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

[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.

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.

I never denied that Nash was better at raising team ORTGs, but if people want to just remove all context when it comes to Wade, i don't know what else to say other than we can't do that. Teams can adjust to styles and that's what the Spurs did considering they put up a 118.6 ORTG against the Suns. The Suns were also held to under 100 points twice in that series which seems pretty damning for a Dn'toni-Nash team.

[Jordan Syndrome]

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.

I never denied that Nash was better at raising team ORTGs, but if people want to just remove all context when it comes to Wade, i don't know what else to say other than we can't do that. Teams can adjust to styles and that's what the Spurs did considering they put up a 118.6 ORTG against the Suns. The Suns were also held to under 100 points twice in that series which seems pretty damning for a Dn'toni-Nash team.

Nobody is removing context from Wade--he was great at getting his numbers efficiently against all defenses but he wasn't great at increases the team around him. Put him on a bad, mediocre or good team and you will get similar results.

Having Wade doesn't make you have a great offense--having Nash does make you have a great offense.

It isn't damning--the mid-2000s Spurs are one of the best defensive dynasties of all-time.

[No-more-rings]

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.

I never denied that Nash was better at raising team ORTGs, but if people want to just remove all context when it comes to Wade, i don't know what else to say other than we can't do that. Teams can adjust to styles and that's what the Spurs did considering they put up a 118.6 ORTG against the Suns. The Suns were also held to under 100 points twice in that series which seems pretty damning for a Dn'toni-Nash team.

Nobody is removing context from Wade--he was great at getting his numbers efficiently against all defenses but he wasn't great at increases the team around him. Put him on a bad, mediocre or good team and you will get similar results.

Having Wade doesn't make you have a great offense--having Nash does make you have a great offense.

It isn't damning--the mid-2000s Spurs are one of the best defensive dynasties of all-time.

It is when the Spurs out-offensed them

[Jordan Syndrome]

I never denied that Nash was better at raising team ORTGs, but if people want to just remove all context when it comes to Wade, i don't know what else to say other than we can't do that. Teams can adjust to styles and that's what the Spurs did considering they put up a 118.6 ORTG against the Suns. The Suns were also held to under 100 points twice in that series which seems pretty damning for a Dn'toni-Nash team.

Nobody is removing context from Wade--he was great at getting his numbers efficiently against all defenses but he wasn't great at increases the team around him. Put him on a bad, mediocre or good team and you will get similar results.

Having Wade doesn't make you have a great offense--having Nash does make you have a great offense.

It isn't damning--the mid-2000s Spurs are one of the best defensive dynasties of all-time.

It is when the Spurs out-offensed them

No it doesn't and now you are going down the immature discussion line with one line that has no context and an emoji--great discourse...

The Spurs put up a 118.6 offense against a 107.1 defense (+11.5) and the Suns put up a 114.0 offense against a 99.8 defense (+14.2).

I've got house work to attend to--find some lesser used emoji's to derail the next discussion you enter.

[Odinn21]

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.

And this is why injuries or injury impacted situations should always be addressed.

Did the Spurs try to play like they did in the regular season? They certainly did not.
2005 Spurs in regular season; 96.2 ppg, 106.1 ortg, 89.96 pace
2005 Spurs against the Suns; 108.2 ppg, 116.1 ortg, 93.00 pace

Popovich masked Duncan's mobility issues on defense by letting Stoudemire have his and made the team play much more offense oriented.

https://youtu.be/UgeutlDxU2E?t=358
Even Duncan himself admitted that they played differently.

The Spurs played against the Sonics as they did in the regular season. That didn't happen against the Suns.

The series to talk about as the way you intended should be the 2007 series.
The Spurs 99.4 DRtg in regular season and the Suns had 108.9 DRtg against them in the playoffs (game 5 excluded number).
[2007 Spurs in regular season; 98.5 ppg / 2007 Spurs against the Suns 102.4 ppg]
The gap is day and night.

[colts18]

I do understand that perspective, but I think it's important to remember that Wade was not leading an unstoppable offense when he did this. The team won with defense.

In those finals, Miami had an ORtg of 101.0.

So are you saying it's Wade's fault that Shaq was old, fat, slow and couldn't get his against Erick Dampier?

Or that most of their role players were either old and/or sucked on offense, like Payton, Alonzo, Williams, Haslem etc? This wasn't a cast suitable for great offenses.

I think it's really important to draw a distinction between recognizing that the team was winning because of their defense and saying that the alpha scorer was actually hurting his team.

The question is not whether Wade deserves praise for his performance, but whether it makes sense to talk as if he succeeded where someone else, in this case Nash, failed. I'm saying there's really no cause for such a conclusion.

By contrast, the Suns in the previous round had an ORtg of 111.5, which gives them a +6.5 rORtg which was BETTER than what you'd expect from the regular season, despite the fact that the Suns were not playing at full strength in the playoffs due to injuries.

And of course, that doesn't factor in that the Suns were missing Amar'e that year.

So no, Wade was not succeeding in any way that could be seen as succeeding where Nash failed unless you're just doing RINGZ.

Are you to believe that Nash beats Dallas with Wade's cast? There's no way they could've had the team defensive performance they did with Nash in place of Wade, that's a huge drop off. And Nash may have gotten better production out of some of the guys, but they needed big scoring from an individual or they weren't going to win.

I don't think Nash is a better Wade than Wade and I don't think Wade is a better Nash than Nash.

I will say that I think that the '05-06 Heat are probably the weakest championship team I've ever seen and thus it's largely a fluke that we look at them as "NBA champions" and look at, say, the '06-07 Suns as a team who came up short.

I'll also note that while the '05-06 playoff Suns were a crippled team that I don't see as championship-worthy, it's really not crazy at all to think they might have beaten those Heat had they played as the best version of the '05-06 team - that is, even without Amar'e.

While in one of the regular season games that season Wade didn't play, they did play in late January in Miami and the Suns won in a blow out up 90-72 after 3 quarters. At that time, during the meat of the year, both teams were playing 60-ish wins type of ball, so this really was a meeting between serious contenders, though I'll grant that one regular season game only counts for so much.

I'll further add that people tend to really lionize Wade's performance in the 2010 playoffs against Boston where he personally put up big numbers while his team put up a putrid ORtg. This is the trend of Wade. He puts up numbers, his team's offenses are meh.

That's because he didn't play with good offensive players , this has been mentioned and ignored repeatedly. I don't understand your motive for completely removing supporting cast when talking about a team metric.

He played with LeBron and produced weaker offenses than LeBron produced with Mo Williams.

To be clear, I do think Wade is a better floor raiser than Nash. I think Wade's at his best when you just tell him to go score and you try to use the rest of the lineup to win with defense, which is of course how they won the 2006 title.

Dallas in the '06 finals had an ORtg of 99.9. which was 11.9 below their regular season average. Anyone who wants to understand how Miami beat Dallas should be focused on Miami's defense not their offense. And the fact that the team had the ability at all times to have either Shaq or Zo on the floor is really a freakish thing.

Why don't you want to acknowledge that Wade was a big part of that? He didn't have a Draymond Green level anchor that your dude Curry has had the luxury of in his whole prime.

The Heat's defensive performances was an effort by committee type of thing, rather than their being a clear most impactful defender.

Notable guys by MPG:

Wade: 43.5
Walker: 36.6
Shaq: 35.2
Williams: 31.3
Posey: 29.5
Haslem: 29.2
Payton: 22.3
ZO: 11

When you factor in minutes, how many of those guys actually provided more value on defense? This isn't rhetorical, I'm genuinely curious to what your answer is. No one aside from ZO and Haslem were clearly better on a per minute basis.

Considering Wade's large minute load, and how bad some of Dallas' perimeter players played(Howard, Stackhouse and Harris all held to under 50 ts%), i don't see how Wade's defense should just be an afterthought especially when Nash is objectively a negative defender.

Some of Wade's defensive numbers:

Game 3: 11 defensive rebounds, 2 steals
Game 6: 7 defensive rebounds, 4 steals, 3 blocks!!

Wade was 2nd in defensive rebounds, 4th on the team in DRB%, 3rd in blk %, and 2nd in DRTG of guys that played meaningful minutes, the last part's probably meaningless but there's a lot of evidence to believe Wade's defense isn't irrelevant in the series.

If you want to make the argument for Wade as a DPOY-level defensive player, go right ahead. Dive into specifics. How did Wade limit Howard, Stackhouse, and Harris all under 50 TS%?

I'm not looking to ignore Wade's defense remotely, but I've yet to hear anyone argue that it wasn't offense where the bulk of him impact came from, thus the fact that it's the defense that won the Heat the title speaks to the importance of his supporting cast.

But yeah, if I'm looking to build a team that will have an elite offense, Wade's pretty low on my list.

That's your choice, but also acknowledge that it's also going to be harder to build an elite defense around Nash as opposed to Wade.

From 04-2013, Wade was only on two teams that weren't in the top 10 in DRTG, 2009(ranked 11th), and 2008(26th), though that year shouldn't even count all things considered, and a top 6 defense 4 times(05, 10-12).

I'm not willing to just chalk all that up to coincidence, or act like it's irrelevant when we're talking about Nash.

Eh, again. If Wade was primarily impact offense and the team defense is what stood out, then obviously you need to give credit to the defense for a lot more than just Wade.

If you actually want to make the case that Wade was a better defensive player than offensive player though, you go right ahead.

You can't compare the situations Wade and Nash had without mentioning Nash played on offense first teams while Wade's focused on defense. Nash's team emphasized offense to the detriment of their defense. Nash has to get blame for the defense sucking. Wade's teams were always defense first. That's why you can't blame him for the Heat's Offensive "struggles" in 2011. Spoelstra focused completely on defense that season in practice because he figured that the offense would take care of itself with the talent they had. Nash's team OTOH only did offense in practice.

https://www.theoaklandpress.com/news/heat-training-camp-opens-with-emphasis-on-defense/article_b04d7466-1900-5c4b-935a-77bae7bd877e.html


And we can stop with the nonsense that Wade and LeBron were a bad fit? They had solid offensive results. They had a 118 Offensive rating together.



https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612748&Season=2013-14,2012-13,2011-12,2010-11&SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason&PlayerIds=2544,2548,2547

[No-more-rings]

No it doesn't and now you are going down the immature discussion line with one line that has no context and an emoji--great discourse...

I've got house work to attend to--find some lesser used emoji's to derail the next discussion you enter.

Well considering you either ignored or perhaps didn't read all my other responses leading up to that one, that's all you really deserve.

The Spurs put up a 118.6 offense against a 107.1 defense (+11.5) and the Suns put up a 114.0 offense against a 99.8 defense (+14.2).

This is cherry picking and you chose to focus one of the worst possible examples against Wade.

Why not look at when Wade had a solid team around him, not a garbage one?

Vs the Nets in 06, 112.9 ORTG vs a 102.4 DRTG, for a +10.5 offense.

Vs the Pistons in 06, 107.3 ORTG against a 103.1 DRTG for a +4.2 offense.

He's not as good as Nash at raising team ORTG, no one is claiming that. But when people pick out bad examples like his series against Boston, a year in which they dismantled every offense they faced including Lebron's and Kobe's it's just a terrible example and not indicative of anything.

Wade is going to get in either this spot or next, so I'm not arguing about him it's clearly futile at this point.

[trex_8063]

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?

Nope. In the past when a single-vote system was used, a majority was not required.....it was just whoever had the most [1st place, since you only get one] votes.......which, in that thread, was Stockton.

I don't like the project proceeded in a wham bam done manner.

I don't either, just didn't anticipate some of these scenarios; live and learn.

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.

Their votes did function as a "sudden death" runoff vote in a situation where we were deadlocked (even after hearing back [very late] from the two original voters I'd been waiting on, we were still tied 8-8 without the late votes).

I was open to using the ballot score as a tie-breaker (though as I implied, retrospectively, I'm glad we didn't [as there's basically no precedent for using that within the Top 100 Project's history]) unless people wanted to go a different route.
Then two posters chimed in with late votes, AND two other participants [members of the original 16 voters, including one who was siding with Wade] voiced an opinion that I should just use their votes to decide the spot. AND still two more of the original 16 voters [including another one who was sided with Wade] chimed in by way of "And1's" in their support of just taking the new votes.

So that's what I did. If there's a point to the list order at all, it's to reflect the consensus of the participating voting panel. So I didn't necessarily see the wisdom in telling two panel participants "no, sorry, you're too late", when we were already running late and still deadlocked, in need of a means to settle the spot. Especially when multiple others [including posters in Wade's camp] were quick to encourage "yeah, just use their votes".

Thru lack of anticipating these scenarios we'd put me in a position where SOMEONE would be unhappy no matter what I did. I'm sorry that someone is you.
Though truly [given all of the above] I don't see how the selected means was:
A) less fair to the true forum consensus
B) any more "wham bam done" [realistically] than using ballot totals would have been;
C) less consistent with historical project protocols [indeed, it's MORE consistent with them].


But anyway, here I am belaboring the point when I'd said I didn't want to. It's the streak of altruism in me that wants everyone to be happy with the proceedings, even though I know it's too late for that. I'll try to shut up now.....

[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.

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.

Fair enough, but Nash still played in that game.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #149:

Dwyane Wade - 7 (ccameron, Dr Positivity, Dutchball97, iggymcfrack, Joao Saraiva, Odinn21, trex_8063)
Steve Nash - 3 (Cavsfansince84, Jordan Syndrome, Whopper_Sr)
James Harden - 2 (DQuinn1575, Magic Is Magic)
Patrick Ewing - 2 (Clyde Frazier, penbeast0)
Elgin Baylor - 1 (Hal14)


About 7 hours left for this one.

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[Odinn21]

Nope. In the past when a single-vote system was used, a majority was not required.....it was just whoever had the most [1st place, since you only get one] votes.......which, in that thread, was Stockton.

What I meant at there was, this time around, it's still a single vote system in the 1st round and if there's not a majority, it goes out of the window and we start looking at ballots to follow through.

I get that you felt there was enough support to continue. My objection wasn't there at the time. I think you get what upset me with being late.

I don't think we need to go further than this about the issue. Cheers.

[eminence]

1. Steve Nash
2. Dwyane Wade
3. Patrick Ewing

Been posting on Nash/Wade for a few threads now. Nash - offensive GOAT tier, MVP level prime, decent All-star longevity. Wade - MVP prime, strong offense floater, scales okay, great defender, injury issues knock him down a peg or two.

Surprised myself by going with Ewing over Harden here. Once Riley arrived those defensive results were really spectacular year after year. Solid offensive player as well, if often asked to do a little much. Injury issues at the beginning and end of his career, but solid longevity in the middle. Tough positional competition keeps the award tally down a bit. This close to a title. Think he peaked at a MVP level as well.

[cupcakesnake]

Not sure if I have a vote from me counts (I haven't voted a single time yet), but I've been following this project and enjoying it tremendously. A huge thanks to trex_8063 for all the hard work facilitating this.

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

Steve Nash
People really must be sick of all Nash vs. arguments (not the show that Shaq stole from him, but the collected writing of this project.) He's always been a sneaky polarizing player. People do not seem objective when it comes to Nash at all, and I'm not going to pretend to be. For some: his defense is a huge problem, his offense is good but not as off the charts as some people say, he benefitted from a system, his MVPs were stupid. For the other party: He has legit claim to being the best offensive player ever, he revolutionized basketball, he's a player that goes beyond the numbers, he put insane amount of pressure on opposing defenses. I fall in the later camp, so he's getting my vote. I think Nash's game is really straight forward: top 5 shooter ever, top 5 passer ever. He combined those synergistic skills with some sneaky elite finishing ability: for an unexplosive guard without much vert, he posted some finishing numbers that make him look like an athletic 7 footer. 3 straight seasons in his late 30s over 72% from sinde 3 feet! Insane. The outside shooting, the inside finishing, the midrange fallaway, the floater game that he could pull off with either hand off either foot, and the constant ability to create off the pass in every situation... It all equals up to a player who was a MONSTER offensive threat every second of every offensive possession. There has never been a player I trusted more to make a basketball decision on offense. He could have shot the ball more, and he suffered from an ideology around sharing the ball that plagues a lot of my favorite players (the beautiful Spurs offenses, Marc Gasol types), but despite that, Nash was the driver behind the best offense in the NBA pretty much very year of his prime, across 2 different teams with drastically different personnel. He's boosted by playing for offensively slanted teams, and a bit punished by playing without many good defenders (he wasn't even an average defender in his own right, but he was smart positionally. He just lacked physical strength and length and had a bad back). I'm stepping in here trying to stop Steve Nash from falling out of the top 30 just because he's polarizing. Polarizing players suffer in this project it seems. They can be in the top 3 for 10 straight spots and not get picked.

Dwyane Wade
An absolute monster at his peak. First step like nothing I've ever seen. Strength to fight off any defender on his hip. Long arms and nice touch inside. Simple ingredients that made Wade unstoppable. I hated watching the 2006 finals, but it can't be denied that the first step and the strength were unguardable. Phantom fouls yes, but dozens of situations where the Mavs were forced to foul him. Very decent defender for a guard shouldering such a giant offensive load. My only problem with Wade is that he drops off so obviously at the age of 30. He wins 2 more championships immediately while falling off from his MVP prime level to an all-star level and then to an injured sub all-star. By virtue of playing in the East, he made some fun playoff noise later in his career, and was a really fun player to watch in his twilight (his twilight begins at age 34...). I think his situation inflated the length of time we thought of Wade as a legit top 20 guy and difference maker.

Reggie Miller
No peak like Wade to speak of, but kind of the Nash of shooting guards where the numbers don't tell the story right away. I've never watched such a scaleable offensive game. The shooting, the movement, the foul drawing and the competitive fire. I only watched him in real time when he was an old man, but even then his ability to be effective was startling. Watching tape and learning about Reggie has changed the way I see offensive value. As a kid I didn't get why Reggie was good! Not an amazing ball handler or passer, couldn't "create for himself" off the dribble, only okay as a defender. Reggie played on teams that seemed defensive slanted to me based on personnel and playstyle, but almost always had top 7 offenses. He was ahead of the game taking 5-6 3-point attempts in the 90s. Understanding Reggie changed how I look at some players when trying to figure them out. Free throw rate is one of the first things I look at (watch Wade's plummet after 30 or see how injuries affect players).

[Cavsfansince84]

Harden seems like the next Barkley but with assists instead of rebounds. Truly an ATG offensive force with a major secondary attribute but a serious lack of effort on defense, turnover prone (Barkley got better as he "matured"), more than a little bit of a jerk. I will probably be voting for him sometime in the next 10 spots but I don't have to like it. (Notice I didn't vote for Barkley as high as he went)

The biggest difference is that Barkley is a funny jerk, Harden seems humorless.

I think that's somewhat fair but I'd say Barkley is more of a leader and also consistently raised his game in the playoffs while Harden tends to become less efficient with quite a few terrible games.

[penbeast0]

Barkley raised his game in the playoff at times, Harden has been less successful at it, neither had anything to do with leadership qualities except maybe a little leading by example.

Barkley was loud and vocal, but rarely serious, the class clown type. He blew off practices, stayed out drinking until dawn before games (according to Jayson Williams), got into trouble with the law (throwing guys through windows will do that), didn't work on defense, made fun of his coaches, and got into racially tinged incidents in the locker room. He was a great player; he was NOT a leader.

[trex_8063]

I've been trying to brain-storm new scenarios which may come up, so I can preemptively stipulate what the protocol is or will be. I don't want any more grumbling about results.

So before we hit the next one of these, let me ask: IS EVERYONE COMFORTABLE WITH DEFAULT WINNERS?

A "default winner" is someone who wins the spot without obtaining a majority by way of all other competitors being eliminated.
Example: Suppose we've eliminated the bottom candidates to narrow it to three candidates with the vote count as such....
Player A - 6
Player B - 5
Player C - 5

The next step in a ranked vote system is the eliminate BOTH Players B and C.....and Player A wins "by default".

Such a winner might not be the winner via Condorcet procedure, however. We've fallen back on the Condorcet method once or twice, since it works as a very natural continuation of the RVS principle and allows the chance that the posters who got their votes in on time to potentially decide the outcome before going to runoff.


So my question is: if we have a default winner [which we'll no doubt have several before we're finished] do you want me to just accept that result, no questions asked?
That's fine by me if everyone's OK with that [it's certainly less work and headache for me].

OR would you rather we turn to Condorcet results to ensure he's not behind one of the other candidates by that method?

What I would suggest if we do the latter is that we will NOT stipulate that he must win by Condorcet rules to accept his default victory, but rather that he merely cannot lose to one of the others and still claim a default victory. This holds consistent with what's already taken place in this project. The only similar occurrence was in the #20 thread (Moses Malone): he won by default; incomplete Condorcet results did not guarantee a victory via that method, HOWEVER the incomplete results did guarantee he couldn't lose it.

And in the event we ever have a default victory via RVS, but see that player lose to one of the others in Condorcet results, THEN I'd suggest we go to a sudden death runoff (as stipulated in OP of this thread) between the two.

Or is that just making things unnecessarily complicated? It's certainly more work and headache for me (but having people grumble about results is also a headache).

Thoughts? Feedback?

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[Cavsfansince84]

Barkley raised his game in the playoff at times, Harden has been less successful at it, neither had anything to do with leadership qualities except maybe a little leading by example.

Barkley was loud and vocal, but rarely serious, the class clown type. He blew off practices, stayed out drinking until dawn before games (according to Jayson Williams), got into trouble with the law (throwing guys through windows will do that), didn't work on defense, made fun of his coaches, and got into racially tinged incidents in the locker room. He was a great player; he was NOT a leader.

All of that seems fair. I tended to think Barkley got his act together a bit more in the Phx years when he realized he needed to in order to win and got into better physical shape. So that's the time frame more I am referencing. idk if the staying out all night type of behavior carried over to there.

[No-more-rings]

I've been trying to brain-storm new scenarios which may come up, so I can preemptively stipulate what the protocol is or will be. I don't want any more grumbling about results.

So before we hit the next one of these, let me ask: IS EVERYONE COMFORTABLE WITH DEFAULT WINNERS?

A "default winner" is someone who wins the spot without obtaining a majority by way of all other competitors being eliminated.
Example: Suppose we've eliminated the bottom candidates to narrow it to three candidates with the vote count as such....
Player A - 6
Player B - 5
Player C - 5

The next step in a ranked vote system is the eliminate BOTH Players B and C.....and Player A wins "by default".

Such a winner might not be the winner via Condorcet procedure, however. We've fallen back on the Condorcet method once or twice, since it works as a very natural continuation of the RVS principle and allows the chance that the posters who got their votes in on time to potentially decide the outcome before going to runoff.


So my question is: if we have a default winner [which we'll no doubt have several before we're finished] do you want me to just accept that result, no questions asked?
That's fine by me if everyone's OK with that [it's certainly less work and headache for me].

OR would you rather we turn to Condorcet results to ensure he's not behind one of the other candidates by that method?

What I would suggest if we do the latter is that we will NOT stipulate that he must win by Condorcet rules to accept his default victory, but rather that he merely cannot lose to one of the others and still claim a default victory. This holds consistent with what's already taken place in this project. The only similar occurrence was in the #20 thread (Moses Malone): he won by default; incomplete Condorcet results did not guarantee a victory via that method, HOWEVER the incomplete results did guarantee he couldn't lose it.

And in the event we ever have a default victory via RVS, but see that player lose to one of the others in Condorcet results, THEN I'd suggest we go to a sudden death runoff (as stipulated in OP of this thread) between the two.

Or is that just making things unnecessarily complicated? It's certainly more work and headache for me (but having people grumble about results is also a headache).

Thoughts? Feedback?

I personally don't think people should be able to just drop in at this point and start voting, like the poster a few posts above. Considering all the heated discussion revolving around Wade vs Nash, i question how coincidental it is that someone out of the blue comes in and drops a 1st place vote for Nash. I could do the same for Wade, but i don't think me doing that is a good look for the project when i probably wouldn't contribute much past that.

[trex_8063]

I've been trying to brain-storm new scenarios which may come up, so I can preemptively stipulate what the protocol is or will be. I don't want any more grumbling about results.

So before we hit the next one of these, let me ask: IS EVERYONE COMFORTABLE WITH DEFAULT WINNERS?

A "default winner" is someone who wins the spot without obtaining a majority by way of all other competitors being eliminated.
Example: Suppose we've eliminated the bottom candidates to narrow it to three candidates with the vote count as such....
Player A - 6
Player B - 5
Player C - 5

The next step in a ranked vote system is the eliminate BOTH Players B and C.....and Player A wins "by default".

Such a winner might not be the winner via Condorcet procedure, however. We've fallen back on the Condorcet method once or twice, since it works as a very natural continuation of the RVS principle and allows the chance that the posters who got their votes in on time to potentially decide the outcome before going to runoff.


So my question is: if we have a default winner [which we'll no doubt have several before we're finished] do you want me to just accept that result, no questions asked?
That's fine by me if everyone's OK with that [it's certainly less work and headache for me].

OR would you rather we turn to Condorcet results to ensure he's not behind one of the other candidates by that method?

What I would suggest if we do the latter is that we will NOT stipulate that he must win by Condorcet rules to accept his default victory, but rather that he merely cannot lose to one of the others and still claim a default victory. This holds consistent with what's already taken place in this project. The only similar occurrence was in the #20 thread (Moses Malone): he won by default; incomplete Condorcet results did not guarantee a victory via that method, HOWEVER the incomplete results did guarantee he couldn't lose it.

And in the event we ever have a default victory via RVS, but see that player lose to one of the others in Condorcet results, THEN I'd suggest we go to a sudden death runoff (as stipulated in OP of this thread) between the two.

Or is that just making things unnecessarily complicated? It's certainly more work and headache for me (but having people grumble about results is also a headache).

Thoughts? Feedback?

I personally don't think people should be able to just drop in at this point and start voting, like the poster a few posts above. Considering all the heated discussion revolving around Wade vs Nash, i question how coincidental it is that someone out of the blue comes in and drops a 1st place vote for Nash. I could do the same for Wade, but i don't think me doing that is a good look for the project when i probably wouldn't contribute much past that.

I'd wish posters would contribute more consistently as well, if they're going to participate at all. Known and tenured posters in reasonably good standing are free to join at any time, though. So [for better or worse] there's nothing preventing new entries like that.

It's your call as to whether or not you want to do the same.

EDIT: Though I'll again ask people to provide input about the questions above; 'cause sure as God made little green apples we'll hit that scenario at some point. And equally sure is that somebody is going to be complaining if I fail to stipulate [in no uncertain terms] what the protocol is before that occurs.

[Odinn21]

...

Having a single vote winner without a majority sounds bad.

Quick example;
15 votes in total.
Player A gets 5 first place votes, 1 second place votes, 0 third place votes
Player B gets 4 first place votes, 4 second place votes, 3 third place votes

It's obvious that player A shouldn't win over player B.

Using the Condorcet method in that manner seems pretty good to me.

One easier way to go would be looking at the gaps in a points system;
5/3/1 points per ballots. If there's no majority at the end with the usual process, you can calculate the points to see if the gap between the 1st and the 2nd most points is more than 20 or 25% (5:4 ratio, depending where you'd look from). If the gap is bigger, then there's no need to go for a run-off because the 1st would have enough mathematical ground to claim the victory. If not, a run-off.