Greatest Offensive Legends of the Modern Era - ON Court Offensive Rating

[Onus]

Nash teams were oriented especially into offence. Change Amare or Dirk into Green and numbers would look differently

Green is like Boris Diaw in some ways, though not the same self creator on offense, but the Nash team with Diaw was pretty good wasn't it?

Teams didn't just leave Diaw wide open begging him to shoot the ball.

[og15]

Nash teams were oriented especially into offence. Change Amare or Dirk into Green and numbers would look differently

Green is like Boris Diaw in some ways, though not the same self creator on offense, but the Nash team with Diaw was pretty good wasn't it?

Teams didn't just leave Diaw wide open begging him to shoot the ball.

Diaw in 05-06 took 0.4 3PA/G at 26.7%, so he wasn't even at the 3PT line, and yes, no one was guarding him there at that time.

The 3PT shot didn't really become a thing to use and reliable for him until Charlotte.

[Onus]

Green is like Boris Diaw in some ways, though not the same self creator on offense, but the Nash team with Diaw was pretty good wasn't it?

Teams didn't just leave Diaw wide open begging him to shoot the ball.

Diaw in 05-06 took 0.4 3PA/G at 26.7%, so he wasn't even at the 3PT line, and yes, no one was guarding him there at that time.

The 3PT shot didn't really become a thing to use and reliable for him until Charlotte.

So teams were just leaving him allowing him a wide open lane to the rim?

In 05-06 was a completely different game. He shot 8/30 for the year. The fact he was even standing at the 3 point line was different.

[lessthanjake]

Nash teams were oriented especially into offence. Change Amare or Dirk into Green and numbers would look differently

Green is like Boris Diaw in some ways, though not the same self creator on offense, but the Nash team with Diaw was pretty good wasn't it?

Teams didn't just leave Diaw wide open begging him to shoot the ball.

That’s because Diaw wasn’t creating spacing out to the three-point line at all. He did actually have a solid mid-range jumper, but it’s not like that’s good offense or creates particularly good spacing. In general, Diaw’s offensive RAPM does not look better than Draymond’s. In fact, it’s the opposite. And Diaw was a significant negative in offensive RAPM prior to joining the Suns.

[Onus]

Green is like Boris Diaw in some ways, though not the same self creator on offense, but the Nash team with Diaw was pretty good wasn't it?

Teams didn't just leave Diaw wide open begging him to shoot the ball.

That’s because Diaw wasn’t creating spacing out to the three-point line at all. He did actually have a solid mid-range jumper, but it’s not like that’s good offense or creates particularly good spacing. In general, Diaw’s offensive RAPM does not look better than Draymond’s. In fact, it’s the opposite. And Diaw was a significant negative in offensive RAPM prior to joining the Suns.

Comparing spacing and offensive philosophy from 05-06 to 24-25 just isn't the same.

[lessthanjake]

Teams didn't just leave Diaw wide open begging him to shoot the ball.

That’s because Diaw wasn’t creating spacing out to the three-point line at all. He did actually have a solid mid-range jumper, but it’s not like that’s good offense or creates particularly good spacing. In general, Diaw’s offensive RAPM does not look better than Draymond’s. In fact, it’s the opposite. And Diaw was a significant negative in offensive RAPM prior to joining the Suns.

Comparing spacing and offensive philosophy from 05-06 to 24-25 just isn't the same.

In the context of a team that was trying to push the envelope and shoot more threes than other teams in 2005-06, it is actually quite relevant that Diaw didn’t provide that spacing for them. And, in any event, the fact is that in the context of his own era, Diaw’s offensive RAPM was not good. Impact data makes clear that Draymond has been a more impactful offensive player than Diaw. And Diaw was a very negative offensive player right before joining Phoenix. In fact, his two-year offensive RAPM right before joining Phoenix was ranked 502nd in the NBA. He then proceeded to have mildly positive offensive RAPM in the years he played exclusively in Phoenix, followed by immediately going back to being ranked worse than 300th in the NBA in two-year offensive impact for another several years as soon as he left Phoenix. Basically, what the data strongly suggests is that Diaw was a bad offensive player in that era who had a Nash effect that made him work fine offensively only when he was with the Suns. And even in those years with the Suns, Diaw’s offensive impact numbers look worse than Draymond’s. Almost a decade later, he was able to be a solid offensive player with the Spurs (albeit still less impactful offensively than Draymond at his best), but that was way later, and was another team that was a very good environment to get the most out of relatively weak offensive players.

[Onus]

That’s because Diaw wasn’t creating spacing out to the three-point line at all. He did actually have a solid mid-range jumper, but it’s not like that’s good offense or creates particularly good spacing. In general, Diaw’s offensive RAPM does not look better than Draymond’s. In fact, it’s the opposite. And Diaw was a significant negative in offensive RAPM prior to joining the Suns.

Comparing spacing and offensive philosophy from 05-06 to 24-25 just isn't the same.

In the context of a team that was trying to push the envelope and shoot more threes than other teams in 2005-06, it is actually quite relevant that Diaw didn’t provide that spacing for them. And, in any event, the fact is that in the context of his own era, Diaw’s offensive RAPM was not good. Impact data makes clear that Draymond has been a more impactful offensive player than Diaw. And Diaw was a very negative offensive player right before joining Phoenix. In fact, his two-year offensive RAPM right before joining Phoenix was ranked 502nd in the NBA. He then proceeded to have mildly positive offensive RAPM in the years he played exclusively in Phoenix, followed by immediately going back to being ranked worse than 300th in the NBA in two-year offensive impact for another several years as soon as he left Phoenix. Basically, what the data strongly suggests is that Diaw was a bad offensive player in that era who had a Nash effect that made him work fine offensively only when he was with the Suns. And even in those years with the Suns, Diaw’s offensive impact numbers look worse than Draymond’s. Almost a decade later, he was able to be a solid offensive player with the Spurs (albeit still less impactful offensively than Draymond at his best), but that was way later, and was another team that was a very good environment to get the most out of relatively weak offensive players.

It's probably the only team he played on in the NBA where he played Center for the majority of his minutes, increasing his ORAPM. Playing as a center that can can somewhat shoot and pass is going to provide more spacing in that era. Add in being early in the zone defense era and comparing that to the zone defenses that are played today it's not even close to being the same. Again the concepts and strategies are completely different.

[Doctor MJ]

Nash teams were oriented especially into offence. Change Amare or Dirk into Green and numbers would look differently

There’s some truth to this, but I think there’s three important things worth noting here:

1. There’s a difference between being offensively-slanted and actually being offensively better. Nash was definitely on some offensively slanted rosters. But does that reflect that they were particularly good offensively compared to other players’ supporting casts, or just that they were bad defensively? He did have Dirk, so that was definitely a truly great offensive teammate in the Mavs years. But on the Suns, it’s really not clear to me that guys like Amare, Marion, Bell, etc. are better offensively than what other guys have had. Do we really think that having guys like that is better offensively than having Wade and Bosh, or Kyrie and Love? Do we think it’s better than having Durant and Klay? Is Amare better offensively than Blake Griffin? Is it better than having Kobe or Penny? Going beyond the scope of what we have this data for, do we really think it’s better than Magic having Kareem and Worthy? I think people sometimes miss the forest for the trees with this kind of argument. Those Suns teams definitely had offensive talent in Amare’s years there, but the idea that they were such a great supporting cast offensively that we’d expect Nash to tower over other great offensive players (who had great teammates of their own) in a measure like this just seems wrong to me.

2. Nash’s teams had years where they clearly were not all that offensively talented. And yet the offensive results were still great. For instance, let’s look at 2006, a year where Amare was out, and Nash’s best offensive teammate was Shawn Marion. In my version of this that puts 3x weight on playoff possessions, Nash’s on-court rORTG in the 2006 regular season & playoffs was +9.31. Amongst the guys I looked at (LeBron, Curry, Jokic, Chris Paul, and Luka), that is still amongst the best seasons, despite the relative lack of offensive talent on Nash’s team that year. To take another year, in the 2011 season, a 36-year-old Nash had a pretty weak team that was riddled with injuries and still had an on-court rORTG of +6.71. For reference, that’s similar to Steph in 2015 and LeBron in 2010, and it’s notably higher than years like Steph in 2022 and LeBron in 2018.

3. In the year where Nash had the most offensive talent on his team—with the 2005 Suns—his on-court rORTG was the highest of anyone I’ve seen. In my version that puts 3x weight on playoff possessions, Nash had an on-court rORTG of +15.54. The next best I found was Steph in 2017, with a +14.78. Beyond that, the next best was LeBron in 2017, who was pretty far off with +12.70. Having Amare, Joe Johnson, and Marion is a very good offensive supporting cast, but it doesn’t strike me as correct to think it’s better than what those guys had in those years. Jokic is in the middle of having a year with similar numbers to LeBron in 2017, and I wouldn’t say his supporting cast is as good offensively as the others, but there’s plenty of the year left, so there’s a good chance that falls, and even now it’s well below Nash’s 2005 number.

To me, prime Nash is the best offensive player ever. And I thought this even just watching him at the time. The problem for him is that he was also a significant negative defensively, while other great truly great offensive players generally are at least average defensively (and in some cases are really good defenders).

Good stuff in general. Let me quote some stuff from a Englemann's 29 year ORAPM with the initial caveat that this is about career not peak or prime.

For Nash in Phoenix from '04-05 to '11-12, here were the guys who played the most minutes with the Suns in that time frame along with their ORAPM by that model:

Amar'e Stoudemire +2.1
Shawn Marion +1.1
Leandro Barbosa +1.5
Grant Hill +1.9
Raja Bell -1.1

If I do the same thing with Curry in Golden State:

Klay Thompson +2.5
Draymond Green +1.7
Andre Iguodala +0.6
Kevon Looney +0.7
David Lee -0.1

Doesn't really seem drastically different, right? Super-coarse metric of course, but if the allegation is that the difference is glaring, we'd hope to see it, no?

Now, part of what's going on here is that Curry's two main guys have played basically exclusively with Curry whereas we got to see Amar'e & Marion in prime after they left Nash. The perception of Amar'e and especially Marion as offensive powerhouses came primarily from their time with Nash as a teammate, but that also means that in the eyes of some Nash was benefitting from how good Amar'e & Marion looked. I'd say though that we learned these guys just weren't that special. Amar'e could volume score without Nash, but not with outlier efficiency, and he really never learned to do anything else. Marion was really just an offensive role player who looked like something more with Nash.

Mind you with all of this, I'm not looking to make a definitive stand on Nash's offense above Curry's or above all comers, but I do think that it's easy to underrate pass first players due to overrating the scoring value of their teammates.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't have to look into what this stat is to tell you off the bat it doesn't pass the sniff test.

The guy with the highest playoff rating had 0 finals games played let alone rings. Next

My sniffer says your counter is actually a case for this. Defense wins championships right?

Yeah this is the clear issue with saying that the best offensive player should necessarily be winning chips. If you're going to say it, you should say it about the best all-around player in the league, and that's generally not what is argued for Nash.

Of course, if we want to talk about the best all-around player of that generation, to me we're talking about Kevin Garnett, who didn't win any titles in that time frame. Why? Because basketball is a team game, and that's just how it goes.

[sashaturiaf]

I don't have to look into what this stat is to tell you off the bat it doesn't pass the sniff test.

The guy with the highest playoff rating had 0 finals games played let alone rings. Next

My sniffer says your counter is actually a case for this. Defense wins championships right?

Yeah this is the clear issue with saying that the best offensive player should necessarily be winning chips. If you're going to say it, you should say it about the best all-around player in the league, and that's generally not what is argued for Nash.

Of course, if we want to talk about the best all-around player of that generation, to me we're talking about Kevin Garnett, who didn't win any titles in that time frame. Why? Because basketball is a team game, and that's just how it goes.

Convenient how every eras greatest players win the majority of titles, from Kareem to Magic to Bird to Jordan all the way to the current period with Curry/Lebron/KD. Yet somehow Steve Nash(goat offensive player by rating) and Kevin Garnett (greatest all round player of his generation - by ???your opinion?) are in an era which is the outlier. Riiiight

Outliar more like

[Doctor MJ]

My sniffer says your counter is actually a case for this. Defense wins championships right?

Yeah this is the clear issue with saying that the best offensive player should necessarily be winning chips. If you're going to say it, you should say it about the best all-around player in the league, and that's generally not what is argued for Nash.

Of course, if we want to talk about the best all-around player of that generation, to me we're talking about Kevin Garnett, who didn't win any titles in that time frame. Why? Because basketball is a team game, and that's just how it goes.

Convenient how every eras greatest players win the majority of titles, from Kareem to Magic to Bird to Jordan all the way to the current period with Curry/Lebron/KD. Yet somehow Steve Nash(goat offensive player by rating) and Kevin Garnett (greatest all round player of his generation - by ???your opinion?) are in an era which is the outlier. Riiiight

Outliar more like

I would say that it's convenient for you that basketball is a game with few enough players that the best player often wins the chip, and thus you can pretend that whoever wins the chip is the best.

But basketball has always been a team game, and always will be, which is why the team with the best player doesn't always win.

Let me also clarify:

It's not like the best offensive players have always been winning titles. Oscar & West were the best offensive players of their era, but they mostly didn't win titles. It should come as no surprise that if an offensive great isn't so great on defense that he might not be the best all-around player.

Re: KG. Clearly just my opinion, but don't take the half-ass short cut and assume it's because I'm a homer. I was on plenty of conversations where I was arguing against KG at the time in question. I just ran out of counterarguments after the defenses a post-peak KG led in Boston.

[ReggiesKnicks]

My sniffer says your counter is actually a case for this. Defense wins championships right?

Yeah this is the clear issue with saying that the best offensive player should necessarily be winning chips. If you're going to say it, you should say it about the best all-around player in the league, and that's generally not what is argued for Nash.

Of course, if we want to talk about the best all-around player of that generation, to me we're talking about Kevin Garnett, who didn't win any titles in that time frame. Why? Because basketball is a team game, and that's just how it goes.

Convenient how every eras greatest players win the majority of titles, from Kareem to Magic to Bird to Jordan all the way to the current period with Curry/Lebron/KD. Yet somehow Steve Nash(goat offensive player by rating) and Kevin Garnett (greatest all round player of his generation - by ???your opinion?) are in an era which is the outlier. Riiiight

Outliar more like

Hmm...I think when looking at the 2nd and 3rd best players on a team is a good way to assess title winners.

Tim Duncan: David Robinson, Manu Ginobili
Shaquille O'Neal: Kobe Bryant
Michael Jordan: Scottie Pippen
Steph Curry: Kevin Durant, Draymond Green
Steve Nash: Amar'e Stoudemire, Shawn Marion
LeBron James: Dwayne Wade, Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis
Magic Johnson: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson
Larry Bird: Kevin McHale, Robert Parish
Kevin Garnett (before Boston): Sam Cassell (Injured in 2004 playoffs), Terrell Brandon

[leolozon]

I don't have to look into what this stat is to tell you off the bat it doesn't pass the sniff test.

The guy with the highest playoff rating had 0 finals games played let alone rings. Next

It’s as if… basketball is a team sport and defense also matters. I know mind blowing! It requires so much brain power to come to that conclusion.

[Primedeion]

Nash has to be the most overrated player in history.

Guy spent his entire career on stacked teams and could never manage a single Finals appearance.

Not one.

[lessthanjake]

Comparing spacing and offensive philosophy from 05-06 to 24-25 just isn't the same.

In the context of a team that was trying to push the envelope and shoot more threes than other teams in 2005-06, it is actually quite relevant that Diaw didn’t provide that spacing for them. And, in any event, the fact is that in the context of his own era, Diaw’s offensive RAPM was not good. Impact data makes clear that Draymond has been a more impactful offensive player than Diaw. And Diaw was a very negative offensive player right before joining Phoenix. In fact, his two-year offensive RAPM right before joining Phoenix was ranked 502nd in the NBA. He then proceeded to have mildly positive offensive RAPM in the years he played exclusively in Phoenix, followed by immediately going back to being ranked worse than 300th in the NBA in two-year offensive impact for another several years as soon as he left Phoenix. Basically, what the data strongly suggests is that Diaw was a bad offensive player in that era who had a Nash effect that made him work fine offensively only when he was with the Suns. And even in those years with the Suns, Diaw’s offensive impact numbers look worse than Draymond’s. Almost a decade later, he was able to be a solid offensive player with the Spurs (albeit still less impactful offensively than Draymond at his best), but that was way later, and was another team that was a very good environment to get the most out of relatively weak offensive players.

It's probably the only team he played on in the NBA where he played Center for the majority of his minutes, increasing his ORAPM. Playing as a center that can can somewhat shoot and pass is going to provide more spacing in that era. Add in being early in the zone defense era and comparing that to the zone defenses that are played today it's not even close to being the same. Again the concepts and strategies are completely different.

BBREF still has him playing the majority of his minutes at PF even in 2005-06, and the vast majority of his minutes were PF in 2006-07 too. In fact, in the rest of his time in Phoenix after 2005-06, he played PF more than his career average. It’s not an invalid point that he is a better offensive player as a C rather than a PF. Everyone is. But I think it’s far-fetched to suggest a relatively modest change in what position he played (with the majority still being PF either way) makes a genuinely bad offensive player by impact into a good one. And that’s especially the case given that RAPM doesn’t have some position adjustment—everyone is having their impact measured compared to everyone else, not just those of their position. Outside of playing in Phoenix with Nash, he was a bad offensive player for like a decade, by the standards of any position.

Also, in the context of a comparison with Draymond, this is an odd point, since Draymond played plenty of center, especially in the playoffs.

[og15]

Teams didn't just leave Diaw wide open begging him to shoot the ball.

Diaw in 05-06 took 0.4 3PA/G at 26.7%, so he wasn't even at the 3PT line, and yes, no one was guarding him there at that time.

The 3PT shot didn't really become a thing to use and reliable for him until Charlotte.

So teams were just leaving him allowing him a wide open lane to the rim?

In 05-06 was a completely different game. He shot 8/30 for the year. The fact he was even standing at the 3 point line was different.

That's why I said Green is like Boris Diaw in some ways, and specifically added the in some ways to emphasize that he isn't in all ways.

The point is that Green is a savvy offensive player despite that. If you have Green as a roll man making passes against 4v3, he's also going to kill that. Green is also going to be great in the high post as a passing hub doing DHO's, finding Marion cutting, etc

Green actually would be better than Diaw was at that time as a corner spot up shooter. Green can also attack straight line and get in the paint for finishes or to make passes, while Diaw was more zig zag and used more post up skills. Green in those post was almost always looking to pass (Diaw was a chronic overpasser though).

The point is that Green and Diaw are similar type of offensive players in many aspects. Switching Green for those guys is going to give a similar result to Nash with Diaw in 05-06 (#2 offense), and I'd argue that Green at his best would actually be better for your offense than Diaw that season, especially because if you're doing this, were also assuming it's D'Antoni still coaching and he will use him well.

[Big J]

Nash teams were oriented especially into offence. Change Amare or Dirk into Green and numbers would look differently

There was no amare one of those years in his peak 3 seasons. No problem.

Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

Diaw was his Green.

[SK21209]

I've always thought of those early Nash Suns teams as similar to those early Chip Kelly Oregon teams. In hindsight, its insane that for 20+ years no one realized how powerful the three-point line and floor spacing were.

[lessthanjake]

Nash has to be the most overrated player in history.

Guy spent his entire career on stacked teams and could never manage a single Finals appearance.

Not one.

We are talking about offense, and his teams playoff offenses were absolutely incredible and not the reason they lost in the playoffs.

If we looked at Nash’s entire playoff career and looked at his on-court opponent-relative ORTG in just the series that Nash’s teams lost, they still put up a rORTG of +7.03 in Nash’s minutes. Which is extremely good! If we limit that to just his 10-year prime of 2002-2011, it is +8.43. That is higher than the 10-year prime playoff rORTG for Steph, Jokic, Luka, and Chris Paul—including all their series, rather than just the ones they lost. LeBron’s 10-year prime playoff rORTG from 2009-2018 (+8.78) is barely ahead of Nash’s 10-year prime playoff rORTG just in the series that Nash lost! It should be safe to say that if your team is losing series while doing as well offensively in those lost series as LeBron’s 2009-2018 playoff offenses did overall, then it’s not the offense holding you back. And if we limit this to just what happened in Phoenix (where he really was the offensive focal point), his teams had an absolutely ridiculous and historically great +11.12 rORTG with Nash on the court in the series they lost. There is no reasonable world in which someone could conclude that Nash’s Suns lost due to issues on offense.

Given how well Nash’s teams did offensively with him on the court in the series’s that they lost, I don’t see why them losing those series should be used against him in a discussion specifically about players’ offensive quality.

[zimpy27]

Nash teams were oriented especially into offence. Change Amare or Dirk into Green and numbers would look differently

There’s some truth to this, but I think there’s three important things worth noting here:

1. There’s a difference between being offensively-slanted and actually being offensively better. Nash was definitely on some offensively slanted rosters. But does that reflect that they were particularly good offensively compared to other players’ supporting casts, or just that they were bad defensively? He did have Dirk, so that was definitely a truly great offensive teammate in the Mavs years. But on the Suns, it’s really not clear to me that guys like Amare, Marion, Bell, etc. are better offensively than what other guys have had. Do we really think that having guys like that is better offensively than having Wade and Bosh, or Kyrie and Love? Do we think it’s better than having Durant and Klay? Is Amare better offensively than Blake Griffin? Is it better than having Kobe or Penny? Going beyond the scope of what we have this data for, do we really think it’s better than Magic having Kareem and Worthy? I think people sometimes miss the forest for the trees with this kind of argument. Those Suns teams definitely had offensive talent in Amare’s years there, but the idea that they were such a great supporting cast offensively that we’d expect Nash to tower over other great offensive players (who had great teammates of their own) in a measure like this just seems wrong to me.

2. Nash’s teams had years where they clearly were not all that offensively talented. And yet the offensive results were still great. For instance, let’s look at 2006, a year where Amare was out, and Nash’s best offensive teammate was Shawn Marion. In my version of this that puts 3x weight on playoff possessions, Nash’s on-court rORTG in the 2006 regular season & playoffs was +9.31. Amongst the guys I looked at (LeBron, Curry, Jokic, Chris Paul, and Luka), that is still amongst the best seasons, despite the relative lack of offensive talent on Nash’s team that year. To take another year, in the 2011 season, a 36-year-old Nash had a pretty weak team that was riddled with injuries and still had an on-court rORTG of +6.71. For reference, that’s similar to Steph in 2015 and LeBron in 2010, and it’s notably higher than years like Steph in 2022 and LeBron in 2018.

3. In the year where Nash had the most offensive talent on his team—with the 2005 Suns—his on-court rORTG was the highest of anyone I’ve seen. In my version that puts 3x weight on playoff possessions, Nash had an on-court rORTG of +15.54. The next best I found was Steph in 2017, with a +14.78. Beyond that, the next best was LeBron in 2017, who was pretty far off with +12.70. Having Amare, Joe Johnson, and Marion is a very good offensive supporting cast, but it doesn’t strike me as correct to think it’s better than what those guys had in those years. Jokic is in the middle of having a year with similar numbers to LeBron in 2017, and I wouldn’t say his supporting cast is as good offensively as the others, but there’s plenty of the year left, so there’s a good chance that falls, and even now it’s well below Nash’s 2005 number.

To me, prime Nash is the best offensive player ever. And I thought this even just watching him at the time. The problem for him is that he was also a significant negative defensively, while other great truly great offensive players generally are at least average defensively (and in some cases are really good defenders).

If you were truly able to separate offense from defense (which I don't believe is possible) then you might be right about Nash.

Certainly if NBA was like NFL where you had stoppages to change over from offense to defense. Then yeah I could see Nash being the best offensive player ever or the best quarterback ever as it would be in this context.