Never stop learning or you become an ignorant noob again. So yeah, if your basketball education ended in the 90's when you played middle school ball.... that's not exactly going to be sufficient to even know the basics today.
What's crazy about this is that even if the NBA decided to combine the two retroactively for all record keeping, Hakeem would be even further in the lead for the all-time record.
Dream has 5,992 Stocks. That's 1,643 ahead of second-place Kareem. For active players, LeBron is only behind by 2,591 and may catch Dream in another 20+ years.
From what I remember, Bill Simmons tried to make it a thing when he was writing "The Book of Basketball" all the way back in 2009, and was still grinding like hell as a writer rather than as an editor/manager. Ironically for everyone here, he was using it predominantly as a way to give Hakeem his flowers, pointing out how ridiculous and untouchable Dream's blocks record was at the time (16% more than #2 in Mutombo), but that he was also in the top 8 for steals (since passed by CP3 and LeBron). Wemby might be the first guy with a realistic chance to threaten the record since Dream retired. He'd only need to play the equivalent of 12 more full seasons, missing zero games, while averaging 3.6 blocks per game. That seems impossible, especially playing injury free for the rest of his career, but he's got a few years advantage on Dream, and has come out of the gate even stronger. Will be fun to see if he's able to make a serious run at it over the next 10-15 years. You might be amused that Bill also tried to coin a playoff version of ASSPOUNDS (Assists + Points + Rebounds) in the same book, inventing a "42 Club" that said if your ASSPOUNDS were >42 and you played at least 13 games in the playoffs, then you "mattered." The arbitrary cutoff was basically just a way to discount some Magic Johnson and Karl Malone seasons.
LOL! I just mentioned the ASSPOUNDS stat in an earlier post. I had no idea it came from Bill Simmons.
Sheppard is playing an ultra saaafe style on offense. Like he's protective facilitator Pablo Prigioni (youngsters might not remember that Rockets Legend™). It is smart that he's developing his game from "inside to out". Gaining the fundamentals first makes him well-rounded for the long term. Its good he's bringing useable hustle on defensive side. It gets him coach's consideration past players like Cam, who seems averse to doing the extra things. But - his best HELPS NOW attribute is sinking the 3-ball at a high clip. Because despite the cautious approach, Sheppard hasnt even been that mistake free. His turnover rate was high for a while, but without any actual assists. He objectively needs to go from "pass-first", to letting it fly more. Even it makes him 1-dimensional for now, its his best immediate effectiveness
The Prigioni comparison on offense actually makes a lot of sense. It is very safe. That being said, when I watch this guy play defense I think that he’s gonna make all defensive teams one day. Doing way better job staying in front of people than I thought that he would and he often makes up for any deficiencies with great positioning, re-positioning, and hand usage. Letting him learn with Fred is going to be good for him, but I definitely want to see him just beginning to jack up more three-pointers. 0 question In my mind, he is going to be a top 50 player in 3 to 4 years.
I would say there is next to no chance Reed ever sniffs an all defense team. I like his hands and I like how he plays passing lanes but he hasn't demonstrated a lot defensively outside of those two things and the fact that similar to his offense, he is patient defensively. I think he can be a decent defender in the right role similar to Fred but the guys who make all defense teams are guys like Amen and Tari - they can blow up plays from anywhere. Reed will likely never have that kind of impact just based on size alone....and keep in mind when Reed is out there, he is often playing with 3+ defender who are top tier helping him when teams hunt him(which they are 100% doing right now).
Ha, the actual acronym I'm pretty sure was a Reddit thing to mock STOCKS; the Sports Guy just mashed together the stats to try and come up with some arbitrary statistical bar for greatness. Much more Malcolm Gladwell Outliers-esque, where you start with a predetermined conclusion and then keep shifting the goalposts until you get a clean break between the guys you want to laud and the ones you want to hate on.
Okay, I'll give yall this. If Reed has a game like last night against the Bucks, I will lean more towards y'alls side. A game like that against a championship caliber team will definitely get my attention.
Sure, the odds are massively stacked against him, but there have only been 3 individual seasons in the past 20 years with more blocks than what Wemby did last year as a rookie, and he's maintained the same pace this year. It's not like he's going to be favored to do it, but merely the fact that we can even talk about it as a remote possibility is pretty exciting until an inevitable injury or down year knocks him off the pace.
