When Magic Johnson weighs in on point guards, people listen. After all, the L.A. Lakers great was voted the best point guard in NBA history by ESPN's #NBArank panel. But Johnson had a problem with how one of his rivals was ranked. He couldn't believe that Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas landed fifth, behind contemporary John Stockton and reigning MVP Stephen Curry.
ESPN ranked the Top 10 PGs of all time & they have @iamisiahthomas ranked 5th. There's no way Stockton & Curry are better than Isiah.
- Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) January 13, 2016
Magic wasn't the only NBA legend to criticize Thomas' ranking.
I love Steph Curry, but don't be disrespectful.. @iamisiahthomas is definitely Top 3 All Time PG #DetroitBasketball pic.twitter.com/MAkcSAuuWK
- grant hill (@realgranthill33) January 16, 2016
How is @iamisiahthomas #5 on your list @espn? He scored 25 pts in 1 qtr in NBA finals. @StephenCurry30 is a great player, but PUH-LEASE!
- Dennis Rodman (@dennisrodman) January 14, 2016
Yet Thomas' advanced statistics tell a different story.
On Monday, I introduced my "championships added" metric to evaluate NBA players historically based on their statistical performance. Thomas, who finished 26th overall in #NBArank voting among all players, didn't appear in the top 40 of all time. In fact, Thomas wouldn't have appeared if we expanded the list to 50 players. Instead, he checks in at No. 52, 27 places behind Stockton.
This raises a natural question: Why is there such a discrepancy between Thomas' perceived value and his advanced statistics?
Inefficient scoring
More than any other factor, what separates Thomas from the point guards ranked ahead of him is his inability to score efficiently. While Thomas ranked fourth among the top 10 point guards of all time by #NBArank in scoring average (19.2 PPG), it took him more shots and possessions to get those points.
Because Thomas generally shot a high field goal percentage for a guard -- 45.2 percent in his career, and slightly better if you take out his first season in the league and last two to focus on his prime years -- he wasn't as obviously inefficient a scorer as someone like Allen Iverson. Yet Iverson, a 42.5 percent career shooter from the field, had a better career true shooting percentage (TSP) than Thomas, .518 to .516. And he had a better TSP than league average three times. Thomas did it only during 1985-86.
The difference is Iverson got to the free throw line more frequently during his prime and was a more prolific 3-point shooter, two factors that go into true shooting percentage but aren't captured by field goal percentage. So among the top 100 scorers in NBA history, Thomas' TSP ranks 84th, according to Basketball-Reference.com.
Of course, Iverson scored inefficiently in large part because of the heavy load he carried offensively. He led the league in usage rate five times with the Philadelphia 76ers. By contrast, Thomas was responsible for using a more modest 25 percent of the Pistons' plays throughout his career.
The closest modern matches for Thomas' combination of usage and efficiency as a scorer would be players such as Trey Burke of the Utah Jazz (.251 usage, .517 TSP) and Tyreke Evans of the New Orleans Pelicans (.249 usage, .534 TSP).
Offense not the driving force for Detroit's title teams
Scoring alone does not make a great point guard, and Thomas' ballhandling and playmaking were key parts of his value. Despite those skills, however, he was unable to lead his teams to the same kind of offensive success enjoyed by Johnson's Lakers or Stockton's Jazz.
The best Detroit offense of Thomas' career relative to league average was the 1988-89 Pistons, who finished seventh out of 25 teams in offensive rating en route to the championship. (Detroit finished fifth in 1983-84, but with a smaller edge against league average.) The Pistons repeated the next year despite ranking 11th out of 27 teams in offensive rating. The Bad Boys Detroit teams won with defense, finishing third and second, respectively, in points allowed per 100 possessions.
Among the top 10 point guards by #NBArank from the 3-point era, only Jason Kidd was on teams with worse offensive ratings relative to league average. All of them save Curry played for more top-five offenses -- and Curry will surely surpass Thomas this season, because the Golden State Warriors have the league's best offense.
Thomas' inefficient scoring and his teams' relatively weak offenses explain why he lags far behind the top point guards in championships added during the regular season. In fact, Thomas doesn't rank in the NBA's all-time top 150 by this measure.
Playoff Isiah?
Of course, when contemporaries like Johnson remember Thomas, they don't think about a random performance on a February night at the Pontiac Silverdome or Palace of Auburn Hills. The defining memories of Thomas are from the postseason, including his gutty 43-point effort on a sprained ankle in a losing effort against Johnson's Lakers in Game 6 of the 1988 NBA Finals, a series the Lakers eventually won in seven games. That was the performance Johnson referenced in making the case for Thomas.
There is indeed evidence that Thomas was at his best during the postseason. Among the top 100 players in championships added, he ranks eighth in the ratio of championships added in the playoffs compared to the regular season.
Naturally, four of the seven players ahead of him played for the Boston Celtics during their dynasty in the 1950s and '60s. The only modern top-100 player whose value tilts more heavily to the postseason is L.A. Lakers forward James Worthy, aka "Big Game James."
Alas, while playoff Isiah makes up much of the gap, he still ranks just 57th overall in championships added in the postseason and seventh among point guards behind Johnson, Chauncey Billups, Oscar Robertson, Walt Frazier, Stockton and Bob Cousy. They, too, made a major impact on the league's biggest stages; all but Stockton led their teams to championships, and Johnson (three times) and Billups were, like Thomas, Finals MVPs.
In part, Thomas' playoff value is also limited by his relatively brief peak. He played his last postseason game in 1992 at age 31. Stockton played more playoff games after age 31 (114) than Thomas did in his entire career (111).
Because of the high regard he enjoyed among contemporaries, Thomas fares better in the subjective component of championships added, which factors in his five All-NBA selections and 12 consecutive All-Star appearances to rank him 35th all time, one spot behind Stockton.
Still, when we add together all three components of championships added, it becomes hard to make the case that the #NBArank panel underrated Thomas by placing him behind Curry and Stockton. If anything, the numbers suggest that putting Thomas fifth overrates his career.