Stockton was so much better than Thomas that it's laughable.

FG%
Stockton - .515
Thomas - .452

3FG%
Stockton - .384
Thomas - .290

FT%
Stockton - .826
Thomas - .759

TURNOVERS per 36 MINUTES
Thomas - 3.7
Stockton - 3.2

REBOUNDS per 36 MINUTES
Stockton - 3.1
Thomas - 3.5

ASSISTS per 36 MINUTES
Stockton - 11.9
Thomas - 9.2

STEALS per 36 MINUTES
Stockton - 2.5
Thomas - 1.9

POINTS per 36 MINUTES
Stockton - 14.9
Thomas - 19.1

FGA per 36 MINUTES
Stockton - 10.3
Thomas - 16.1

Thomas was a little better rebounder. He scored 4.2 points more per 36 minutes, but took 63% more shots per minute to do it. And also turned the ball over more often, and dished out 23% fewer assists.

Do you want a guy taking threes when he shoots 29% from three?

Not only was Stockton much better per minute, but he was able to keep that up and play about 35% more minutes in his career than Thomas did.

CAREER MINUTES
Stockton - 47764
Thomas - 35516

As for defense, Stockton was 2nd team all defense 5 times. Thomas never made all defense at all.

WHY would ANYBODY see Thomas as better?

Are you serious? I take it you have no problem with offensive and defensive rating for teams? Turnover percentage uses field goal attemps and FT attempts as a proxy for how often a player possess the ball and then estimates how many possessions end in a turnover. This is very useful because as you've always said a possession ends in either a FG attmept or a turnover. This estimate makes turnovers more useful. If I turn the ball over 2 times a game but barely handle the ball I'm worse than a guy who turns it over 5 per game but always has the ball in his hands. Another way of looking at it is how many times do you turn the ball over verses how often you create a shot. I don't really like basketball references methodology as much because it ignores assists (which are plays made by you that lead to a made field goal for the team) but their methodology does provide a more useful fact that TO per 36 minutes which doesn't account for how much you hold the ball.

Or FT attempts......Please try to pay attention.

2-0

Counterpoint?

I laughed: http://www.theonion.com/articles/heatthunder,28517/

All that means is that Thomas would come downcouirt and immediately jock up a shot a few times a game while Stockton would almost always initiate the offense. Stockton ALWAYS had the ball.

I don't need estimates when I know exactly how many turnovers each player had and exactly how many minutes each player played. Thomas committed 16% more turnovers per minute.

You realize I included FT attempts in my explanation. You are the most intellectually dishonest debator I've ever met.

And that's irrelevant. What's funny to me is that your general tenor here assumes a turnover can only be committed by a pass.

How did I do that?

A turnover can be commited many ways. But if you come up court and shoot right away rather than set up your offense you get a FGA and that counts toawrds this stupid turnover% stat. Meanwhile if Stockton sets up the offense and has the ball for 13 seconds and then passes it to someone who misses a shot, he does not get anything that will lower his "turnover %."

So Thomas has the ball for 5 seconds and shoots, Stockton has the ball for 13 seconds and passes, but turnover% awards Thomas.

All that matters is that Thomas commits 16% more turnovers per minute than Stockton. Turnover% is irellevant here. Both players play the same position and if anything, Stockton handled the ball for more time in a game than Thomas did. The Pistons would many times run plays for Thomas, with Dumars or somebody handling the ball. The Jazz rarely ever ran a play for Stockton. They ran plays for their 2 guard, Hornacek or Malone.

So I take it you won't be using Winshares anymore? And I thought you weren't for using visual context when you have numbers. In any case you're making the assumption that all of those shots by Isiah were bad shots (and of course I'm relying on your no doubt excellent anecdotal opinion) and were always jacked up quick and that somehow this provided a declining value. And just FYI I strongly doubt your assessment of the two players (given how invested you are in your biases) because for all but three years of their contemporaneous timeline Isiah's teams played at a slower pace (often significantly slower) than Stockton's Jazz. And remember pace factor as calculated excludes offensive rebounds as a separate possession so you can go ahead and remove that from an explanation for why. Now this isn't to say Stockton was a chucker (he clearly wasn't) just that your characterization of what Isiah did is almost certainly innaccurate. Both teams had quite measured paces. And Isiah taking 16 shots per game isn't a crazy number. If you want to think of it this way the number of Detroit possessions that ended in a turnover when Isiah touched the ball is fewer than the number when Stockton touched the ball. By a significant amount.

I happen to think Stockton is a greater and better player for some other reasons you identify but I don't have your strong committment to use figures you don't even really agree with or understand the methodology for to support your point.

Horseshit.

I just showed you how turnover% is fatally flawed. Stockton touches the ball for 15 seconds and passes to a player who misses a shit, Stockton does not get a possession, while Thomas touches the ball for 5 seconds, misses a shot, and he does get a possession.

So each player had zero turnovers but Thomas appears to the formula to have handled the ball while Stockton doesn't.




I saw both players for their entire careers. In 36 minutes of game time Stockton would have the ball for considerably more time than Thomas would. Not only would he commit fewer turnovers per minute of plaing time, he woud easily commit even fewer turnovers per minutes that he had the ball.

Even at their peaks Stockton was easily better than Thomas, and he played at a high level for much longer too.

Oh really so you watched every game they played? A majority of the games played? I guess you must have not done too much watching of other NBA players. Do you realize you just made an argument less than a week ago how you can't say this type of stuff because people don't watch enough games. My pace factor analysis leads me to believe that you're full of shit about Thomas' style and Stockton's style. But if you want to use subjective data then clearly Stockton's assist totals are helped by playing with Karl Malone who is approximately 2 times better than any player Thomas played with (especially in regards to helping teammates pick up assists). The reason TO% exists is that some stathead did a study that demonstrated that the figure for possessions strongly correlates with actual possessions. Now clearly Stockton handled the ball a lot so perhaps the statistic is flawed for him. However, the only way you'd really know it was flawed is if you tracked passes from each player that ended up as neither assists nor turnovers. Basically you'd track for each basketball play made how often it leads to a turnover.

Your insistance on turnovers per 36 minutes with the reasoning of "just cuz" is not particularly persuasive.

Disgracefully officiated game in which the Thunder shot terribly in the first half and played about as bad as possible and Miami only won by 4. They're going to lose.

either way, the winner is definitely gonna lose to San Antonio. nobody can beat them.



(... oh wait)

Doyle Brunson lost 9.9K on prop bets tonight.

He had....

Doyle Brunson
I have James-1 pt vs Durant. I have Wade plus 1 1/2 vs Westbrook. Bosh plus 3 pts vs Harden. Chalmers even aganist Sephalous. 2K per point, action