Texas Chuck wrote: So why won't Nash guys talk about it? Im afraid its because it doesnt make their guy look quite as good.
You know Chuck, I'm not particularly a Nash guy - I like him, but he's never been among my favorite players - and I still think that his Dallas years actually add to his resume. He was already in contention for the best point guard in the league in Dallas, top 3 for sure. He had four very good seasons between 2001 and 2004. To me it just seems that you have to adapt your system to your point guard's capabilities to get 100% of his potential. I think you have to give him freedom to do his thing. It's not about just Nash - when you look at the list of consensus top 10 point guards, almost all of them were the second coaches of their teams - they could do whatever they wanted - in no particular order - Magic, Oscar, West, Stockton, Nash, Kidd, Payton, CP3, Isiah and Frazier - these are the ten guys who are most often considered top 10 PGs ever. Stockton was a system player in a similar way to Nash - he had to run a very specific type of offense, heavily reliant on pick & rolls, just like Nash, but at the same time, he sure dominated the hell out of the ball, like every great PG did. Frazier played in a very structured, team-oriented offense in New York, but he was still clearly the primary ballhandler of his teams.
To sum up, I think the fact that Dallas played a really team-oriented offense in Nellie's era, didn't allow Nash to utilize all of his potential, because he needed the ball in his hands as much as he wanted, to make things happen like he used to in Phoenix, while in Dallas, you had ISO plays for Dirk, even for Finley, and as a result, Nash was often just the third option. You even had guys like Van Exel and Toine in the last two seasons - horrible chuckers who needed quite a few more touches than you would like to give your other players if you have Nash on your team. Nash really had to play more off-ball, as a spot up shooter in some situations, just like he would in LA with Kobe if they were both healthy, especially with Pau, and when Dwight was still there.
It's also possible that Nash actually improved his game at 30 - it's a very rare, but still possible occurence - John Havlicek apparently did the same thing after Russell retired, for that matter. Nash was already a late bloomer, who just started giving signs of really big potential when he was 25 years old or so, so it seems entirely plausible.