'm not British nor Canadian.

 

[MHSL82]

I got Malone's autograph at a University of Utah football game, his arms are leg sized! I was a kid so it looked even bigger. I also got his autograph at a record store when he was selling his workout video. My grandmother won a Jazz ball autographed by the team with Stock, Malone, Hornacek, Russell, etc. I also got Greg Ostertag's autograph at a mall.

 

[MHSL82]

talk about records that will never be broken..

I could see someone doing the assists, eventually.

But the steals is even harder.

I suppose all records are meant to be broken, but there is no one even close to it playing currently, so it will be a long time before it is.

Just to play that long and be such a true iron man...the longevity alone, makes it a tough one to reach.

Yeah. You have a few players that have been very healthy, such as Andre Miller and Russell Westbrook. Miller has only missed 4 games in his career, 3 due to injury (all separate years), 1 due to suspension.

Westbrook has never missed a game.

You just need one of them to have a game closer to Stockton.

Rondo took a few years to develop, so he won't do the assists.

I think he's a little closer to steals, but would come in 2nd place at best. Chris Paul has been injured too much in his career.

I think if they ever are broken, it's very unlikely that both assists and steals will be done by the same person.

Nope. The assists will never be broken. The NBA will go out of business before that happens. There simply isn't anyone out there so dedicated and consistent to break it who is also durable in a great system and ages well. I think it was a perfect storm to get where Stockton is. The big scorers in the game these days are shooting guards, guys with the ball already. There's no point guard to set up a LeBron shot, as there was to get Malone baskets. Point guards are asked to score more these days. I know some don't, but if you are to get a lot of assists, you are slacking in points. I'm still very impressed with Stocktons 17.2 ppg, 14.5 apg, and 2.7 spg in 1989-90. Stockton was averaging around 8 in the twilight of his career, too. I don't see older guys doing that currently. I know the system helped but where do we find that in this league anymore?

I think the most impressive stat that is vulnerable is scoring. Scoring is easier these days and now it is acceptable to just score, regardless of winning. I know, LeBron and Kobe win, too, but I wouldn't be surprised if some guy comes and tops Kareem without much winning (some, obviously). These aren't mutually exclusive, just saying that sometimes to win you must pass and rebound well, too. Plus, people are starting at 19, so that gives them three years before retirement age, assuming they aren't burned out three years earlier, too. Some other stats are passable but aren't as impressive to me.

Steals could be, but I don't know who's going to play long enough. Steals are hard to come by consistently and for 20 seasons.

 

[nuraman00]

I got his autograph at a movie theatre. The funny thing is, my brother is the one who recognized him and he's the last person to be into sports. In my defense, I wasn't looking and he was looking around. I probably would have recognized him if I saw him walking around. But, I think I was so excited that I ended up asking him, he gave it to me, I thanked him, and he nodded. If I were the one to spot him, I probably would have decided not to bug him, it was just the quickness of the whole thing (he was about to get his ticket ripped to enter.

When I met Jerry Seinfeld at the Bee Movie premiere, I decided against asking him for an autograph because I was invited by my brother who works at DreamWorks and I can imagine Seinfeld thinking, "this is exactly why I don't do these things." I instead just told him that I liked his movie, thinking that saying anything about the show would be like, "remember that thing you did years ago and now haven't done anything since?" I think I remember him doing a sketch or saying in an interview that wanting another human being to write his name on something is odd. The funny thing is, I might be confusing this with handshakes, why would one human being want to shake another human being's hands and say "I touched his hand!" I shook his hand.

If I got his autograph, I wouldn't sell it, so I don't care about its value. I probably wouldn't post it, either, I'd just have it in some room with other memories. I didn't have a pen and neither did my brother at the time so asking him both for an autograph, pen, and paper would have been really awkward. Worth it perhaps, as he won't remember me, but just shaking his hands was good enough for me. I like that I got to meet him, he was nice, and he didn't seem impatient or anything. He's my second favorite comedian, after Steve Martin.

I've seen Seinfeld do standup twice: 2004, 2011.

 

[nuraman00]

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.

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

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:

NBA & ABA Career Leaders and Records for Steal Pct | Basketball-Reference.com

NBA & ABA Career Leaders and Records for Steals Per Game | Basketball-Reference.com

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 ore 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.

Steals, on the other hand, have players playing 68% of Stockton's career at best, sometimes even 50%. The ones that can really steal the ball, burn out quicker. Or maybe their one skill just wasn't worth keeping, at a certain point in their careers.

So the steals guys don't even seem to be close to playing the number of games Stockton did, careerwise, which is why I think it's harder.

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%.

Pippen played 17 years but was a notch below in rate. 1178/1504 = 78% of games.

Iverson was good but only played 14 years. And was injured for a few of those years. Even he has only played in 914/1504 games, 60.7%.

So some of the stealers with a higher rate than Stockton had much shorter careers.

The ones with a rate as good as Stockton, hand longer careers than others, but still less years.

And then other players that had longer careers, had a less rate overall.


So I think assist guys can have longer careers than steals guys, and thus come closer.

I didn't say someone would break it for sure, but I said because assist guys have longer careers, and there do seem to be a decent amount of players that get assists, they are more likely to come close. The best stealers aren't as memorable, because they have shorter careers.

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.