Best Passers in NBA History (and the stats to prove it)
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The title = Best Passer in NBA history. Not the Best Point Guard of all time. There are many aspects to being a PG. Gary Payton could defend with the best of them, Kevin Johnson could score with the best of them, and Jerry West could do it all with the best of them. This is strictly talking Assists!!! (ranking at the bottom)
If you have read some of my other blogs, I believe in relativity and not absoluteness of statistics. The Game changes. Rules, travel, medical, technology, money, etc. Is Usain Bolt a better sprinter than Jessie Owens. Is Adrian Peterson a better RB than Jim Brown. Is Messi better than Pele. Is Trout better than Ruth. Is Durant better than Bird? If you say yes...you are a product of the now is always better than the old. You don't care what has happened in the last 25-50 years, today's athletes are better, stronger, faster, etc and are simply better. Ruth would be average now, Jim Brown would be a bench warmer, and Jessie Owens would barely make a college team. Stats as is, you would be right, but you are WRONG.
Take a look at the 2 list below and tell me why they are WRONG when ranking best assist men of all time?
LIST 1 - Assist Per Game (APG) All Time Ranking
Deron Williams and Kevin Johnson NEVER led the league in Assists. Maybe they are a product of a higher scoring generation with better shooting %ages. Deron Williams will have many more mediocre seasons, while Kidd played 20 years. When their careers are over Deron Williams will not be in the top 10. Statistics can be misleading.
LIST 2 - Assist - All Time Ranking
Mark Jackson played 19 years averaging 8.0 APG. Magic Johnson Played 13 years averaging 11.2 APG. So in 6+ years Mark Jackson only has 200 more assists. Is he better than Magic? Statistics on their own can be miss-leading. Oscar Robertson played 7 years of his career before 82 games / season were played. Not apples to apples.
Below is my analysis of the 10 (dime) passers / assist men of all time. You wont recognize some names, but after this hopefully you know.
* There are 5 players in NBA history that have been top 3 in assist for 10 years (Cousy, Stockton, Kidd, Magic, Robertson)
* There are 2 players in NBA history that have been top 2 in assist for 10 years (Stockton, Magic)
* And Stockton led the league in assists 9x, while competing with arguably the best PG of all time (Magic - led league 4x)
* What about compared to contemporaries. Oscar Robertson and John Stockton are the only 2 players in NBA history to lead the league in Assist and be at least 3 apg better than 2nd place at least 2x.
* Stockton led the league 9x in assist (except for 1 year, he outperformed 2nd place by over 1 apg every year). Cousy led the league 8 consecutive years. 5x he outperformed 2nd place by at least 2 apg. Robertson led the league 7 years, and 2x he outperformed 2nd place by at least 4 apg.
1st. How has the NBA Changed? The below graph shows how the NBA Scoring has changed, and how Assist Per Game has trended with this change. Why is this important? It puts each assist leaders performance in perspective to the era they played in.
You will see several places in the above graph that show how much better certain players were then the other assist men in that year. The gaps are biggest with Cousy, Robertson, Stockton, and Nash. What does that mean? The further ahead they are then other players in the league, the more likely you would want that player vs another = Irreplaceable (only from a assist perspective). You will notice arguably the greatest PG of all time not on this list? Because Magic did so much more than pass great.
Below is a chart that shows how often these 10 all time great assist men led the league in Assist, were in top 2, top 3, top 4, and top 5 in assist.
Below shows how each years leader compared to 2nd place.
MY RANKINGS (Again I am not ranking all time PGs (Magic is #1 on that list), this is just ranking the best assist men).
1 Stockton
2 Robertson
3 Cousy
4 Magic
5 Kidd
6 Nash
7 CP3
8 Rodgers
9 Phillips
10 Rondo
