Gary Payton Thinks There Are Only 3 True Points Guards in NBA

[stb]

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/dbdTM?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=nba

[kozlodoev]

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/dbdTM?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=nba

He just put Tony Parker on a list of "true PGs". Hilarious.

Also, he may want to watch some NBA games, perhaps? There are plenty of PGs in the league, it's just unfortunate for Gary that most of them are not household names (hint: looking at Vasquez, Calderon, and Rubio is a good start).

[Roy H.]

Obviously, Payton doesn't watch much basketball.

[D.o.s.]

Here's the full quote--that BR article misses a whole lot of what makes Payton's point (Bleacher Report skimping on content? NOT POSSIBLE!)

“We don’t really have point guards in the NBA right now,” newly minted Hall of Famer Gary Payton told SN. “We got, really, two-guards, and that’s just a fact. They score a lot and things like that. Nowadays, we have a lot of two-guards that’s ones, and they score and that’s what basketball is about right now. Basketball is about excitement and putting up points and that’s just the way it is. In my day, we had a lot of true point guards and we competed with each other every night. It is a little different now, it is different eras.”

Payton said the league has, basically, three legitimate point guards: Chris Paul, Rajon Rondo and Tony Parker. Those are the players who run a team in the mold of Payton or his great rival from the 1990s, John Stockton.

“Basketball changed,” Payton said. “It was slow after the first lockout. They had to build it up. David Stern did a great job bringing basketball back because he knew kids wanted to see run-and-gun. They did not want to see defense like the Knicks were doing, setting up defenses and running plays, doing everything slow. Kids were not doing that on the playground so it did not look like basketball to them. We sped the game up.”

But speeding the game up forced unexpected changes to the point guard spot. Seven players in the Top 25 in scoring last year were point guards, and only one player (Greivis Vasquez of New Orleans) topped 700 total assists for the year.

In the nine years since the rules changes went into effect, there have been an average of 2.6 players per season with more than 700 assists per year. In the nine years before the first lockout—the heart of Payton’s era—there were an average of 4.0 players per year with more than 700 assists.

There are an increasing number of star players at point guard. But that doesn’t necessarily mean there has been great point guard play, not in the classic sense of the phrase. It can be argued—and there is no doubt where Payton stands on the question—that the 1990s was a better period for true point guards than what we have now.

“I like my era better,” Payton said. “I went against point guards every year, and we just played tough. You had Tim Hardaway, Kevin Johnson, a lot of them guys who were playing. John Stockton—that’s what I like about my era. We could hand-check, we could do a lot of stuff defensively. We could control our teams, all five guys. We didn’t have to score 25, 26 points. We get 17 points, 10 dimes and three or four steals. That was my era. I loved that era.”

http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/story/2013-09-11/gary-payton-sonics-point-guard-john-stockton-chris-paul-rajon-rondo-tony-parker

He's still definitely pulling out the "good old days" card, but it's not baseless complaining, which is what the original article would lead you to imply.

[kozlodoev]

It's not "baseless complaining". But he still has no idea what he's talking about.

[PhoSita]

I think the term "pure point guard" or "true point guard" needs to go out the window.

It's silly.

The league changes.  The game changes.  What teams expect out of players in a particular position changes.  The common skillsets that players have at each position changes.

Being a "pure" point guard doesn't mean anything if you aren't as effective at helping your team win as a guy who can score.  If the guy who can score is more dangerous and difficult for the opponent to defend, I'd prefer to have that guy.

This is now a drive and kick league, where most big men prefer to face the basket, and as a rule players are more versatile and the lines between positions are blurrier than ever. 

In the current NBA metagame, it's really valuable to have a point guard who can run the pick and roll, penetrate, pull-up, and kick to open shooters beyond the arc. 

It makes less sense to have a PG who prefers to slow the game down and grind out half-court sets while making entry passes to lumbering post-scorers.  That style is less likely to maximize the abilities of the most readily available talent.

"Pure point guard" is an outdated concept, just like "true center" is an outdated concept.  You know what?  The league is better, and more exciting, because of it.

[Moranis]

What I find most funny is this is coming from Gary Payton.  This isn't John Stockton making these statements.  This is a guy who had 9 assists a game just one time in his entire career.  A guy who had that mythical 700 assist year just twice.  A guy who was a 20 point per game scorer 7 times in his career. 

[Celtics18]

What I find most funny is this is coming from Gary Payton.  This isn't John Stockton making these statements.  This is a guy who had 9 assists a game just one time in his entire career.  A guy who had that mythical 700 assist year just twice.  A guy who was a 20 point per game scorer 7 times in his career.

That is kind of ironic.  the glove is one of my all-time favorites, but I wouldn't classify him as a "pass first point guard."

[Yoki_IsTheName]

And Steve Nash isn't?

Wow, something must be off in Payton's head right now.

[action781]

Without reading, I'm gonna say Rondo, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Tony Parker, Steve Nash, Mike Conley, Steph Curry (even if he is a scorer), John Wall, Kyrie, Derrick Rose, Jrue Holliday, Ricky Rubio, and Jameer Nelson are all "true point guards" in the NBA today.  There may be more, but I feel good about that list.

I don't consider a true point guard as a player who necessarily looks to pass before first.  I think a true point guard is a player who can initiate and run an offensive very effectively.

If you can run a 1-4 or 1-5 pick and roll very effectively by scoring, setting up the roller, and setting up other teammates, then you are a true point guard.

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I just read it and the article is stupid.

[bdm860]

So I came into this thread, and read it from the bottom up.  Based on everyone's responses I thought he must have left Rondo off the list or something.

What I find most funny is this is coming from Gary Payton.  This isn't John Stockton making these statements.  This is a guy who had 9 assists a game just one time in his entire career.  A guy who had that mythical 700 assist year just twice.  A guy who was a 20 point per game scorer 7 times in his career.

To be fair, you could probably argue 2 more 700 assist years for him if you really wanted too.  '99 was a 50 game season, and he was averaging 8.72, that translates out to 715  for the year (and Payton rarely missed games, probably unlikely he would miss any due to injury over an additional 32 games).

Then in '03 he was doing 8.8 with Seattle over 52 games, got traded to Milwaukee (losing 2 games in the process), then his assists dropped to 7.4 while sharing PG duties with Sam Cassell.

So a lockout and a midseason trade to a team where he was paired with another All-Star caliber pg, probably cost him 2 more.  Those aren't like injures which happen regularly, those are a couple of pretty abnormal occurrences. 

Give him the benefit of the doubt on those, and he likely has 4, not that bad.  How many guys have more than 4?  Give him 4 and he's right behind only:

Stockton had 12
Magic had 10
Nash has 7
Kidd had 7
Oscar Robertson had 7
Isiah Thomas had 5

Tied with: Deron Williams, Kevin Johnson, Mark Jackson, Muggsy Bogues, and Terry Porter

Not as bad as it initially seems I think. Even if you just credit him with 3 or 2, not that bad of company.  Dude is 8th all time on the assist list.

But really Moranis, I'm just being difficult and giving you a hard time    Like others have said I think he's just doing the typical exaggerating that most people do, my day was so much better, yada, yada, yada.