RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #27 (Steve Nash)

[trex_8063]

I'm glad you're bringing up more context. I'm focused on the Finals because that's what made his legacy.

I think it's worth noting Wade's scoring in these playoffs:
1st Round: 24.7 PPG
2nd Round: 27.6 PPG
Conf. Finals: 26.7 PPG
Championship: 34.7 PPG

Just as an added bit of context within that finals series: part of the reason the Heat's ORtg was so poor was because they shot a terrible 60.4% as a team from the FT-line. And that's despite Wade getting to the line an NBA finals record [or is it an NBA series record?] 16.2 FTA/game, while hitting >77% of them........but the rest of the team [collectively] shot 45.5%:

*Shaq (who was consistently terrible at the line this year) went hot dog***t bad in the series (29.2%).
**Udonis Haslem (normally a 79% shooter that year) hit just 3 of 10 in the series.
***Multiple other players (most of the rest of the roster) hit below their usual accuracy on small number of attempts, too.

If the rest of the cast [aside from Wade] just hit average at the line----and I'm not talking league-average; I mean just what was average for each individual in this specific year----on the same number of attempts, it would add 18 extra points for the series and raise the Heat ORtg from 101.0 to 104.3......which still isn't good, but would be merely mediocre instead of poor.

Again, this doesn't require Wade himself doing ANYTHING different or better in the series......it merely requires his entire cast to not crap the bed at the FT-line.

And fwiw, poor FT-shooting by nearly everyone except Wade was a contributing factor to their 2nd-worst offensive showing in the playoffs (which was still a +4.2 rORTG): his supporting cast shot just 54.5% from the line in the Detroit series. If the supporting cast had managed shooting just average [for them] on the same number of attempts, it adds up to ~6 extra pts for the series, and a +1.2 boost to their ORtg.

And they weren't blazing [or even above average] in either of the first two rounds, either. The best FT-shooting by his supporting cast was in the semis against New Jersey (they shot 65.3%). That was mostly because both Haslem and Williams got to the line a pinch more than usual and hit a little better than their usual average; but Shaq [who took 10 more attempts than Haslem and Williams combined] shot 38.6%, and everyone else was basically average.


So if his teammates just manage to shoot their average from the line in the CF and Finals, suddenly the Heat rORTG for the entire '06 playoffs is +4.7 (basically equaling their playoff defense).

[trex_8063]

1st vote: Dwyane Wade
I think Wade is arguably the best peak left on the table save maybe Bill Walton. His longevity is lacking [durability was oft an issue], which is the only reason I've not supported him earlier.
But Wade was a crazy good slashing guard, with outstanding finishing ability for a SG (67.9% collectively for the solid decade of '06-'15, peaking at nearly 73%......that's gotta be near-GOAT tier for a SG) and terrific foul-draw rate.......these things combined ot make him a remarkable scorer in an all-time sense. Also an understated playmaker, imo, and in the GOAT-tier of help defenders from the SG position.
Box-based metrics put him at an MVP tier during his very best seasons, and he held up well in the playoffs before his body began breaking down (like around '13 and after).
He's in the company of players like Dirk and Chris Paul, and just barely behind Duncan [all of these guys already voted in] in terms of his multi-year impact measures, which would certainly seem to suggest he deserves some traction even with longevity that is lacking relative to the rest. His peak RAPM rivals basically anyone not named Lebron.

I'd posted some additional bits [part of an in-line discussion] pertaining to his '06 run in posts #104 and 121 of this thread, too.


2nd vote: Patrick Ewing
Overshadowed in terms of DPOY and/or All-Defensive accolades because his career almost exactly overlaps with those of Hakeem, DRob, and Dikembe......I'm willing to bet Dwight Howard does no better on this front if his career overlapped with these guys.

But Ewing anchored [or at worst "co-anchored"] TWO of the greatest defensive squads in NBA history (two of the top 3-4 defenses of the last 30 years), while simultaneously being the 1st option on offense [even if he wasn't terrifically suited to that role]. There are not a lot of guys who can anchor an elite defense AND score 23-27 ppg [even if it is on average(ish) efficiency].

And Ewing had more than respectable longevity as well.
I know there isn’t a mainstream list that has Ewing in the top 30, though I think that’s because they’re all too often based heavily on media accolades [which he just misses out on by having career overlap with Hakeem, Robinson, and Mutombo] and rings.

I'll also quote this post of mine from prior thread:

Below are the 23 all-time greatest team defenses in all of NBA/ABA history (for simplicity, based just on rs rDRTG)....

'64 Celtics: -10.8
'65 Celtics: -9.4
'04 Spurs: -8.8
'08 Celtics: -8.6
'62 Celtics: -8.5
'63 Celtics: -8.5
'93 Knicks: -8.3
'94 Knicks: -8.1
'20 Bucks: -7.7
'52 Lakers: -7.6
'61 Celtics: -7.6
'04 Pistons: -7.5 (*even better late-season after acquiring Sheed)
'16 Spurs: -7.4
'14 Pacers: -7.4
'05 Spurs: -7.3
'99 Spurs: -7.2
'11 Celtics: -7.0
'11 Bulls: -7.0
'07 Bulls: -6.9
'66 Celtics: -6.6
'06 Spurs: -6.6
'07 Spurs: -6.6
'70 Knicks: -6.6


Just pointing out that TWO of the top 8 EVER were Ewing Knicks teams. Yes, these teams had an excellent defensive-minded coach, a roster packed with guys who were "more defense than offense". But still, you don't achieve those kinds of results without an all-time tier defensive big in the middle.
We're talking about TWO defenses that only ONE of Duncan's teams, ONE Garnett team, and only 4 (of 13) of Bill Russell's teams ever bested......NO ONE else managed better.
And note that there is not a single team of Hakeem's, or Dikembe's, or Wilt's, or any Utah team (Eaton/Gobert), or any ABA Gilmore team, etc on this list.

Because his shot block numbers don't quite stack up, Ewing is often held in substantially lower esteem defensively than some of his same-era peers......but he really wasn't far behind [at all] guys like Hakeem, DRob, Deke in their respective primes.
And he did so while being relied upon for anywhere from 22-29 ppg [on anywhere from -1% to +7% rTS].

I'm also going to remind everyone it basically took John Starks having the single-worst shooting night of his entire career in game 7 of the '94 Finals to put Hakeem and the Rockets over the Knicks for the title. If Ewing had a ring [and the FMVP that no doubt would have gone to him in that instance], I don't think Ewing would even still be on the table for this spot; he likely would have gone in the vicinity of Moses/Barkley.

3rd vote: Steve Nash
Not 100% solid on him as my final pick, though it's where I'm leaning. I'd consider Scottie Pippen as an alternate.

No one else immediately close for me, given Pettit, Curry, and Mikan are already off the table.
Probably Harden, Kidd, and Hondo are the next closest on my ATL.

[trex_8063]

.

Writing's on the wall [as I'd indicated]: your vote is going be ghosted, and it would procedurally save time [potentially, anyway] if you would tell me your picks between the probable contenders for this spot (likely Wade and Nash) so I don't have to chase you down later (potentially holding up the whole project in the process).

[Magic Is Magic]

Can someone fill me in on the Patrick Ewing traction? He has no place above Harden or many others not yet ranked.

Ewing
0x MVP
1x All NBA 1st team
0x All Defensive 1st team
0x Assist, Rebounding, Scoring title
0x RS runs of >7.0 BPM
0x PO runs of >7.0 BPM
Total: 1


Harden
1x MVP
6x All NBA 1st team
0x All Defensive 1st team
4x Assist, Rebounding, Scoring title
5x RS runs of >7.0 BPM
5x PO runs of >7.0 BPM
Total: 21

Additionally, Ewing has scored over 25 ppg twice in his career. Harden has now accomplished this 8x in a row, nearing a top 5 all-time consistency record.

I might lose my mind if Ewing gets ranked above Harden

[eminence]

What a completely arbitrary list of accomplishments. PPG for a defensive anchor vs a score first guard is an absolutely meaningless comparison.

[Magic Is Magic]

What a completely arbitrary list of accomplishments. PPG for a defensive anchor vs a score first guard is an absolutely meaningless comparison.

1st team All NBA
1st team Defensive
MVP
Assist Title
Rebounding Title
Scoring Title
BPM RS > 7
BPM PO > 7

Ewing = 1
Harden = 21

Come on man...

[Cavsfansince84]

What a completely arbitrary list of accomplishments. PPG for a defensive anchor vs a score first guard is an absolutely meaningless comparison.

1st team All NBA
1st team Defensive
MVP
Assist Title
Rebounding Title
Scoring Title
BPM RS > 7
BPM PO > 7

Ewing = 1
Harden = 21

Come on man...

ok, but how about now
times averaging 20+ppg(Ewing 13, Harden 8)
times averaging 10+rpg(Ewing 9, Harden 0)
times averaging 10+apg(Ewing 0, Harden 1)
times making all nba(Ewing 7, Harden 7)
times making all defense team(Ewing 3, Harden 0)
times top 10 in mvp voting(Ewing 7, Harden 8)

Totals: Ewing 39, Harden 24

Statistics can be used in a lot of ways. I'm not even saying I will definitely have Ewing above Harden in this project but the method you used to draw a conclusion between them was kind of disingenuous in how you did it.

[LA Bird]

Can someone fill me in on the Patrick Ewing traction? He has no place above Harden or many others not yet ranked.

Ewing
0x MVP
1x All NBA 1st team
0x All Defensive 1st team
0x Assist, Rebounding, Scoring title
0x RS runs of >7.0 BPM
0x PO runs of >7.0 BPM
Total: 1


Harden
1x MVP
6x All NBA 1st team
0x All Defensive 1st team
4x Assist, Rebounding, Scoring title
5x RS runs of >7.0 BPM
5x PO runs of >7.0 BPM
Total: 21

I might lose my mind if Ewing gets ranked above Harden

Why do you come up with these arbitrary benchmarks? It's not consistent and it's a shifting goalpost that changes from thread to thread depending on which player you are arguing for. Using the same benchmarks here,

Stockton
0x MVP
2x All NBA 1st team
0x All Defensive 1st team
9x Assist, Rebounding, Scoring title
7x RS runs of >7.0 BPM
6x PO runs of >7.0 BPM
Total: 24

Bird
3x MVP
9x All NBA 1st team
0x All Defensive 1st team
0x Assist, Rebounding, Scoring title
6x RS runs of >7.0 BPM
4x PO runs of >7.0 BPM
Total: 22

If you were actually following your own "criteria", Stockton is ahead of Larry Bird. But to the contrary, you just wrote last thread that it was embarrassing for Stockton to be in top 30 because he has no reason to be there. These benchmarks are meaningless and you don't follow them yourself in your own all time list.

Additionally, Ewing has scored over 25 ppg twice in his career. Harden has now accomplished this 8x in a row, nearing a top 5 all-time consistency record.

Additionally, Harden has never averaged 1 block a game in his career. Ewing averaged 2 blocks 14x in a row, a top 2 all time consistency record.

[70sFan]

In discussion about Kawhi's peak, I completely forgot that Wade hasn't been voted in yet He's also better player peak-wise and has better longevity.

[Baski]

How do you factor in personnel and system though? Nash had a very compatible offensive cast/coach/system behind him. I don't think you can say the same about Wade in the years you're referencing. Putting elite shooters and a competent PG around prime Wade surely wouldn't give you Nash-level offenses, but we probably wouldn't call them putrid either.
Like say you gave Nash 05/06 Shaq and Zo instead of Amare and Marion. They might win the title but their offense wouldn't look as good as they do now.

So first:

The question of how you try to turn apple-to-orange comparisons into apples-to-apples is always something we're left to do on our own because there are no objective answers.

If someone says they believe what Wade did was more impressive than Nash, that's not crazy.
If someone says that they think it's easier to build an elite team with Wade than Nash because of volume scoring and defense, that's not crazy.

But when someone says Wade succeeded where Nash did not, then we need to have a discussion about how the Heat actually won and how we'd have looked at Wade had he not actually led a team to a title.

I feel like there isn't much difference between the 3 statements, at least not enough to justify agreeing with the first 2 but disputing the third.

Second:

Wade is the PG. Period. He's not a natural PG, as he himself has said, but he requires the ball to be in his hands in order to have anything like superstar offensive impact. He should be seen as a combo guard or a zero guard, along with Allen Iverson and Tyreke Evans. Was he better than those guys? Yes, but primarily because of his scoring.

Remember what I said before: If you look at the 4 epochs of LeBron's career, the team he had the least offensive success with is the Heatles, and that was most certainly not what he was expecting. If with even LeBron you can't expect to build to build an offense with Wade that surpasses what he did when he had no one with the same kind of talent as Wade & Bosh, that really shows you how limited Wade is in such a capacity.

I'm a little confused here. The Heat ranked 3rd, 8th, 2nd and 5th in Ortg over their run, and this is with Wade missing a ton of games. Are these unimpressive? In the first 2 years the roster wasn't exactly built for offensive success, and in the 3rd year when they got the right pieces, they were fantastic despite Wade going down to injury.
Also, you have to account for the fact that the offense was built more around LeBron than it was Wade. We should be looking at his impact as a secondary playmaker rather than a primary one. Unlike Wade, Nash had unquestioned primacy of the ball. Can we judge his ability to anchor an elite offense based on a LeBron-centric system where he had to adjust his game and give up some of his favourite spots for another player?
The Cavs were 4th and 6th with LeBron having shooters around him. It's hard to compare the two sets of team results straight up like that.
Remember the question isn't whether he's better on that front than Nash, but whether he can produce elite offenses.

So then the question is what you can expect when you put Wade with a bunch of shooters. I understand why folks are optimistic just using their imaginations or Wade operating in space, the primary value of that space is in using your teammates who can hit shots if you get them the ball effectively and you have to factor in a massive difference between comparing an SG to the single best decision maker in basketball history.

Third:

It would be one thing if Wade was known for leading a stronger team offense in the playoffs than in the regular season. Then you could say "Well the offense is weaker because more emphasis is placed on defense, but you can see come playoff time how his team's systems actually work better in the playoffs." That's not what actually happened though.

That could be explained by bad offensive players getting even worse in the playoffs. Happens all the time. But I'm wondering why you'd expect the offense to get better in the POs when logically it should get worse. Getting better should be the exception rather than the rule no?

Fourth:

I think it's worth examining how your starting point shapes your perspective.

People who focus on individual stats tend to look at poor team performance and say "Imagine what kind of numbers he'd put up if he had some help!", whereas those of us more team-focused tend to first ask "What was working for the team? How was it working?"

We see this a lot with Stockton vs Nash despite the fact the differences between them are relatively small.

If you start by looking at the assist totals, you tend to actually be MORE impressed with his passing because the team offense was not better.

If you start by looking at team performance and note that everything on offense was running through Nash, the notion that he was doing something wrong because he didn't have even more assists becomes non-sensical.

And the 2010 series I alluded for Wade shows this in a nutshell.

In that series against that stellar Boston defense, Wade scored 33.2 PPG on 65.0 TS%. Looks positively GOAT-like.
His team had an ORtg of 97.8, which was 6.1 worse than what the Celtics allowed in the regular season, despite the fact that in the regular season the Heat's offense was pretty much average.

Some will see that and think "My gosh, imagine if Wade had better teammates!", but you do have to remember that it's not the defenses job to keep Wade from scoring, it's their job to keep the Heat from scoring. And they did that well enough they didn't even have to really break a sweat before moving on to the next round.

To be clear, I wouldn't want to use this to say Wade was doing something fundamentally wrong, I'm just saying it's a huge problem if you try to make a case for Wade's offense based on a notion of him being "unstoppable".

I'll add then that this is basically the same conversation we had with Wilt.

Put all this together:

There's really no reason to look at Wade as someone proven to be able to lead elite offenses, and there's a boatload of surrounding context that makes us tend to look at Wade and say "Oh, but he succeeded. He won that title. He got the stats. Stop quibbling about the details.", and I think a wiser course of analysis asks:

How would we see Wade if his team wasn't monstrous defensively in those 2006 finals?

I think that if you don't actually give Wade the benefit of the doubt on all this stuff up front, you start realizing there are a lot of concerns.

Forgive me if it seems I've missed something, but here's what I think you're saying: that you can't build an elite offense around Wade because when he had trash the offense was meh, and when he had LeBron the offense was (debatably) worse than LeBron alone. That seems mighty harsh considering how his teams have evolved over the years.


As a side note, you're extremely high on Nash because of the insane offensive ceilings his teams could have when they maximized him. Going by the results of elite scorers that keep the offense afloat for elite defensive teams (e.g. Wade, Curry, Jordan, LeBron, Dirk), shouldn't we be looking at Nash's playstyle as flawed despite GOAT offensive results? Should it matter if none of these guys- and by proxy, their ringless analogues-can produce an offense as potent as Nash if they're going to be more successful anyway?

[Joao Saraiva]

Wade scored 26.7 in the ECF... against a top 5 defensive team. He did it on 68.4ts%. I'll keep waiting for the same scoring outburst from Nash.

And we're talking scoring... I never even got to the part of Wade being a much better defender, and while not in the same league as a playmaker he was a good one himself.

WTF dude. I just realize I just responded to you again referring to the '04-05 Dallas series because you didn't respond back on that. When I responded to you, I didn't think anything of it. There are a lot of details, no reason to expect you to respond to them all.

But Jesus man, go look it up. And don't come back here quibbling about the details. I should have never had to write this post.

"And we're talking scoring..." okay, I'm out. Wade is a scorer. That's what he does. That's why he matters. We're on his home turf and you're still burning yourself with overreach.

I haven't had the most time to spend here, sorry. I'm changing home nowadays. What exactly did you want me to address? Might have missed that. Don't take it with frustration or something. I'm defending what I believe about Wade. It doesn't mean I don't recognize Nash or the cases you make about him. I believe you're a good poster so if any of my responses felt frustrating I'm sorry for that.

[Dutchball97]

In discussion about Kawhi's peak, I completely forgot that Wade hasn't been voted in yet He's also better player peak-wise and has better longevity.

I mean I was the one who brought up Kawhi and I have Wade as the #1 on my ballot. What makes you take Wade as a clear better peak? Do you also heavily consider regular season performance here? I think 06 Wade and 19 Kawhi had similar impact in the play-offs and I'd take 17 Kawhi over 09 or 10 Wade. With it being as close in terms of peak I do think the longevity makes the difference for Wade but I find Wade being a clearly better player at his peak questionable.

[Odinn21]

Don't want to belabor the point, though the bolded is only true in terms of a ballot system. If we look at it from the standpoint of a single-vote system, Stockton wins (5-4).

And fwiw, a single-vote system was the voting protocol for the 2008, 2011, and 2014 Top 100 Projects (and possibly earlier ones too??). A ballot system hasn't been used for over a decade and half [if ever??] for this project.

So if I had been to employ an alternate voting method as a tertiary tool to decide a winner, retrospectively it would have made more sense for me to fall back on the single-vote principle [as there is ample use of that method within this project's history].

Doesn't single point system goes out the window in our process the moment there's not a majority in the 1st round?

I don't like the project proceeded in a wham bam done manner. As I said, what bothers me is the time frame. There was 48h usual + 20/21h extended time frame for them to vote. We never experienced such extension before and those deciding votes still did not happen in that extension, you posted "in 3 hours, it'll be 24, if anyone objects", I would've objected at that point with "if they didn't vote so far, we proceed what we got, it's already gone far longer than any other extension we had". I didn't see a particular single post to be in time and they got to be late for a thread going on for days / a project going on for months.

I tried to carry on and even though I still think there should be a run-off at the very least, I voted in the thread without bringing up any of these stuff for further.

Going back to this topic is belaboring, yeah...

---

What a completely arbitrary list of accomplishments. PPG for a defensive anchor vs a score first guard is an absolutely meaningless comparison.

1st team All NBA
1st team Defensive
MVP
Assist Title
Rebounding Title
Scoring Title
BPM RS > 7
BPM PO > 7

Ewing = 1
Harden = 21

Come on man...

ok, but how about now
times averaging 20+ppg(Ewing 13, Harden 8)
times averaging 10+rpg(Ewing 9, Harden 0)
times averaging 10+apg(Ewing 0, Harden 1)
times making all nba(Ewing 7, Harden 7)
times making all defense team(Ewing 3, Harden 0)
times top 10 in mvp voting(Ewing 7, Harden 8)

Totals: Ewing 39, Harden 24

Statistics can be used in a lot of ways. I'm not even saying I will definitely have Ewing above Harden in this project but the method you used to draw a conclusion between them was kind of disingenuous in how you did it.

I think it's very obvious that Magic Is Magic is more interested in career resumes / who has the most glorious career.

[70sFan]

What makes you take Wade as a clear better peak? Do you also heavily consider regular season performance here?

Maybe not "heavily" but yes, because I try to look at larger sample when I look at peak - it's not single postseason run to me.

I think 06 Wade and 19 Kawhi had similar impact in the play-offs and I'd take 17 Kawhi over 09 or 10 Wade.

I don't agree because Wade was far better playmaker and he actually had weaker team than Kawhi despite some flashy names (including Shaq, who wasn't himself anymore). You look at production, I look at combination of production and actual ability. Wade was better offensive player than Kawhi in 2009 or 2010, it wasn't his fault that his teams were so bad. Do you think that Kawhi would lead 2009 Heat further in playoffs?

With it being as close in terms of peak I do think the longevity makes the difference for Wade but I find Wade being a clearly better player at his peak questionable.

As I said - Wade was better playmaker, he was more dynamic offensive player, he pressured the defense more with his slashing game. Kawhi is better shooter and it's a big plus, but it's not enough to me. Kawhi's usual advantage is his scoring in postseason, but when you compare his stats to 2006 Wade, he doesn't even have clear edge here.

Then of course Wade could carry your team quite heavily. Kawhi looked quite bad from physical standpoint after 2019 ECSF and he didn't carry his team to the same degree 2006 Wade did. I also don't find 2019 Kawhi as much better defender than Wade, although I do think he was better.

Personally, I think that Kawhi peaked in 2017 and not in 2019, but he got injured in playoffs - which is again durability concern. Usually, durability is a knock against Wade, but against Kawhi he just looks better in that aspect.

[No-more-rings]

And the 2010 series I alluded for Wade shows this in a nutshell.

In that series against that stellar Boston defense, Wade scored 33.2 PPG on 65.0 TS%. Looks positively GOAT-like.
His team had an ORtg of 97.8, which was 6.1 worse than what the Celtics allowed in the regular season, despite the fact that in the regular season the Heat's offense was pretty much average.

Some will see that and think "My gosh, imagine if Wade had better teammates!", but you do have to remember that it's not the defenses job to keep Wade from scoring, it's their job to keep the Heat from scoring. And they did that well enough they didn't even have to really break a sweat before moving on to the next round.

So i don't think you should leave out, or perhaps forgot what Boston did to other offenses in the playoffs.

Vs the Heat, 97.8 ORTG, their regular season was 106.6(-8.8)
Vs the Cavs, 103 ORTG, their regular season was 111.2(-8.2)
Vs the Magic, 102.5 ORTG, their regular season was 111.4(-8.9)
Vs the Lakers, 106.1 ORTG, their regular season was 108.8(-2.7)

I'd also invite you to look at how much better those teams did in the other series that year. The Heat's dropoff in ORTG wasn't any worse than the Cavs or Magic.

Really, there's nothing Wade could've done about Jermaine Oneal not being able to hit wide open jumpers but hey let's not let context get in the way of things.

[Jordan Syndrome]

1. Steve Nash
2. Dwyane Wade
3. Reggie Miller

Same Ballot as last time as Wade and Nash are rounding out the current tier of players for me. Up next I am looking forward to some great Kidd vs Miller vs Clyde vs Frazier discussions.

Nash - GOAT level offensive creator and offensive catalyst. Long prime (11-12 years) and a sustained peak of multiple seasons which saw little drop-off with different rosters.

Wade - High level player, shorter peak with unconsecutive years but a high peak. Not very portable but his defense and off-ball play will always keep him valuable.

Miller - Its Miller Time!

[Jordan Syndrome]

And the 2010 series I alluded for Wade shows this in a nutshell.

In that series against that stellar Boston defense, Wade scored 33.2 PPG on 65.0 TS%. Looks positively GOAT-like.
His team had an ORtg of 97.8, which was 6.1 worse than what the Celtics allowed in the regular season, despite the fact that in the regular season the Heat's offense was pretty much average.

Some will see that and think "My gosh, imagine if Wade had better teammates!", but you do have to remember that it's not the defenses job to keep Wade from scoring, it's their job to keep the Heat from scoring. And they did that well enough they didn't even have to really break a sweat before moving on to the next round.

So i don't think you should leave out, or perhaps forgot what Boston did to other offenses in the playoffs.

Vs the Heat, 97.8 ORTG, their regular season was 106.6(-8.8)
Vs the Cavs, 103 ORTG, their regular season was 111.2(-8.2)
Vs the Magic, 102.5 ORTG, their regular season was 111.4(-8.9)
Vs the Lakers, 106.1 ORTG, their regular season was 108.8(-2.7)

I'd also invite you to look at how much better those teams did in the other series that year. The Heat's dropoff in ORTG wasn't any worse than the Cavs or Magic.

Really, there's nothing Wade could've done about Jermaine Oneal not being able to hit wide open jumpers but hey let's not let context get in the way of things.

If I am to have understood Doc MJ's post it boiled down to "Wade is good enough to get his numbers but not good enough to raise his teammates level of play". There has never been a case during Nash's peak where his team's Offensive Rating cratered like Wade's did, and one has to think if it has to do with generating open shots.

When the 2005 Suns went up against a 98.8 (1st) Defense in the San Antonio Spurs, the Suns posted a 114.0 Offensive Rating in the series. Nash, against the best team in the NBA, was able to control the tempo and pace of the game to give his team the best opportunity to win. Now, here is the thing, in the previous round, the Spurs faced the #2 ranked offense in the Supersonics (R.I.P) and held them to -4.5 their regular season Offensive Rating.

If we switch over to check out Wade and the Heat, the Heat struggled to create shots even though the ball was in the hands of Wade just as much, if not more than Nash's in 2005. This is a tell-tale sign of Wade being, as Doc MJ mentioned, a tremendous volume scorer and a secondary playmaker but not a primary, catalyst offensively like Steve Nash. I will say that just because Wade and Nash are different molds and Nash is an offensive catalyst doesn't make Nash the better player (this project does have Durant ahead of Nash as well--another player who isn't a catalyst offensively) but to try to paint Wade as something he isn't just isn't right or accurate.

[70sFan]

There has never been a case during Nash's peak where his team's Offensive Rating cratered like Wade's did, and one has to think if it has to do with generating open shots.

When the 2005 Suns went up against a 98.8 (1st) Defense in the San Antonio Spurs, the Suns posted a 114.0 Offensive Rating in the series. Nash, against the best team in the NBA, was able to control the tempo and pace of the game to give his team the best opportunity to win. Now, here is the thing, in the previous round, the Spurs faced the #2 ranked offense in the Supersonics (R.I.P) and held them to -4.5 their regular season Offensive Rating.

To be fair, we should also look at the other Spurs series Nash played during his best years:

2007 vs Spurs: 107.8 ORtg
2008 vs Spurs: 104.5 ORtg

It's still not terrible, but far from GOAT-level.

[Dutchball97]

What makes you take Wade as a clear better peak? Do you also heavily consider regular season performance here?

Maybe not "heavily" but yes, because I try to look at larger sample when I look at peak - it's not single postseason run to me.

I think 06 Wade and 19 Kawhi had similar impact in the play-offs and I'd take 17 Kawhi over 09 or 10 Wade.

I don't agree because Wade was far better playmaker and he actually had weaker team than Kawhi despite some flashy names (including Shaq, who wasn't himself anymore). You look at production, I look at combination of production and actual ability. Wade was better offensive player than Kawhi in 2009 or 2010, it wasn't his fault that his teams were so bad. Do you think that Kawhi would lead 2009 Heat further in playoffs?

With it being as close in terms of peak I do think the longevity makes the difference for Wade but I find Wade being a clearly better player at his peak questionable.

As I said - Wade was better playmaker, he was more dynamic offensive player, he pressured the defense more with his slashing game. Kawhi is better shooter and it's a big plus, but it's not enough to me. Kawhi's usual advantage is his scoring in postseason, but when you compare his stats to 2006 Wade, he doesn't even have clear edge here.

Then of course Wade could carry your team quite heavily. Kawhi looked quite bad from physical standpoint after 2019 ECSF and he didn't carry his team to the same degree 2006 Wade did. I also don't find 2019 Kawhi as much better defender than Wade, although I do think he was better.

Personally, I think that Kawhi peaked in 2017 and not in 2019, but he got injured in playoffs - which is again durability concern. Usually, durability is a knock against Wade, but against Kawhi he just looks better in that aspect.

I think judging someone's "ability" lends itself to a lot more bias than looking at individual production and team results. I don't agree with Wade as a more versatile offensive player and I think the defensive gap in favor of Kawhi is at least as impactful as the gap in playmaking in favor of Wade.

Peak to me is one post-season run, multiple seasons would be prime. Wade in 09/10 wasn't better than Kawhi in 2017 or 2019. At least not by a lot, I don't agree with the idea that Kawhi couldn't have led the Heat further than Wade in those years. We simply don't know how they'd have done in each other's shoes.

I'm not going to argue for Kawhi over Wade because I also have Wade ahead All-Time. I agree Wade in 06 carried a heavier load than Kawhi ever had to do but that doesn't immediately make it a better performance. Players can only work with what they've got and I'm not sure where you've found the conclusive evidence Kawhi would've been worse than Wade in a similar situation.

[Jordan Syndrome]

There has never been a case during Nash's peak where his team's Offensive Rating cratered like Wade's did, and one has to think if it has to do with generating open shots.

When the 2005 Suns went up against a 98.8 (1st) Defense in the San Antonio Spurs, the Suns posted a 114.0 Offensive Rating in the series. Nash, against the best team in the NBA, was able to control the tempo and pace of the game to give his team the best opportunity to win. Now, here is the thing, in the previous round, the Spurs faced the #2 ranked offense in the Supersonics (R.I.P) and held them to -4.5 their regular season Offensive Rating.

To be fair, we should also look at the other Spurs series Nash played during his best years:

2007 vs Spurs: 107.8 ORtg
2008 vs Spurs: 104.5 ORtg

It's still not terrible, but far from GOAT-level.

2007 is a bit noisy--STAT and Diaw missed game 5. The Suns had a 110.2 Ortg in the other 5 games--still GOAT level against a sub-100 Defense.