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

[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

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.

Boohoo it's always somebody else's fault that my guy can't get over the hump.

If you're getting paid max money and want to be in the GOAT discussion. That excuse doesn't fly. At all.

[dhsilv2]

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.

Boohoo it's always somebody else's fault that my guy can't get over the hump.

If you're getting paid max money and want to be in the GOAT discussion. That excuse doesn't fly. At all.

I always wonder what people think excuse even means. If a head over to your place and I slash your tires everyday, you're likely going to be late to work. You can call the police, try and fight...but if I just keep finding a way to do it. You're going to have issues.

You can only do so much.

At the end of the day, it seems the only person really making excuses is you. As you can't seems to grasp that when the playing field isn't equal, it's the job of the analyst (us) to address that in our thinking. As these players aren't the ones talking. It's those of us posting here, and the only excuse i keep seeing is you saying you don't understand how to think past rings.

[Onus]

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.

I don't care what BBREF says, they do it based on height but unless you're saying Tim Thomas or Shawn Marion were guarding centers and not Boris Diaw then yea he was playing C. I think this has a lot more to do with it than you think.

Yes draymond played some center, but when the other players are Iguodala and Bogut 2 other players you don't really need to guard at the 3 point line, having 2 players you don't need to guard but at the rim in Dray and Bogut, that's going to suppress your offense. Those early warriors teams were a defensive team first more akin to the AI Sixers than the Nash led Suns.

[Onus]

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.

Yes Diaw and Dray are similar type players playing in a different era. Teams didn't just not guard Diaw. Defenses back then weren't playing that way which is my point.

[ReggiesKnicks]

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.

I don't care what BBREF says, they do it based on height but unless you're saying Tim Thomas or Shawn Marion were guarding centers and not Boris Diaw then yea he was playing C. I think this has a lot more to do with it than you think.

Yes draymond played some center, but when the other players are Iguodala and Bogut 2 other players you don't really need to guard at the 3 point line, having 2 players you don't need to guard but at the rim in Dray and Bogut, that's going to suppress your offense. Those early warriors teams were a defensive team first more akin to the AI Sixers than the Nash led Suns.

From 2005-2007, here are the ON/OFF for Diaw.

Diaw ON: 5141 Minutes, 113.08 ORTG, 52.5 2P%, 40.4 3P%
Diaw OFF: 6797 Minutes, 113.42 ORTG, 51.4 2P%, 39.3 3P%

I really see no difference whether Diaw was on or off the court.

Meanwhile, here are Draymond's ON/OFF from 2015 and 2016.

Draymond ON: 5298 Minutes, 116.91 ORTG, 54.1 2P%, 41.7 3P%
Draymond OFF: 2624 Minutes, 105.38 ORTG, 48.4 2P%, 37.9 3P%

Now, you are trying to argue Bogut+Iguodala+Draymond sharing the court together are suppressing the offense. Care to guess how many minutes all 3 played together over the 2 seasons in 2015 and 2016?

586 TOTAL MINUTES. That's it. That's less than 3 Minutes Per Game on an 82 game pace over 2 seasons.

The reality is when all 3 of these players sat, which was 741 Minutes, the offense was Sub-100 ORTG.

[Onus]

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.

I don't care what BBREF says, they do it based on height but unless you're saying Tim Thomas or Shawn Marion were guarding centers and not Boris Diaw then yea he was playing C. I think this has a lot more to do with it than you think.

Yes draymond played some center, but when the other players are Iguodala and Bogut 2 other players you don't really need to guard at the 3 point line, having 2 players you don't need to guard but at the rim in Dray and Bogut, that's going to suppress your offense. Those early warriors teams were a defensive team first more akin to the AI Sixers than the Nash led Suns.

From 2005-2007, here are the ON/OFF for Diaw.

Diaw ON: 5141 Minutes, 113.08 ORTG, 52.5 2P%, 40.4 3P%
Diaw OFF: 6797 Minutes, 113.42 ORTG, 51.4 2P%, 39.3 3P%

I really see no difference whether Diaw was on or off the court.

Meanwhile, here are Draymond's ON/OFF from 2015 and 2016.

Draymond ON: 5298 Minutes, 116.91 ORTG, 54.1 2P%, 41.7 3P%
Draymond OFF: 2624 Minutes, 105.38 ORTG, 48.4 2P%, 37.9 3P%

Now, you are trying to argue Bogut+Iguodala+Draymond sharing the court together are suppressing the offense. Care to guess how many minutes all 3 played together over the 2 seasons in 2015 and 2016?

586 TOTAL MINUTES. That's it. That's less than 3 Minutes Per Game on an 82 game pace over 2 seasons.

The reality is when all 3 of these players sat, which was 741 Minutes, the offense was Sub-100 ORTG.

Yes if all 3 are off the court it means it's garbage time. We played a lot of garbage time.

Yes playing 2 guys you don't have to guard at the 3 point line together is going to make a worse offense than if you have 4 or 5 guys you have to guard at the 3 point line.

What's Dray's on/off without Steph?

[ReggiesKnicks]

I don't care what BBREF says, they do it based on height but unless you're saying Tim Thomas or Shawn Marion were guarding centers and not Boris Diaw then yea he was playing C. I think this has a lot more to do with it than you think.

Yes draymond played some center, but when the other players are Iguodala and Bogut 2 other players you don't really need to guard at the 3 point line, having 2 players you don't need to guard but at the rim in Dray and Bogut, that's going to suppress your offense. Those early warriors teams were a defensive team first more akin to the AI Sixers than the Nash led Suns.

From 2005-2007, here are the ON/OFF for Diaw.

Diaw ON: 5141 Minutes, 113.08 ORTG, 52.5 2P%, 40.4 3P%
Diaw OFF: 6797 Minutes, 113.42 ORTG, 51.4 2P%, 39.3 3P%

I really see no difference whether Diaw was on or off the court.

Meanwhile, here are Draymond's ON/OFF from 2015 and 2016.

Draymond ON: 5298 Minutes, 116.91 ORTG, 54.1 2P%, 41.7 3P%
Draymond OFF: 2624 Minutes, 105.38 ORTG, 48.4 2P%, 37.9 3P%

Now, you are trying to argue Bogut+Iguodala+Draymond sharing the court together are suppressing the offense. Care to guess how many minutes all 3 played together over the 2 seasons in 2015 and 2016?

586 TOTAL MINUTES. That's it. That's less than 3 Minutes Per Game on an 82 game pace over 2 seasons.

The reality is when all 3 of these players sat, which was 741 Minutes, the offense was Sub-100 ORTG.

Yes if all 3 are off the court it means it's garbage time. We played a lot of garbage time.

You said "Yes draymond played some center, but when the other players are Iguodala and Bogut". You are saying all 3 of Draymond/Iguodala/Bogut affected the team's ORTG, yet they barely played together. I just want to be sure you said this but don't mean it.

Yes playing 2 guys you don't have to guard at the 3 point line together is going to make a worse offense than if you have 4 or 5 guys you have to guard at the 3 point line.

This isn't always the case. Draymond was a terrific passer, screen setter and worked well off-ball to reset off-ball screens and move into space to be a connector as a passer. Furthermore, Draymond was a good 3P shooter throughout 2016 and killed defenses with his shooting.

What's Dray's on/off without Steph?

Well it's obviously lower than with Steph, right?

Just like Curry's ORTG benefits immensely from Draymond and Klay sharing the floor with him. I don't really see how this is relevant unless you want to try and tie it in to the discussion. Draymond has proven to be an ATG defensive anchor defensively and then a ceiling raiser juicer and connector offensively. Draymond is incredible when sharing the floor with savvy and IQ filled players but put Draymond in a heliocentric type role and his value is going to diminish. Lucky for Draymond and Curry, their play styles synergized.

[Onus]

You said "Yes draymond played some center, but when the other players are Iguodala and Bogut". You are saying all 3 of Draymond/Iguodala/Bogut affected the team's ORTG, yet they barely played together. I just want to be sure you said this but don't mean it.

Agreed the 3 didn't play meaningful minutes together.

Yes playing 2 guys you don't have to guard at the 3 point line together is going to make a worse offense than if you have 4 or 5 guys you have to guard at the 3 point line.

This isn't always the case. Draymond was a terrific passer, screen setter and worked well off-ball to reset off-ball screens and move into space to be a connector as a passer. Furthermore, Draymond was a good 3P shooter throughout 2016 and killed defenses with his shooting.

Please look at how wide open he is when he's shooting.

What's Dray's on/off without Steph?

Well it's obviously lower than with Steph, right?

Just like Curry's ORTG benefits immensely from Draymond and Klay sharing the floor with him. I don't really see how this is relevant unless you want to try and tie it in to the discussion. Draymond has proven to be an ATG defensive anchor defensively and then a ceiling raiser juicer and connector offensively. Draymond is incredible when sharing the floor with savvy and IQ filled players but put Draymond in a heliocentric type role and his value is going to diminish. Lucky for Draymond and Curry, their play styles synergized.

Really it's not. The point I'm trying to make is Diaw in 2005 was not being guarded the way Dray was guarded in 2015+.

[Mavrelous]

What's Dray's on/off without Steph?

Well it's obviously lower than with Steph, right?

With Steph off, Dray had ~16.5 on/off.
With Steph on, Dray had ~10 on/off.
Each alone contributed 8+ to the net rating, Curry changed the ORTG, Dray changed DRTG, but impact wise it's nearly 50/50, Dray on helped Steph offensively compared to others.
I don't remember anything like this TBH, perfect split of the net rating between 2 players with the contribution being exclusively on one side for each player.

[ReggiesKnicks]

What's Dray's on/off without Steph?

Well it's obviously lower than with Steph, right?

With Steph off, Dray had ~16.5 on/off.
With Steph on, Dray had ~10 on/off.
Each alone contributed 8+ to the net rating, Curry changed the ORTG, Dray changed DRTG, but impact wise it's nearly 50/50, Dray on helped Steph offensively compared to others.
I don't remember anything like this TBH, perfect split of the net rating between 2 players with the contribution being exclusively on one side for each player.

This is all about Offensive Rating though.

[ReggiesKnicks]

You said "Yes draymond played some center, but when the other players are Iguodala and Bogut". You are saying all 3 of Draymond/Iguodala/Bogut affected the team's ORTG, yet they barely played together. I just want to be sure you said this but don't mean it.

Agreed the 3 didn't play meaningful minutes together.

Yes playing 2 guys you don't have to guard at the 3 point line together is going to make a worse offense than if you have 4 or 5 guys you have to guard at the 3 point line.

This isn't always the case. Draymond was a terrific passer, screen setter and worked well off-ball to reset off-ball screens and move into space to be a connector as a passer. Furthermore, Draymond was a good 3P shooter throughout 2016 and killed defenses with his shooting.

Please look at how wide open he is when he's shooting.

What's Dray's on/off without Steph?

Well it's obviously lower than with Steph, right?

Just like Curry's ORTG benefits immensely from Draymond and Klay sharing the floor with him. I don't really see how this is relevant unless you want to try and tie it in to the discussion. Draymond has proven to be an ATG defensive anchor defensively and then a ceiling raiser juicer and connector offensively. Draymond is incredible when sharing the floor with savvy and IQ filled players but put Draymond in a heliocentric type role and his value is going to diminish. Lucky for Draymond and Curry, their play styles synergized.

Really it's not. The point I'm trying to make is Diaw in 2005 was not being guarded the way Dray was guarded in 2015+.

You would need film analysis for this. Unfortunately, all the data we have is "Draymond is a more impactful offensive player than Diaw". So, while you may want to argue how a team defends Golden State vs Boris Diaw, the data we have actually supports Draymond as being the better and more impactful offensive player in their comparative systems.

[Onus]

You said "Yes draymond played some center, but when the other players are Iguodala and Bogut". You are saying all 3 of Draymond/Iguodala/Bogut affected the team's ORTG, yet they barely played together. I just want to be sure you said this but don't mean it.

Agreed the 3 didn't play meaningful minutes together.

Yes playing 2 guys you don't have to guard at the 3 point line together is going to make a worse offense than if you have 4 or 5 guys you have to guard at the 3 point line.

This isn't always the case. Draymond was a terrific passer, screen setter and worked well off-ball to reset off-ball screens and move into space to be a connector as a passer. Furthermore, Draymond was a good 3P shooter throughout 2016 and killed defenses with his shooting.

Please look at how wide open he is when he's shooting.

What's Dray's on/off without Steph?

Well it's obviously lower than with Steph, right?

Just like Curry's ORTG benefits immensely from Draymond and Klay sharing the floor with him. I don't really see how this is relevant unless you want to try and tie it in to the discussion. Draymond has proven to be an ATG defensive anchor defensively and then a ceiling raiser juicer and connector offensively. Draymond is incredible when sharing the floor with savvy and IQ filled players but put Draymond in a heliocentric type role and his value is going to diminish. Lucky for Draymond and Curry, their play styles synergized.

Really it's not. The point I'm trying to make is Diaw in 2005 was not being guarded the way Dray was guarded in 2015+.

You would need film analysis for this. Unfortunately, all the data we have is "Draymond is a more impactful offensive player than Diaw". So, while you may want to argue how a team defends Golden State vs Boris Diaw, the data we have actually supports Draymond as being the better and more impactful offensive player in their comparative systems.

The data you are looking at is irrelevant to my claims that teams do not guard Diaw the same way they guard Draymond.

[ReggiesKnicks]

Agreed the 3 didn't play meaningful minutes together.



Please look at how wide open he is when he's shooting.




Really it's not. The point I'm trying to make is Diaw in 2005 was not being guarded the way Dray was guarded in 2015+.

You would need film analysis for this. Unfortunately, all the data we have is "Draymond is a more impactful offensive player than Diaw". So, while you may want to argue how a team defends Golden State vs Boris Diaw, the data we have actually supports Draymond as being the better and more impactful offensive player in their comparative systems.

The data you are looking at is irrelevant to my claims that teams do not guard Diaw the same way they guard Draymond.

Oh honey, Data isn't going to show directly how a team guards a player. That's foolish to think.

Draymond and Diaw played in a different era with different teammates. Of course they were guarded differently. I would never argue otherwise. I think it's obvious who the better offensive player was though

[Onus]

You would need film analysis for this. Unfortunately, all the data we have is "Draymond is a more impactful offensive player than Diaw". So, while you may want to argue how a team defends Golden State vs Boris Diaw, the data we have actually supports Draymond as being the better and more impactful offensive player in their comparative systems.

The data you are looking at is irrelevant to my claims that teams do not guard Diaw the same way they guard Draymond.

Oh honey, Data isn't going to show directly how a team guards a player. That's foolish to think.

Draymond and Diaw played in a different era with different teammates. Of course they were guarded differently. I would never argue otherwise. I think it's obvious who the better offensive player was though

Oh honey, there is data that would show directly how a team guards a player. It seems like you don't have access to it and apparently unaware of that data.

It seems like you were trying to argue otherwise, which is confusing since you wanted to interject. Just for clarification this entire discussion started with me saying teams didn't just leave Diaw wide open begging him to shoot the ball.

[kingr]

LeBron 2012-2017 is incredible. +10.6 and weighed down by a finals performance against one of the better modern defenses we have ever seen, with J.R. Smith as a 2nd option and Matthew Dellavedova as a secondary playmaker.

Kobe having incredible synergy with Pau and Shaq and then being slightly above average supports a lot of my thoughts about him being excellent, synergizing with a big man, and also not being an elite central hub without the perfect secondary option.

Jokic peaking at +7.4 and +7.6 as a post-season anchor means he has a lot of ground to make up on the other ATG offensive centerpieces of the data ball era.

Nash, with the best 3-year peak at +36.7, followed closely by LeBron at +36.4, tracks well with what many people think are the two best offensive players of the 21st Century.

2013-2023 Average: +8.1/+9.1

How are you calculating the average? 73.8/9 is 8.2, yet you have +9.1 for the post-season. Thanks!

Why did you pick the best 3 year peak to compare and not best 4 year peak? Lol i'm messing with you.

[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.

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

Yeah those teams blatantly sacrificing their defense/rebounding to artificially boost their offense has nothing to do with it.

Even at their absolute peak those teams could never crack above a +7 SRS. Never once posted a full strength of +8

Bunch of losers and chokers.

And now he's suddenly the best offensive player ever when he has MAYBE one or two seasons as the best offensive player.

Nash fans do nothing but repeat the same old talking points about his TEAM offenses (even though he wasn't even the best offensive player on his own team for a bunch of those seasons) or cherry pick certain ORAPM studies. It's infuriating.

[lessthanjake]

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.

I don't care what BBREF says, they do it based on height but unless you're saying Tim Thomas or Shawn Marion were guarding centers and not Boris Diaw then yea he was playing C. I think this has a lot more to do with it than you think.

Yes draymond played some center, but when the other players are Iguodala and Bogut 2 other players you don't really need to guard at the 3 point line, having 2 players you don't need to guard but at the rim in Dray and Bogut, that's going to suppress your offense. Those early warriors teams were a defensive team first more akin to the AI Sixers than the Nash led Suns.

First of all, BBREF does not base that on height. We can very easily see that by noticing things that would be impossible if that’s what they were doing—including LeBron having seasons where he is listed as spending a majority of his time at PG. Diaw simply spent most of his time at PF for the Suns. On that front, I think you’re forgetting that Kurt Thomas played on that 2005-06 Suns team and was clearly a center. That accounts for most of Diaw’s minutes at PF that year. We also know that Shawn Marion is not being categorized as a center by BBREF, because he’s listed as spending 2% of his time that season at center. And then there’s the fact that Diaw spent about 10% of his minutes with Burke or Grant—who also were clearly centers.

More importantly, you’re missing the key point that RAPM is not adjusted by position. Everyone is being compared to everyone. Playing center won’t systematically make a player’s offensive RAPM higher (or their defensive RAPM lower). Centers just tend to have lower offensive RAPMs and higher defensive RAPMs, so a given offensive RAPM value might look less bad on a center (while a given defensive RAPM value might look worse on a center). But there’s no reason to believe that playing more minutes at center will meaningfully change the offensive RAPM value itself. And the fact is that RAPM tells us that Diaw was a very negative-impact offensive player for many years, with the only exception in that time period being his stint with Nash. He was a bad offensive player at the time, who was able to play like a decent offensive player only on a team with Nash. The fact is also that Draymond’s offensive RAPM values are far better than Diaw’s. There’s really no way to look at the impact data and conclude that Diaw was a better offensive player than Draymond. In fact, the data clearly tells us the opposite. Even when Nash made him temporarily far more impactful offensively than he normally was, he still wasn’t having the offensive impact Draymond has had. You’re not really addressing this. We just know that Draymond is a more impactful offensive player than Diaw. We also know that Diaw was a bad offensive player for the better part of a decade, with the only exception being when he played with Nash. It is not reasonable to look at this data and decide that Nash was lucky offensively to have Diaw instead of Draymond.

[Ambrose]

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

Amare, JJ, Marion, Dantoni all came and went yet the results remained. Nash was that special.

[cupcakesnake]

Yes draymond played some center, but when the other players are Iguodala and Bogut 2 other players you don't really need to guard at the 3 point line, having 2 players you don't need to guard but at the rim in Dray and Bogut, that's going to suppress your offense. Those early warriors teams were a defensive team first more akin to the AI Sixers than the Nash led Suns.

Except that Draymond and Bogut being very good screeners and passers playing with 2 of the greatest shooters of all-time was offensively synergistic. Basketball isn't just stacking talented names. How these players interact matters. The Warriors during that era loved to exploit anyone ignoring Bogut or Draymond because they operated as screeners for elite shooters. The league has since adjusted and figured out different switching schemes to negate non-shooting screeners a bit, but back then it was deadly on offense.

Had you been able to "upgrade" Bogut/Iggy/Dray with better offensive players (say... Aldridge/Kevin martin/Tobias Harris), I don't think that boosts the offense at all.

Even to this day, the Kerr/Curry/Draymond era in Golden State has prioritized playing Steph (+ Klay and now Hield) with good passers.

[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.

Yeah those teams blatantly sacrificing their defense/rebounding to artificially boost their offense has nothing to do with it.

Even at their absolute peak those teams could never crack above a +7 SRS. Never once posted a full strength of +8

Bunch of losers and chokers.

And now he's suddenly the best offensive player ever when he has MAYBE one or two seasons as the best offensive player.

Nash fans do nothing but repeat the same old talking points about his TEAM offenses (even though he wasn't even the best offensive player on his own team for a bunch of those seasons) or cherry pick certain ORAPM studies. It's infuriating.

I think this idea that they sacrificed their defense to boost their offense misses the point a bit. In a sense it’s true. They did run offensively-slanted lineups. But whether a team runs offensively slanted lineups is not the real question when it comes to evaluating how good you’d expect them to be on offense. The real question is just how much offensive talent they were putting on the floor. Two teams can put an equal amount of offensive talent on the floor but one might be more offensively slanted, simply because that lineup is worse at defense. And that’s where I think people lose the plot a bit in these arguments about Nash. The fact that his lineups tended to be offensively slanted does not mean that they were actually more offensively talented lineups than what other great offensive players have had. I really don’t think that guys like Amare, Marion, Diaw, Barbosa, old Grant Hill, etc. result in more offensively talented lineups than teams that guys like Steph, LeBron, Magic, CP3, etc. have had. And yet the offensive results with Nash were better. Given that, the argument that Nash’s teams were more offensively slanted basically just reflects that Nash’s teams were worse on defense (and therefore were not as good overall). Which, of course, would explain why they never reached the highest of heights in SRS or won a title. Of course, another factor in them not reaching the highest of heights is simply that Nash himself was a negative-impact defender. If Nash had been even an average defender, his teams definitely would’ve reached 8 SRS, and he probably would’ve won a title. But Nash’s defensive deficiencies are not relevant to the specific question of offensive prowess.

As for the rest of this, you might want to take a look at RAPM and see what it says about how impactful prime Nash was individually in terms of offense. Let’s take five-year RAPM from the NBArapm website as an example. Nash led the lead in 5-year offensive RAPM in 7 straight spans. That is, he led from the 2002-2006 timeframe all the way to the 2008-2012. No one else led in that many spans. Not LeBron (who led 4 times). Not Steph (who led 6 times). And not Shaq (who led 4 times). And the offensive RAPM values Nash was putting up in those timeframes was noticeably higher than what those guys were putting up in their league-leading timespans. And this really isn’t cherry-picking. We see the same story if we look at other RAPM measures too—for instance, in TheBasketballDatabase’s RAPM, Nash actually led in 8 straight five-year spans. And we could look at Engelmann’s PI RAPM instead, where Nash has 5 of the top 10 seasons on record. The argument for Nash as the offensive GOAT really is not just reliant on team data. It is also consistent with individual RAPM data.