John Stockton | Salt City Hoops

Well. That didn’t go so well. I guess after five games you just get used to your team wining. Unfortunately for the Jazz, the Thunder came in with a hefty chip on their shoulder. Apparently they didn’t appreciate being embarrassed on their home floor a few weeks ago, and they stormed into Salt Lake to return the favor. I sat on my couch for about 20 minutes after the game wondering what went wrong… I’m certainly not one to panic, especially after a well fought loss to a good Western Conference team, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t disappointed. Here are some of my morning-after thoughts:

I love Kevin Durant. He seems like a good person, and he’s got the silkiest shot, but when the Jazz play him all I can think is that “this must be what it was like for opposing fans to watch John Stockton.” He just plays so… well, so dirty. He was drawing players into the backcourt at full speed, only to cut back & slam into them (CJ), he was baiting refs into ugly calls, he throws elbows, and he actually threw a leg out to trip another player (AK). It was borderline unwatchable. To an OKC fan, these are all veteran moves, but to an opposing fan (like me) it just comes across as dirty.
The Jazz’ victory against the Bobcats was largely attributable to Charlotte’s horrible free throw shooting (17-24). Conversely, this game against the Thunder was lost (for the Jazz) at the free throw line. You’re not going to beat a good Thunder team by putting them at the line for 34 freebies… especially when OKC hits 33 of those 34 shots.
I’m really not one to complain about refs. I firmly believe that if you lose consistently as a result of the refs, then you don’t deserves the wins. Good teams win in spite of the refs. That being said, the refs didn’t do the Jazz any favors last night. The Jazz played well in the first half, but they let the Thunder overtake them in the second, and between the inability of the Jazz to execute their offense, make key stops, or get any reasonable calls, they could never get over the hump.
Playing in the Western Conference is insanely brutal. Spurs, OKC, Lakers, Portland, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, New Orleans, Golden State… even the Clippers are tough. There are no nights off. It’s awesome from a fan perspective, but it’s brutal out there for the players. The team can’t overlook ANYONE.
The Jazz missed Raja on defense. The rotations looked painfully slow at times, which gave the Thunder a lot of open looks at the perimeter. People recognize him as a defensive stopper, but his mere presence on the floor tightens up the entire ship. I know there’s been some complaints about his offensive production thus far, but I think most fans collectively underestimate how important his presence is on the defensive side of things.
CJ is killing me. One game he’s a rainmaker, and the next he’s airballing 3′s. In the OKC game, he was dropping fade-away teardrops and putting up huge 19 footers, all while making heady vet moves. He’s an essential part of the second unit’s success. The team largely lives and dies by how CJ plays, and that’s terrifying given his volatility
Ibaka was amazing tonight, and the Jazz didn’t have the defensive presence to handle him (I can’t believe I just wrote that). The team paid dearly for their lazy D, and it came in the form of Ibaka.
Offensive production was weak from some of the key Jazz scoring options. Jefferson only hit a measly 5-14. The team can’t expect to beat good teams when their power pieces aren’t scoring.
Earl Watson looked really, really good. I was excited to see how aggressive he was on offense, and how well he distributed the ball. I’m a Ronnie Price fan. I love his athleticism and heart, but I LOVE having a backup PG that I can trust. I’m starting to feel that way about Watson.
During the Eastern Conference road trip, the Jazz played dangerously well down the stretch… so what was that last possession all about? Deron dribbled around mindlessly, hucked it to AK, who tossed up a crappy behind the head layup… I just sat in shock and confusion. Why such a stupid play to end it? Especially when they could have gotten a quick shot off and gotten the ball back one more time?
OKC shot 71.4% in the third quarter. Yep. That stat happened.
During the preseason I estimated that the Jazz would not be firing on all cylinders until mid December. I’m sticking with that, and during these early losses I have to remind myself NOT to get impatient. The Jazz will be fine… they’re still finding themselves and they’ve shown flashes of who they will become. The upside of this team is tremendous. I don’t remember the last time I felt like that.
Bottom line? This game was a major let down. The team went on a massive Eastern Conference road trip where they played two back to backs and four great teams. They had four emotional wins, Deron was named Western Conference Player of the Week, and they came home on a mental high. Unfortunately, those types of trips can be dangerous, and create a false sense of security. Anytime a team is on that kind of high, it seems to overlook important aspects of the next game (in this case, defense). Tough loss, but it really just wasn’t the Jazz’ night.

John Stockton wasn’t much of a self promoter. Many of you might not agree with a lot of what I write in this article, but hopefully every single reader can agree with that first statement. It isn’t like you saw any “Republicans buy sneakers too” quotes from Stockton. There were no “Be Like John” add campaigns. John Stockton never referred to himself in 3rd person a la Rickey Henderson. Because of that he can be overlooked at times. That’s a shame since I consider him to be the most valuable basketball player in NBA history.

The key to this statement is that I am not writing that Stockton is the best player of all time (even a biased Jazz fan would have a hard time making that argument). I want to focus on the word value. How do I describe value in how it relates to an NBA player?

Contributions
$$$ cost
Impact on team chemistry
Intangibles

Someone like Michael Jordan (conventional wisdom’s pick for greatest of all time) would score extremely high marks on contributions, but he also was very well compensated. Since both were drafted in the same year it is easy to compare their salaries over the years. In fact if you look at Salary divided by Win Score then you will get an estimate of how much each team paid for each win the player the produced. Let’s call this new stat Cost Of A Win. Let’s compare Jordan and Stockton:

1984-1993: This would be the best apples to apples comparison since there were no retirements or anything that would mess up the analysis. Jordan COW = *$90K. Stockton’s COW = $72K

*The way that you read this stat is that the Chicago Bulls effectively paid $90K for each win that Jordan contributed to the team from 1984-1993. The Utah Jazz only paid $72K for each win Stockton contributed. It is of a better value for the COW to be low.

1995-1998: This was after Jordan’s first retirement and both perennial All Stars had larger contracts. Stockton made $4.6M a year and Jordan made $22.3M a year. What was the result in terms of COW? Stockton’s COW jumped to $400K. Jordan’s COW jumped to $1.2M!
Career: This is not the best apples to apples comparison since there were large gaps in between Jordan’s career since he retired twice. However, the overall COW for Jordan was $421K compared to Stockton’s $321K.

Now it would take close to forever to look up everyone, but I did check a few of Stockton’s 1984 draft counterparts. The #1 pick from that draft Hakeem Olajuwon’s career COW of $657K was higher than both Jordan and Stockton. The 5th pick of the draft, Charles Barkley has a bit of a more interesting case as it relates to Stockton. From 1985 to 2000 (according to basketball-reference’s salaries) John Stockton made $40.8M, while Charles Barkley made $40.3M. If Stockton had retired the same year as Barkley then they would have played in the same amount of seasons. At the time Stockton would have made $40.8M for 177.1 wins, while Barkely would have made $40.3M for 177.2 wins. For two such dissimilar players and personalities the total salaries and win score are very, very close. However, Stockton played three more years and produced the equivalent of 30 more wins. Barkley spent that time getting ready for his career with TNT.

It is clear that Stockton was a valuable player, but a quick look at his stats on basketball-reference.com confirms that assumption. A summary of some of the ones I like:

Assists-#1 by 5,576 assists. There are many things you can do with his amazing total numbers of 15,806 assists. The difference in assists between Stockton and Jason Kidd produces enough assists to rank an individual 37th all time. Right behind Michael Jordan & Allen Iverson, and right above Hall of Fame point guard Dennis Johnson. Again that is the difference between Stockton and the #2 player in all time assists.
Assists (continued) – He is also #1 in assists percentage at 50.2%. He led the league in assist percentage for 15 seasons including his last season at the age of 40.
Steals - #1 by 751 steals.
Win Shares – 207.7, which is 5th all time behind Kareem, Wilt, Malone and Jordan.
True Shooting Percentage- 9th
Minutes/Games played – 6th and 3rd respectively.

I think I have sufficiently covered the contributions and the cost aspect of Stockton’s career. However, I think there are things that can’t be covered with numbers (I know this might be shocking to those who are evenly slightly aware of my writing style). I think there is a certain unquantifiable value in a player who comes to play every day (Stockton played in 98.5% of the Jazz games from 1984-2003), without an attitude and just goes about his business. It is hard to imagine another player ever being like John Stockton. There was no ego, no controversy, no decline in play and nothing that ever distracted the Jazz from winning basketball games. Also, there were no retirements, no hitting his teammates and nothing but year after year greatness.

Because of that I think Stockton is the most valuable player in NBA history.

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