How good was John Stockton? Was he overrated, underrated or about right?

[ThaSwagg3r]

Isiah's career TS% is 51.6. That sucks. That is not the guy you want taking a lot of shots. His best ever TS% was 55.4 and he never did better than 53% in any other year.

For comparison purposes here are the TS percentages of some other pgs this past season.

Paul- 57.8
Westbrook- 53.8
Rose- 55
Nash- 60
Billups- 61.7
Stuckey-54.4
Conley- 52

see where i am going here? Overall there were 38 players this past season who bettered Isiahs TS%. Only 1 bettered Stocktons career ts% of 60.8%.

......and Allen Iverson's career TS% is 51.8. Are you telling me he is not a guy you want taking shots?

Shooting a low TS% didn't stop Isiah from winning a championship so I don't really see your point. Do you not know what the main objective of basketball is?

[NumberSix]

underrated.

The guy is the all time leader in 2 of the major statistics. I mean, it's not like there are tons of different stats. It's not like every few guys is in all time leader in something. Assists and steals. That's pretty impressive.

[tontoz]

......and Allen Iverson's career TS% is 51.8. Are you telling me he is not a guy you want taking shots?

Shooting a low TS% didn't stop Isiah from winning a championship so I don't really see your point. Do you not know what the main objective of basketball is?

Yes it is to win a ring. Robert Horry > all

Thanks for the great insight.

FYI Iverson had the same TS% as Isiah while averaging 7.5 more ppg. Iverson was known as a chucker so that doesn't speak to highly about Isiah.

Iverson also played on a lot of bad teams that didnt' have a lot of scoring options. That wasn't the case with Isiah. Isiah shared the backcourt with another top 50 all time NBA player. He also had Dantley and Aquire, both of whom had averaged 30 ppg in the NBA.

[ThaSwagg3r]

Yes it is to win a ring. Robert Horry > all

Thanks for the great insight.

Ahh.....the old Robert Horry card, nothing new here. Championship rings are to show the greatness of the best, 2nd best, and sometimes even the 3rd best player on a team. Isiah was the best player on his team and Stockton was the 2nd best player on his. Who is the one that has the championship rings and the finals MVP? And who doesn't?

Last I check Isiah is the one that has two rings and a finals MVP while Stockton has none.

Like I said, you could switch both of their roles up and the Pistons would probably be worse with Stockton instead of Isiah while the Jazz would probably be better with Isiah instead of Stockton.

[tontoz]

Ahh.....the old Robert Horry card, nothing new here. Championship rings are to show the greatness of the best, 2nd best, and sometimes even the 3rd best player on a team. Isiah was the best player on his team and Stockton was the 2nd best player on his. Who is the one that has the championship rings and the finals MVP? And who doesn't?

Last I check Isiah is the one that has two rings and a finals MVP while Stockton has none.

Like I said, you could switch both of their roles up and the Pistons would probably be worse with Stockton instead of Isiah while the Jazz would probably be better with Isiah instead of Stockton.

You've got it backwards. Stockton would have been perfect on the Pistons because they had other guys who could score. They didn't need a PG forcing up bad shots.

Give Stockton a team of Dumars, Rodman, Aquirre, Mahorn, Salley, Lambier, Vinny J and Edwards and he would have had a field day. He never had a team even close to that.

I have said this several times and i will say it again. What year should the Jazz have won the title?

*crickets*

[ThaSwagg3r]

You've got it backwards. Stockton would have been perfect on the Pistons because they had other guys who could score. They didn't need a PG forcing up bad shots.

Give Stockton a team of Dumars, Rodman, Aquirre, Mahorn, Salley, Lambier, Vinny J and Edwards and he would have had a field day. He never had a team even close to that.

Who would close out the games? Because Stockton sure as hell couldn't do it which is the main reason why Isiah is the one that has multiple championship rings and is usually ranked higher than Stockton.

Stockton is no different in the 1st quarter than he is in the 4th quarter. He just plays at one pace. Isiah is different, he plays different in the 1st compared to the 4th. In the 4th Isiah is willing to unleash his willpower and put the team on his back and win the game. Stockton did not have the assertiveness that Isiah possessed which was why Stockton was inferior.

I have said this several times and i will say it again. What year should the Jazz have won the title?

*crickets*

This was my original post.....

Isiah's Pistons had more depth than Stockton's Jazz but Stockton got to play with a better player and dished his passes to one of the best finishers of all-time.

If you ask me, switch Isiah with Stockton and the Pistons would have never won a title in '89 and '90 and if you switch Stockton with Isiah the Jazz wouldn't necessarily win a title but they would have a better chance of winning a title in my opinion.

[Sarcastic]

You've got it backwards. Stockton would have been perfect on the Pistons because they had other guys who could score. They didn't need a PG forcing up bad shots.

Give Stockton a team of Dumars, Rodman, Aquirre, Mahorn, Salley, Lambier, Vinny J and Edwards and he would have had a field day. He never had a team even close to that.

I have said this several times and i will say it again. What year should the Jazz have won the title?

*crickets*

I don't think you know saw the Bad Boy Pistons play if you think they had other guys who could score. That team was straight defense, and constantly looked to Isiah to score when they needed a bucket.

Check their head 2 head numbers. Isiah shits on Stockton.

[tontoz]

The Jazz team in 89/90 only had one guy other than Stockton and Malone that averaged double figures and that was Thurl Bialey.

Thurl was a big man who shot only 48% and got only 5 rebounds per game.

Darrel Griffin, Blue Edwards, Mark Eaton (5 pts 7 rebounds lol), Bob Hanson, Mike Brown.

you think that team would win a title with Isiah? Stockton averaged 17/14 that year shooting 51% from the field, 41% from 3.

Please lay off the crack pipe.

[tontoz]

I don't think you know saw the Bad Boy Pistons play if you think they had other guys who could score. That team was straight defense, and constantly looked to Isiah to score when they needed a bucket.

Check their head 2 head numbers. Isiah shits on Stockton.

It wasn't a question of the other guys looking to Isiah. It was Isiah looking for himself.

They had Mark Aguirre and Vinnie Johnson coming in off the bench. Aquire had averaged 29 ppg not long before joining the Pistons. Before Aquire they had Dantley. They also had Laimbeer, Dumars and Edwards. They had plenty of guys who could score.

Obviously they had a lot tougher defense than the Jazz did even though Stockton was a better defender than Isiah.

[tontoz]

When the Pistons won the title in 89-90 they had 5 guys averaging double figures and that doesn't even include the Microwaves 9.8 ppg.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DET/1990.html

During that season Isiah averaged only 1.3 more ppg than Stockton while his TS% was 12% worse.

[joshwake]

I can't even read any more posts in this thread it is so pathetic.

[MastahX]

i think you put it best. stockton was never a player you feared. he's only ever scored over 30 points something like 8 times in his career.
he could never really take over a game.

deron, rose, cp3, nash are all easily better players than him.

he was great at getting the ball into the post, best ever. though he wasn't some awesome player people make him out to be.

Stockton was feared because he stole the ball so much. Look it up on youtube - the glove had an interview and said stockton was the player he hated to play against the most.

[MastahX]

Stockton is way under-rated here in the forums. Mainly because most people on here didn't watch basketball in the 80's and 90's and are clueless on how good the sport used to be.

Here is video of Gary Payton talking about his TOUGHEST matchup. More so than any other player.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-cG7uUBYxo

[JellyBean]

To me, he was underrated, mainly because he played out West and with the boring Jazz (no offense Jazz fans). In the late 80s up until the mid 90s, other than Zeke and Magic, who did folks really talk about at the Point? John got lost among: Derek Harper, Kenny Smith, Mark Jackson, Kevin Johnson, people like that. John, because of his style of play, team that he played on, the location of the team, and the fact that Jazz never really made much noise when they were in the playoffs...until later, got overshadowed by other points and that dude from Chicago that wore #23.

[RobertdeMeijer]

The (advanced) statistics on Basketball Reference are exactly what I saw following Stockton's career. They're very impressive.

I find Stockton quite underrated. If you keep an eye on him during games, you'll see his nasties and how few mistakes he made.

I'll admit that he underperformed during the playoffs though.