Who else is sick with the Great Hype surrounding Andrew “Bust”num?

If you’ve ever wandered onto an LA Lakers blog, message board, or listened to a nationally broadcasted game by Mike “Fellatio for the Lakers 24/7” Tirico then you’ll know, with complete certainty, that Andrew Bynum is one of the best centers in the league, and will without giving any prior notice, become the next best center in the league and join the pantheon of great bigmen. He will rightfully sit alongside Wilt, Russell and Kareem while using Ewing, Robinson and O’Neal as foot rests. The third footrest will be necessary because of how great and grand his male organ must be – as he has been photographed at the Playboy mansion (who cares) and is curiously linked to Rihanna right now. (who? exactly.)

As impressive as his potential appears, and as great as his off-court life may or may not be (I’d rather hang out at the Acharya mansion any day of the week) – I’m less than impressed with him as a player. I’m even less impressed when I actually look at his accomplishments as a player in the playoffs (aka. when it counts). Furthermore, I’m pretty much sick to death by the hype that he has received from casual fans, homer fans, and the media alike. Now, this isn’t meant to trash the hopes of the future of the Lakers at all – I strive to temper the expectations of him a little bit. For his sake, and ours.

My brother is the most rational Lakers fan I know, he is passionate, but not completely under the spell that countless others are on the internet. He’s more concerned with consistent play, rebounding and solid defense from all of the Lakers and does not have the time to worry about if Bynum is going to be the next Kareem – he’s worried about right now. If I was a Lakers fan I wouldn’t be worried about right now – you guys will trounce Denver on your way to the NBA Finals (where anything can happen). I would, on the other hand, be worried about the past – specifically Bynum’s past.

He’s 21 years old right now and was drafted as a 17 year old. What do we know about him that should really count? How about the fact that he had an injury ruined high school career (leg/knee injury), and in the NBA has had two more leg/knee injuries in his young career. He’s tall, but not nearly as super athletic and fit as freaks like Dwight Howard or Amare Stoudemire are – I don’t expect him to be physically made of the same stuff as those guys are. When you get over 7 feet tall, any injuries to your lower body seriously limit how reliable you can be, regardless of how much work one may put on their upper bodies. (You’re only as strong as your base is – look at Yao Ming, who has just a storied lower body injury history as Bynum, he misses lots of games every year, and is never 100% due to the strain his body puts on his lower body) Amare had two career ending (had this been the 80’s/90’s) knee injuries, but has come back due to a great work ethic. Bynum puts women on his shoulders during rehab. I wouldn’t be making a huge leap by suggesting that Bynum may have a career that features a number of injuries to his lower body, not unlike Yao Ming – as opposed to being virtual injury free like Dwight Howard. But I have no crystal ball, I’m just going on the fact that he’s a big guy with a history of lower body injuries who was injury prone as a teen and only looks to put an increasingly large strain on those same joints as his ages and increases mass.

That’s not very empirical though, it’s just an assumed health arc based on his body type, job, apparent work ethic, how healthy other big guys his size have been and medical history. What is empirical, on the other hand, is to dig deep and look at stats. I love stats. Stats are flawed, as I’ve explained on this blog before, but they still give a pretty good indication of on court production. (After all, that’s what counts, points, rebounds, blocks, assists, steals, turn overs and fouls, right?)

After this last game against the Houston Rockets the total number of playoff games that Bynum has participated in stands at 18. These 18 games have taken him from 2005-2006 till now to amass. In that time he has been brought along slowly – thanks to the fact that he doesn’t need to be useful when he’s so far down the pecking order behind at least 4 other guys. That said, his production does not appear to be indicative of him joining the pantheon of great bigmen any decade soon. I want to look at his stats in the playoffs and see the promise that appears to be there (and only appears in regular season games against bad teams sandwiched between injuries). As a point of reference I looked at Patrick Ewing’s first 19 games (why not 18? wanted to complete that one series to make it an even number of playoff off series for the two) in the playoffs. Ewing was a great center, but never will he be called the best of his generation, and thus, not up for entry into the pantheon of greatest bigmen ever (though the media has already reserved a spot there for Bynum).

Bynum’s first 18 Playoff games, and how they stack up:

Ewing creams Bynum statistically. And Ewing played in a time where big guys weren’t bailed out with foul shots, and played against much better competition. Bynum played against the Phoenix Suns, twice anchored in the paint by Frenchman Boris Diaw; the injury depleted Utah Jazz that was forced to start Jarron Collins; and the Houston Rockets, who during the course of the series, lost Yao Ming to injury a little more than 2 games in – and had to turn to a rotation of Chuck Hayes, Carl Landry and Luis Scola to battle LA’s 7 footers. Bynum gets killed – just look at the stats.

Alas, he is immune to any criticism for a great rebuttal exists: Ewing had much more experience from being a guy who actually went to college, won a National Title; and also played in the NBA for a few seasons before making the playoffs. All this is true, but nothing prevented Bynum from going to college himself – if he was really interested in experience. That said, I also took a chance to look at another young bigman, and saw how he faced the NBA pressure. David Robinson did manage to make the playoffs as a rookie (he led his team there, unlike Bynum who did his best to stay out of Kobe’s way). David Robinson is far from my favorite player in the world – but he also creams Bynum’s numbers when you take out experience and look just at Bynum’s FIRST FOUR SEASONS against David’s ROOKIE season.

Let’s not forget that David had to go to war against Joe Barry Carroll and the plethora of tough guys in the paint that Portland sported back when David was a rookie. Bynum, with 4 years of experience in the NBA, has yet to face anything like that in the NBA playoffs – and his numbers are completely pathetic.

Ewing: 22.1 ppg, 10.9 rpg, 2.37 bpg

Robinson: 24.4 ppg, 12.00 rpg, 4.00 bpg

Bynum: 4.83 ppg, 3.78 rpg, 0.67 bpg

Obviously the data is heavily skewed against poor, young Bynum. His first few playoff sorties were short and he was inexperienced. Obviously the stats are going to go against him when you include some of his early games. The Bynum of today is a beast though! Look at Bynum’s numbers from just his 4th season in the playoffs against other greats and you’ll see! You’ll all see!

Okay, let’s do that then.

Bynum’s Playoff stats from his 4th season, and how those stats stack up:

Bynum’s numbers improve very slightly, he ups his ppg from 4.83 to 5.58, his free throw percentage from 62.96% to 76.47% and he swats almost 0.2 more blocks per game. Still not impressed. He’s a far cry from, let’s just randomly say, Hakeem Olajuwon. In the Dream’s 4th NBA season he happened to tear the NBA playoff’s a new one with his scoring -- 37.5 ppg (57.14 fg%, 88.37 ft%); rebounding – 16.75 rpg; and all around game – 2.75 bpg, 1.75 apg, 2.25 spg.

Not only did Hakeem obliterate Bynum’s pitiful offensive output by a magnitude nearing 7x, but absolutely owned him all over the boxscore. He also did it against much tougher competition as well.

Heck, Bynum is so far from being impressive that Greg Ostertag’s fourth year playoff stats could (and do) give Bynum’s fourth year playoff stats a run for their money. It’s horrible to say, but really Lakers fans (and media, or is that redundant?) – take a look and weep.

Bynum is a much better offensive player than Ostertag (is this even saying anything?), but Ostertag owns Bynum when it comes to rebounds and blocks. Greg even managed to out-assist Bynum and made less mistakes (as seen in less turn overs and fouls per game).

What’s worse, the fact that Bynum just got his lunch handed to him by Ostertag; or the fact that Ostertag was doing this against super duper vets and talented players like Vlade, Arvydas, Dale Davis and Rasheed (when Ostertag was a 4th year player) – and looking better than media adored Bynum going up against Chuck Hayes and the guy who was behind Ostertag on the depth chart?

Furthermore, Bynum’s had 5 scoreless games in the playoffs, out of 18. And he’s scored less than 5 points 11 times out of 18. Ouch.

Take a look at Hakeem’s 37.5 ppg average again. Ouch.

Of course, there HAS to be a rebuttal for this . . . no way can Bynum been so far behind Hakeem at the same stage of NBA experience, and yet so close to NBA laughingstock Greg Ostertag . . . right?  . . . .right? Don’t worry Lakers fans, of course there is . . . forget about NBA experience, that’s a flawed concept. Let’s not forget that Hakeem and Greg both played college ball (like Ewing and Robinson did) . . . Bynum didn’t play college. Look at how young he is! He’s only 21! Surely when you take that into account it makes up for 32 ppg (in the case of Hakeem), or nearly a block and a half (in the case of Ostertag)!!!

Okay, let’s take at a look at that. Try me.

Bynum’s Playoff stats as a 21 year old, and how those stats stack up against another 21 year old:

Bynum is a very brittle 21 year old who doesn’t have to do anything, and his team makes it to the NBA Finals. I’m not lying, the Lakers did that last season. That said, Bynum is a force of nature, and the future of the center position in the NBA. His 21 year old production is unrivaled. Right? Wrong. Take a look at this guy, and what he did in the playoffs at the tender age of 21 (his 2nd season in the L, not his 4th like Bynum). I just have one hyphenated word to describe this: Shaq-Attaq.

A lot of the same Lakers fans who champion Bynum marginalize how great Shaq was. I can clearly see why Kobe went out of his way to suggest that Bynum needed to be traded – because Kobe knew how good Shaq was. The difference between the two is quite telling when you look at these two centers at the age of 21, Bynum in his 4th season and Shaq in his 2nd.

The difference between the two was almost 15 points, 10 rebounds and over 2 blocks and almost 2 assists . . . in favor of the 2nd year player.

That’s a huge difference.

The difference between being called one of the best bigmen of all time, and being called a bust.

Bynum was a lotto pick man, and aside from his inspired dirty play in injuring two guys this season, and being afraid of Fesenko in the paint, he’s done nothing to earn the high praise that’s heaped on him. And he’s done nothing to make me feel like giving him any props.

His current playoff run isn’t over yet, and he’s got one, most likely two more playoff series to make his 2008-2009 playoffs slightly more memorable than his complete no-show in the 2007-2008 playoffs.

I’m taking it easy on Bynum here by comparing him to guys that he may yet one-day reach . . . even if it doesn’t seem like it. I could really try to down him if I wanted by comparing him to his contemporaries who are out-playing him right now. For example take Dwight Howard -- in his first 14 playoff games: 17.86 ppg (57.23 fg%, 51.72 ft%), 15.5 rpg, 2.71 bpg, 1.14 apg, 0.714 spg . . . those numbers are way better than Bynum’s. Also better are Dwight’s numbers as a 21 year old and Dwight’s numbers in his 4th NBA season.

If I really wanted to be a dick I’d mention that Dwight also has 3 less leg injuries. I’m not a dick though, so I’m not going to mention that.

 

 

What did we learn?

What did we learn? Well, for starters we learned that Andrew Bynum’s playoff performances leave much to be desired. His first 18 games in the playoffs pales in comparison to Ewing’s numbers over the same situations – and Ewing played against much better defensive clubs like Michael’s Bulls and the Bad Boy Pistons. We learned that David Robinson’s rookie season playoff numbers invalidates the argument that Bynum’s rookie numbers shouldn’t count. We also learned that Hakeem’s numbers as a fourth year player completely eclipse Bynum’s as a 4th year player. I didn’t even have to look up 2nd tier NBA centers like Rik Smits at all after I found out that at the same level of NBA experience that Greg Ostertag’s playoff performance was a wash with that of Bynum’s. Lastly, we learned that Bynum can’t even hide behind his age as an excuse for how poor his performances have been – as Shaq as a 21 year old eats Bynum up. Ultimately, we learned that it’s a bit too premature to call Bynum anything other than a bust at this stage. He’s much closer to Ostertag, albeit one who rebounds and blocks less, and fouls and turns the ball over more, than he is to being one of the greatest bigmen of all time – let alone in his own generation.

After all, Dwight’s numbers at each break down (first x number of games, 4th NBA season, and at age 21) are vastly superior to Bynum’s. Oh yeah, also Bynum has a history of injury problems to the same parts of his body and young guys who sustain so many injuries in short succession tend to have injury plagued careers. Yeah, I wasn’t supposed to mention that again . . . I guess I am a dick after all.

Bynum doesn’t deserve his hype until he does something. Something other than sucking when it counts, that is.

If you liked the stat breakdown, and would like a full version at full resolution, click on the image below. I dunno, maybe you are just into making Bynum look silly . . . or want a stat heavy window’s desktop wallpaper . . . or both? Go nuts!

New Poll: What will happen first?

What will happen first?

• Jerry Sloan will win his 1000th game with the Utah Jazz
• Deron Williams will return to the court
• CJ Miles will return to the bench
• Mehmet Okur will stop averaging a double double (11 ppg, 10 rpg) and start hitting threes (zero threes out of 4 tries)
• Ronnie Brewer will make a total of 5 three pointers made (so far 1-2 on the season)

Things to look for this season: Ronnie Price

There are many ways to start this off, and I will receive some level of criticism for what I'm about to say, but here it is: Ronnie Price looks like a goat to me. Maybe a baby goat. I don't know, maybe a cartoon goat. Or perhaps a ram, but without the horns. Tell me you don't see it, too!
	Ronnie Price	A happy smiling goat

Maybe it's just the facial hair . . .

Okay, before the nice men in the white coats come to take my Internet privileges away from me let me get to the serious stuff. First off, congratulations to Ronnie for getting married this off-season, I don't know who you got married to, so I can't 'tag' her. (Like I have with other Jazz player's wives so far: CeCe Boozer, Masha Kirilenko nee Lopatov, Yeliz Okur, etc) The first big thing to consider for this season (in terms of Ronnie Price) is that he's in a contract year. Much has already been made about the number of expiring contracts (or potentially expiring ones) this season (6, at my last count). The big names are Boozer and Okur, I don't know if both will opt out or not, but odds are that Boozer will. Millsap's rookie deal expires this year as well -- and what happens with Booz will really determine what happens with Millsap to some extent. Jarron Collins' contract expires as well, and depending on how well Kosta and Kyrylo develop this season Jarron could hopefully be gone. The last two guys are, because the universe likes co-incidences, Brevin Knight and Ronnie Price.

If you haven't been following Ronnie Price's career, this is pretty much his own version of Sisyphus' challenge. His entire career he's had to make a living by beating other guys out for playing time. He did it two years ago in Sacramento (beating Jason Hart out). He did it last year in Utah (again beating Jason Hart out). And he's basically going to have to do it a 3rd year in a row, having to attempt to beat out Jason Hart the guy they traded Jason Hart for (Brevin Knight). Brevin also being in a contract year makes this even 'better', in terms of entertainment value. They are in direct competition with each other for this season -- and the next ones too! The only way to make things a little bit harder for Price would be if his coach decides 'just for fun' (in that exaggerated East Indian accent that Russell Peters has sometimes) to stop playing him at point guard -- and have him fight for playing time against 4 shooting guards (Brewer, Korver, Miles and Almond). Sounds dumb, right? Sounds even better from Jerry's own mouth [Interview, around the 1:54 to 4:13 mark, via 1320 KFAN]. For the record though, he does compliment Price as well during that answer, and suggests that his versatility allows him to play alongside Knight for a really small, quick line-up.

Basically, then, all Ronnie Price has to do is beat out Knight, and his future here in Utah will be secure, well it should be, right Mo Williams? Price has some advantages though, as he's been here last season, won the job, and played in every playoff game. Furthermore, he's a popular guy (in that younger crew with Millsap, Brewer and Miles) and the Jazz went 43-18 in games that he played in. That's winning 70.5 % of those games -- good enough for a 58 win season over 82 games. Here are three things to look out for this season from Ronnie Price:

1. Hustle every minute on the floor: Deron Williams plays so much point guard that there is very little time remaining for the other guys. There's going to be 8-12 minutes per game available by my estimation, and that's not nearly enough to play all three guys every game. What Price will do is hustle and play very hard in whatever time he has. Brevin Knight isn't going to jump up there and slam down alley-oops, or run back and block guys on fast breaks. Those are the types of plays that'll help get Price another contract with the Jazz -- especially if he plays within the offense and runs the team well.
2. Be available (and healthy) to play in 80+ games: Knight gets injured every year. He's never played over 80 games and whatever slim window of playing time exists has to be maximized by Price. Price needs to be available every game to go in and give Deron a breather. Especially in the cases where Knight is going to be injured and unavailable to play. It sounds simple, but it makes sense. One easy way to distinguish himself from his competition is be healthy. Coach is going to go with the guys on the roster who can play. Sometimes it doesn't have to be complicated. Knight averages 59 games played a season over his career. There is a window of opportunity for Price here, even if it's not wide open.
3. Eventually beat out Brevin Knight: I'm going to come out and say it -- there are going to be some situations all year where one of the two guys is going to get to play, and the other guy will sit. There will be situations where one guy is favored to play over the other (match-ups, etc). Also, there could be some times on the court where they both play at the same time. Out of all of those situations I think that the veteran leadership of Brevin Knight is going to be a stabilizing force for our team. I just can't bet against Ronnie Price. He's a smaller, scrappy guard who has three point range and has been in this situation before. Knight is smaller, scrappier, and much better than Jason Hart (the guy Price used to beat out each of those previous times), but I think Price has more fight in him. If Knight gets decked by Turiaf I see him on the floor for a while. Price got decked and was ready to fight. It's probably this fight that's going to win him the job sometime after the All-Star Break.

If he doesn't win, I'm sure he'll stick around next year as well, providing he doesn't ask for the bank to be broken for him. So we'll see his smiling goat face for seasons to come! Ronnie: "That's right Kyle, you know what I'm thinking . . . time to double team the ball handler . . . "

New Poll: Aside from the Title, what's the most important goal for this season?

We all want the Jazz to win the title this season -- and it's not out of the question either -- but what secondary goal is the most important to the team?

• Secure home court for first round of the playoffs -- the last few playoffs we've been starting on the road, even though we've won our division. Home court, even if it's for just the first round, can be a huge advantage for the Jazz.
• Win the North West division title -- winning the division title for the 3rd season in a row is the most important of these secondary goals.
• Play better defense -- if the Jazz player better defense winning will take care of itself
• Win more Road Games -- the Jazz lost on the road to a lot of bad teams last season, winning those games means the difference between 5th seed and 1st seed
• Win more games in a blowout -- more blowout wins will mean more rest for our workhorses and more actual game time for our developing prospects
• Continue to Dominate opposing teams at home -- As long as the Jazz keep winning 34+ games at home everything else will not matter
• Individual Player Awards -- Players need to be recognized as All-Stars or All NBA team members, that will allow them better calls from the refs, and that makes all the difference in the playoffs when it comes to fouls (right Kobe?)

YouTube Tuesdays! The man they call Mobe

As far as roster depth at SG goes, it's not like the Jazz brass are in a bad spot. Sure, there's no Superstar playing SG in our offense, but it's not like our offense is built around a Superstar Guard who takes a lot of shots either. Do any of the Jazz guards have what it takes to be a superstar? Probably not, but out of what they currently have, you can clearly see that at least ONE of them may one day be an NBA All-Star. Having to divvy up 48 minutes between three point ace Kyle Korver, super athletic Ronnie Brewer, a 4th year player who is only 21 (C.J. Miles) and the Impact player of the year in the NBA-DL (Morris Almond) isn't as bad as having to split that same amount of time between Greg Ostertag, John Amaechi, Curtis Borchardt and Jarron Collins. (and yes, we almost made the playoffs with that at center) That's why I suggest that the Jazz brass are not in a bad spot, because they've been in much worse spots before.

Today we're going to see Morris Almond break the D-League scoring record, and while the length of this video does not span a large sample size of the game, we can clearly see the makings of a solid offensive player. Certainly, it's not a bad thing if the 4th guy on your shooting guard depth chart can score 50+ in a game (which Almond has demonstrated in his games of 51 and 53 points last season) in an American professional basketball league (which the D-League is). I probably look at Almond's game a lot differently than other Jazz fans who are holding out for a complete player. I don't expect him to be Ray Allen. I don't expect him to be Dell Curry either -- Almond's game somewhere in-between those two.

Morris Almond wowed fans and opposing coaches alike last season in the NBA-DL, though this season he must try to impress Jerry Sloan with the other parts of his game besides offense. Photo by NBAE/Getty Images.

As I live in Detroit I get to enjoy a lot of exposure to Pistons players (heck, Preeti (if you don't know who she is then sucks to be you) had dinner with Chauncey Billups tonight); one player that I've had a good hard look at has been Rip Hamilton. He's not the most athletic guy around, nor is he a great one on one defender. (If he was, then the Pistons wouldn't get killed by LeBron every other game) Rip isn't a complete player -- he's not going to dunk on other guys, or beat 3 guys off the dribble like Kobe does. On offense he runs other guys through the Reggie-Miller-hamster-wheel-of-death, gets open, and makes jumpers. Aren't those the only shots that SGs really get in our offense anyway?

With this information (that the only shots for SGs in our half court offense happen to be the types that Rip gets and makes) I heartily envision a spot on the floor for Almond in the future. Why? Because Morris Almond (if plugged into such a system) can perform that well. He has all of those moves already and can be just as efficient. He only looks like a chucker who never gets assists because we've only seen him play with marginally capable point guards and really bad players everywhere else. Just check out the video, and try convincing yourself that if he played with Deron Williams, Carlos Boozer and the pass-happy Andrei Kirilenko that he wouldn't be able to keep the defenses honest more than Brewer does with his broken shot.

Almond Tops Scoring Record [1:37] Uploaded by sanskrit953263 -- Earlier in the season Almond had scored 51 points, and he breaks his own (and the NBA DL's) record with this performance on January 30th, 2008. He ended up shooting 19-34 (3-7 from three, 12-14 at the FT line), and added 6 boards, 2 steals and 2 assists. He's never going to get to shoot it that much in a week of NBA action next season, but it's not like he was chucking the ball, he's the only offensive player on his team (hello triple teamed?) and he still managed to shoot 55.8 fg% on his way to 53 points !!!

The YouTube comments section is interesting to read, especially how non-Jazz fans suggest that he has some, albeit minor, Kobe-like skills with scoring the ball. (Particularly with his post up game, which is good for a guard, and as his Jazz teammates Paul Millsap and Ronnie Brewer tease, how he never passes the ball) That's basically why they named him Mobe. Looking at how smooth he plays on offense, I can easily see why the name has stuck.

Do I think he should start? No. Do I think he should get a chance to show his stuff with good players? Yes. Realistically, he is a season or two away from being a legit NBA player. Watching him in summer league I came to the conclusion that he was not learning anything new by playing with guys worse than him. For him to get better he needs to play against guys who are better than he is -- essentially, NBA players. His defense is not so hot (but he does try and has a good blocks to foul ratio, one of the better ones on the roster for sure).

But . . . is defense really a Jazz priority in the first case? We win games by out scoring them, our paint area is patrolled by our small forward and our bigmen don't play any defense. To fix our defense we'd have to break down a lot of our current structure. It's almost better to keep getting better at offense, because we sure as heck can't stop anyone from scoring. I guess this is what will only make Almond that much more important to our future -- I'm sure that he will become the best offensive player out of him, Korver, Brewer and Miles. Again, Rip Hamilton has flaws, but he can be an All-Star, I'm sure we can coax 12 ppg out of Morris Almond 2-3 seasons from now.

Adrian Dantley -- better late than never

No doubt by now we've all heard the good news -- that Adrian Dantley is now, finally, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame. In one of the great mysteries of the cosmos, he has been overlooked for this honor for quite a long time. In respect for that abnormality I am posting this article about it a few days late (in solidarity of him being in the Hall a few years late). Either that, or I've been busy lately. Anyway, it's pretty ridiculous that AD "was a finalist six times before finally getting at least 18 votes from the 24-member Honors Committee," (Steven Luhm, via the Salt Lake Tribune, 2008). It's ridiculous, but after looking over how generally insane people are with how they vote on sports, it's not far fetched. But just so everyone is up to speed on what he accomplished in his career, let's review:

* Career averages of 24.3 ppg (54.0 fg%, 8.7 FTA/Game, 81.8 ft%), 5.7 rpg, 3.0 apg, and 1.0 spg * "Glory years" between 1979-1980 season and 1985-1986 season where he averaged 28.0 ppg, 30.7 ppg, 30.3 ppg, 30.7 ppg, 30.6 ppg, 26.6 ppg and 29.8 ppg in consecutive seasons * Scored over 23,100 points in his career (23rd best all time) * Career average of 24.3 ppg (17th best all time) * Top 5 in PPG 5 different times: #3 (1979-1980), #1 (1980-1981), #3 (1981-1982), #1 (1983-1984), #2 (1985-1986) * Career average of 54.0 fg% (20th best all time) * Career True Shooting percentage of 61.7% (4th best all time) * Made 6832 free throws (6th best all time) out of 8351 takes (11th best all time) in his career * Career Offensive Rating of 119.3 (8th best all time) * NBA Rookie of the year in 1976-1977 * 6 time NBA All Star (1979-1980, 1980-1981, 1981-1982, 1983-1984, 1984-1985 and 1985-1986) * All-NBA 2nd team (1980-1981, 1983-1984) * 1976 Olympic Men's Basketball Gold Medal * NCAA AP All-American 1st team (1974-1975, 1975-1976)

Photograph: Deseret Morning News Archives

So, if you didn't already know, he was a beast. He was "The Man" for those Utah Jazz teams and bridged the gap between those early, pathetic New Orleans Jazz teams and the Stockton and Malone powerhouse Utah Jazz teams of the late 80's and beyond. More than any of his stats, Adrian Dantley brought the wins. Who was The Man on the first Utah Jazz team to win the Midwest Division title? Dantley was. [since then the Jazz have been among the leaders in Midwest and Northwest Division titles] Who was The Man on the first Utah Jazz team to make the playoffs? Dantley was. Who was The Man on the first Utah Jazz team to win a playoff series? Yeah, that's right . . . Adrian Dantley. [Pistol Pete didn't do any of those things] In his later years he did take some time to mentor younger players (this is a 3:48 minute video of his career, btw) like Karl Malone and Joe Dumars, and teach them about, among other things, hard work and discipline. For all his NBA greatness, he was under-appreciated as a player -- and his career has been overlooked for quite some time.

Back in college he was destroying people -- and averaged 28.6 ppg and 10.2 rpg in 1974-1975, and in his last season of NCAA ball he averaged 30.4 ppg and 10.1 rpg. He was named National Player of the Year in 1975-1976. He was a huge part of their program, yet when he was informed that he would finally be making the hall the news hardly caused any ripple at all back there. (In fact, they actually picked up on a news report from the Deseret Morning News for their information. Isn't he an alumni member? Don't they even care for their own?)

After being The Man on a Gold Medal winning team in the Olympics he was the NBA Rookie of the year for the Buffalo Braves. The majority of his best playing days were with the Utah Jazz -- but even they seem to share part of the blame for over looking Dantley. (A crime that not only the Hall of Fame board selection committee is guilty of...)

"It's long, long, long overdue. It's an absolute disgrace that he's had to wait this long. It's terrible. I just think it's a disgrace that it didn't happen long before," said Tom Nissalke, who was Jazz coach when then-general manager Frank Layden traded Spencer Haywood to Los Angeles for Dantley in September 1979, just a few months after the Jazz moved to Salt Lake City and before they played their first game in the old Salt Palace. (T. Nissalke, via the Deseret Morning News, 2008)

Frank Layden adds that "It's long overdue and well-deserved," (Desert Morning News, 2008) but is quick to admit that part of the reason could be because Dantley's number was not even retired by the Jazz up until two years ago. (Probably should have been the 2nd or 3rd retired Jersey, but ended up being the 8th -- and most recent -- retiree in Jazz franchise history) How's that for being overlooked?

Though the Utah contingent of Layden and Nissalke are equally quick to point out that even if Adrian never played a single game in the NBA, that he should have been in the Hall of Fame because of his ridiculously outstanding High School, Collegiate and Olympic career -- and that his status of his jersey being retired is a highly invalid reason for not voting him into the Hall of Fame earlier. (btw, his High School record is 52-7) That said, he was an invaluable part of the Utah Jazz franchise, and we are all glad that he did play in the NBA.

"He carried us, he was the franchise," recalled Mark Eaton. "He was the guy you could count on for 30 [points] every night -- the one bona fide All-Star we had." (Mark Eaton via The Salt Lake Tribune, 2008)

Eaton would know, because Dantley scored enough for the both of them in the early part of Mark's career. AD was much more than just a scorer for the Jazz. The Jazz franchise had just moved to Utah -- and were still in financial trouble. (Which is why they traded their draft rights to Dominique Wilkins to Atlanta for cash back in 1981) They even played an entire season without a location name on their jerseys because there were fears that they would quickly have to move to another city mid-season! Adrian's winning ways helped to build a fanbase in Utah -- and if it wasn't for him, perhaps the Jazz would have been playing in Oklahoma City all these years? Who knows . . . What we do know, is that Adrian Dantley is finally a member of the storied Basketball Hall of Fame.

Photographed by Scott Cunningham for NBAE/Getty Images

To that I say that: It's better late than never.

Photographed by Nathaniel S. Butler for NBAE/Getty Images

I thought they didn't know...

It really started when I was in high school. What started? "Kids" started to disrespect. Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp were winning a lot of regular season games; the love-affair with NY bred point guards (Kenny Anderson, Rod Strickland) was in full effect; even Kevin Johnson had been to the NBA finals. Some kid named Anfernee Hardaway was oozing with hybrid talent and NBA GMs were drooling over this Kidd who played NCAA ball at Cal. "Kids" I talked to didn't know their history and made up stats to support their claims.

When I was a junior in high school little freshmen would step to me in these discussion and make fun of him because he actually knew how to throw a chest pass.

You can clearly see how I would think that they didn't know . . .

Time passed on and in the wake of two Steve Nash MVP awards we have reached the end of the rookie contracts for the next-gen point gods -- the proverbial XBOX 360 and PS3 that is Chris Paul and Deron Williams. Surely, a random search would show me just how little the kids knew. I'm happy to say that I was wrong.

Maybe it is just plain dumb to defend John Stockton against the legion of TNT watching "kids" who have no scope? Maybe he doesn't need any defending? Maybe it doesn't even matter?

Perhaps.

But just because I'm thorough, and I remember once reading some people suggest that Nash was better, I feel compelled to throw a statistical smack down. [N.B. I do like Nash, after all, we are both Canadians]

 

Steve Nash is now 33. He has played in 860 games, and amassed a grand total of 6787 assists. That's a career average of 7.892 apg. That's pretty good. When John Stockton was 33 he had played in 980 games, you know, 120 more games than Nash has. Why? Nash gets hurt every season (well, every season except 01-02 and 02-03). John Stockton has missed a grand total of 22 games to injury over his career (19 seasons -- or someone who plays *on average* 80.85 out of 82 games every season). Maybe this is a tangent, but Stockton was much less injury prone. Back on track -- when Stockton was 33 he had played in 980 games and dished out 11,310 assists. You wanna know how many assists per game that is? That's 11.541 apg.

So, Steve Nash, all of 33 and having played in 12 seasons has a very respectable career apg of 7.892. In comparison, John Stockton at that same age, and having played in 12 seasons in the league, not only played in 120 more games -- but also had (at that point) a career agp of 11.541.

What's the difference boys and girls? John Stockton had a +3.650 apg than the great Steve Nash. What's more is that Stockton went on to play till the age of 40, and even in his last season, one where he played only 27.7 mpg (and 82 of all 82 games, btw), he still dished out 7.7 apg. (You know, a hair less than Steve Nash's career average with 7 less seasons played)

Okay, clearly Stock had more assists and played more games. Let's not forget that the Suns have one of the best offenses in the history of the game right now (if you listen to Locke you'd know) -- our 80's jazz teams were far from that.

Nash supporters point to the fact that Nash appears to shoot better (and empirically he does % wise), but let's look into a little more, shall we? Nash has shot above 50% fg 4 times in 12 years. Stockton has shot that well 12 different times. (6 times in his first 12 years, with a few seasons that didn't make the cut at 49.9% and so forth) Furthermore, Nash's best fg% is 53.2% -- John's is 57.4%. Nash is clearly a better ft shooter, and three point shooter (career % of 43.1 vs 38.4). You guys wanna talk double doubles?

Nash has averaged a double double 4 times in his life (all in 4 most recent seasons) starting with his two MVP seasons (03-04 and 04-05). What about John? 10 times. Best double double seasons? Nash had an 18.6/11.6 season. John? 17.2/14.5 back in 89-90. John even averages a double double for his entire playoff career of 180+ games. Owned again.

Steve does have two MVPs (diluted as they are) to his name . . . Stockton has been to the finals twice.

What does the future hold? Will Nash play till 40? Does he have 4 more all-star seasons in him? Will he ever have a season with 900 assists? (John has 5 seasons of more than 1100 assists, btw) Nash has 6 All-NBA team selections to Stockton's 11 . . . and John has 5 All-NBA Defensive team selections, Nash will never get one. For the record, Nash is probably a better soccer player.

I could go on an on, but I will spare the little kids, it's past their bed time anyway. And anyway . . . if they didn't know, then for sure now they know: John Stockton is better than Steve Nash.

References:

• Basketball-reference.com (2008). John Stockton. Retrieved July 13, 2008 from http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/stockjo01.html

 

• Basketball-reference.com (2008). Steve Nash. Retrieved July 13, 2008 from http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/nashst01.html