RealGM Top 100 List #25

[FJS]

Steve Nash was watched as the best guy on his team (and I don't going to say it's not true) but:

All star playing along Steve Nash
98: Kidd
00, 01: Finley
02, 03, 04: Dirk
05: Amare, Marion
06: Marion
07: Marion, Amare
08: Amare, Shaq
09: Amare
10: Amare
12: Bryant, Howard

So Basically, since he entered his prime (around 2001 or 2002) he was surrounded with 1 or 2 all-star.
Some of them in his prime like, and other still good enough to make the allstar. Dirk, Amare (as his peak he was a scoring machine), old Shaq, a great year by an old Bryant or prime Howard.
Still never reached finals.


Stockton played with Malone, who was allstar from 88 to 2002. Then in 1989 Eaton. (he played early with Dantley, but we're talking about since Stock was starting)

Nash get all the props, but he always played with a similar scorers or finishers like Malone in Dirk, Marion, Amare (Probably not as good as Malone, but able to score 25 ppg)

Then you can say Stockton did not get MVP consideration... but how many consideration gets Russell Westbrook?
He is playing with Durant, and it's really difficult to get consideration playing with a better player. Russell in another team would be higher for sure. Is he much worse than MVP Rose? I don't think so.

How many consideration got Nash playing alongside Finley and Dirk? Not much.

[Texas Chuck]

Steve Nash was watched as the best guy on his team (and I don't going to say it's not true) but:

All star playing along Steve Nash
98: Kidd
00, 01: Finley
02, 03, 04: Dirk

Im sure you are aware, but just to clarify Nash was never seen as the best player on any of these teams. Kidd and KJ were both clearly better at just his own position the first go-around in Phoenix and Finley was clearly better his first 2 years in Dallas and then Dirk after that.

[john248]

No I'm just pointing out that the 2 times in the playoffs his team especially needed him to use this scoring skill that is a huge part of his argument over John he failed to come through for his team. And that in both cases his team(without that best big man or two) was still in position to win the game. Is Nash not responsible for his poor play because the circumstances were tough?

If that was all Nash did in the playoffs I would agree, but in other occasions he dominated in a way his opponent in this runoff never did.
If Nash had been able to overcome them and win rings most likely we wouldn't have been discussing him for the #25 but 10-15 positions earlier.

I wouldnt be considering Nash as a top 15 player if he had won titles in 03 and 07.

Look I'm the first to admit that Nash has some great playoff moments. I personally posted an homage to what he did in the 2005 playoffs. Overall he's a good offensive player in the PS.

But, and its kinda a big but for me, so much has been made of Nash's advantage over Stockton in his ability to rise up and score in volume when the situation calls for it and the 2 biggest moments of his career where this was called for, he didn't deliver. And he didn't deliver in what were very very winnable games. If you are going to claim he would deserve to be higher with some rings, then you have to acknowledge that part of why he doesn't have those rings is because of his own failings. Because Dirk was coming back for game 7 in 2003 and Amare and Marion were back for game 6 in 2007. But Nash's performance in game 6 in 03 is a big part of why they never got to game 7 and his performance in game 5 in 07 didn't give them a chance to get to a 7th game in 07.

I'm not saying Nash is a poor playoff performer overall, but I feel like the above is at least worth mentioning.

If the focus is on these single games, then what about Stockton?

Lost against 7th seeded GSW in 89, lost 5 game series after being up 2-1 against Seattle in 93. These are more team things though.

92 against Portland, shot 24% FG in the last 2 games while Porter went crazy all series.

94 against Houston, shot 41.5% FG (49.5% TS), while Kenny Smith shoots 67% TS at 14PPG and improves on this a season later. Both teams with similar SRS 4.19 vs 4.10. Lose 4 games to 1.

95 against Houston, poor game 4 of 12 and 5 assists. Kenny Smith goes 80% TS at 17 PPG.

96 against Seattle, GP owns him all series.

Gets easier in 97 and 98 given the PGs he faced in the POs were crap. Matt Maloney.

[G35]

I like your posts generally but I think this is a poor way to judge each player. Nash was the best player on a contender for what...4-5 years? Where did that end up?

With some remarkable performances that ended with him being blocked primarily by Duncan or Kobe, or circumstances beyond his control. It's hard to ask for a lot better than what he provided, in context.

That's the whole point, Nash's ceiling as the best player is not championship level. So it was futile to build around him...if you want to deal with reality.

How many PG's have been the best player on a championship team? Isiah (debatable but I'll go with Zeke), Magic (but he's the outlier PG) and that's it.

This isn't really an effective way to make this argument. They were very close, and were ultimately blocked by a player universally regarded as superior to Nash, a top 10 all-time player. What else is there to say on the topic? Such players typically dominate a given decade, and Nash ran into a pair of them.

Nash is not unique in having to encounter great players. I didn't know having to beat tough competition was an excuse.

I can't really think of any PG besides Magic that I would attempt to build my team around and make them a contender. Basketball is a game of height and a PG isn't going to help the team enough on offense to make them serious contenders.

It's pretty clear that this is entirely false.

I can find more examples of it being true than you can of it being false. Quite a few more examples.

That was the fallacy of Phoenix when they tried to do that and they kept coming up short.

No, not really. They came up short because they couldn't defend the post against Duncan or Gasol, primarily, and because their team rebounding wasn't up to snuff... and that's aside from the injury to Joe Johnson, the hip check on Nash, the suspensions, Amare's injury and so forth. You have to ignore a LOT of historical fact to come to the conclusion that it was Phoenix's offense which was the root of their problems.

Keep coming back to the point of not building around Nash. Should have found some interior defenders instead of players that enhance Nash's abilities. I don't know why you can't see that.

The excuse of running into better teams is not valid either, Wilt ran into better teams, Jerry West/Elgin Baylor ran into better teams, all the teams that ran into the 90's Bulls, and the teams that ran into the Lakers in the 80s/00s.

Right, and they are likewise penalized for not winning anything. West and Wilt didn't win when they weren't on exceedingly talented teams. Hell, West didn't win anything until he was WITH Wilt on the same team, and even that took a while.

Wrong. It's funny how you say West didn't win anything but he went to 4 finals before Wilt showed up and twice took the Celtics to a game 7.

Phoenix knew they had to get past the Spurs or Dallas, making Nash the player to build around was a mistake if winning a championship was the goal.

That doesn't follow logically, no, particularly not in context.

I think the Suns were thinking like you. They didn't realize until 2009 that trying it the Nash way was never going to get them to the next level, the finals.

But with Stockton you don't have to play at a tempo that hurts your defense

This is another empty point, given that Stockton started his statistical dominance playing at paces FASTER than the SSOL Suns, and that Nash's bread-and-butter is the HC pick-and-roll play, which remained highly effective for him through the playoffs.

You have been talking about context, and you say that Stockton played faster than Nash, but EVERYBODY played faster back in the 80's. The Jazz never led the league in pace and in 1989 dropped to 22nd when Sloan took over they stayed at the bottom of the pace rankings. So relatively speaking Nash played faster Stockton when accounting for era.

Stockton can shine and not have to dominate the balll.....

Narrative tripe. There's nothing about Stockton's offensive game that Nash couldn't do, rendering this point invalid.

That's a limited way of looking at their games. Nash has to be the #1 guy to make the offense shine. Stockton doesn't and still has similar impact......

[Texas Chuck]

Spoiler:

If that was all Nash did in the playoffs I would agree, but in other occasions he dominated in a way his opponent in this runoff never did.
If Nash had been able to overcome them and win rings most likely we wouldn't have been discussing him for the #25 but 10-15 positions earlier.

I wouldnt be considering Nash as a top 15 player if he had won titles in 03 and 07.

Look I'm the first to admit that Nash has some great playoff moments. I personally posted an homage to what he did in the 2005 playoffs. Overall he's a good offensive player in the PS.

But, and its kinda a big but for me, so much has been made of Nash's advantage over Stockton in his ability to rise up and score in volume when the situation calls for it and the 2 biggest moments of his career where this was called for, he didn't deliver. And he didn't deliver in what were very very winnable games. If you are going to claim he would deserve to be higher with some rings, then you have to acknowledge that part of why he doesn't have those rings is because of his own failings. Because Dirk was coming back for game 7 in 2003 and Amare and Marion were back for game 6 in 2007. But Nash's performance in game 6 in 03 is a big part of why they never got to game 7 and his performance in game 5 in 07 didn't give them a chance to get to a 7th game in 07.

I'm not saying Nash is a poor playoff performer overall, but I feel like the above is at least worth mentioning.

If the focus is on these single games, then what about Stockton?

Lost against 7th seeded GSW in 89, lost 5 game series after being up 2-1 against Seattle in 93. These are more team things though.

92 against Portland, shot 24% FG in the last 2 games while Porter went crazy all series.

94 against Houston, shot 41.5% FG (49.5% TS), while Kenny Smith shoots 67% TS at 14PPG and improves on this a season later. Both teams with similar SRS 4.19 vs 4.10. Lose 4 games to 1.

95 against Houston, poor game 4 of 12 and 5 assists. Kenny Smith goes 80% TS at 17 PPG.

96 against Seattle, GP owns him all series.

Gets easier in 97 and 98 given the PGs he faced in the POs were crap. Matt Maloney.

John,

I think you are missing my point. Obviously Stockton has some playoff failures on his resume too, You don't make the playoffs every year for 19 years and not have some bad games/series.

But a point that has been hammered home over and over as this huge advantage for Nash is that he rises up and scores when his team needs it. And he made the point that Nash would rank much higher with rings and that the reason he didn't have rings was bad luck. So I took all those points and the reality of how the games played out when Dirk and Amare were gone due to injury and suspension respectively and it doesn't match the narrative.

That's all I'm saying.

[colts18]

But, and its kinda a big but for me, so much has been made of Nash's advantage over Stockton in his ability to rise up and score in volume when the situation calls for it and the 2 biggest moments of his career where this was called for, he didn't deliver. And he didn't deliver in what were very very winnable games. If you are going to claim he would deserve to be higher with some rings, then you have to acknowledge that part of why he doesn't have those rings is because of his own failings.

Why don't you use those same standards on Stockton? Where was Stockton during the 2 biggest moments of his career: 97 and 98 finals?

97 finals. With the series tied 2-2, Stockton doesn't step up when his team needs him. He puts up 13-5 in Game 5. Then in Game 6 he repeats that and puts up another 13-5 stat line.

98 finals. Averages just 10-9, .539 TS% for the series. In game 6 when his team desperately needs him, he puts up a 10-5 line

[Ryoga Hibiki]

John,

I think you are missing my point. Obviously Stockton has some playoff failures on his resume too, You don't make the playoffs every year for 19 years and not have some bad games/series.

But a point that has been hammered home over and over as this huge advantage for Nash is that he rises up and scores when his team needs it. And he made the point that Nash would rank much higher with rings and that the reason he didn't have rings was bad luck. So I took all those points and the reality of how the games played out when Dirk and Amare were gone due to injury and suspension respectively and it doesn't match the narrative.

That's all I'm saying.

The narrative is that he could do and very often did it (especially compared to Stockton), not that he did it every time.
Anyway, let's put some perspective here: Nash's offensive greatness comes from his vision and the ability to turn into 20-25ppg very efficient scorer.
As a scorer he's very good, he's not an all time great not having the size or athletic ability to take a shot whenever he wants like Kobe or Durant.

[G35]

But, and its kinda a big but for me, so much has been made of Nash's advantage over Stockton in his ability to rise up and score in volume when the situation calls for it and the 2 biggest moments of his career where this was called for, he didn't deliver. And he didn't deliver in what were very very winnable games. If you are going to claim he would deserve to be higher with some rings, then you have to acknowledge that part of why he doesn't have those rings is because of his own failings.

Why don't you use those same standards on Stockton? Where was Stockton during the 2 biggest moments of his career: 97 and 98 finals?

97 finals. With the series tied 2-2, Stockton doesn't step up when his team needs him. He puts up 13-5 in Game 5. Then in Game 6 he repeats that and puts up another 13-5 stat line.

98 finals. Averages just 10-9, .539 TS% for the series. In game 6 when his team desperately needs him, he puts up a 10-5 line

Because no one is propping up Stockton as volume scorer in the playoff's. Nash is all offense. Zero defense. He can't slip on offense because that is all he has to hang his hat...him and his team...

[Texas Chuck]

Cols18,

see my response to John. I never made any claims about Stockton's abilities as a scorer nor did I make any claims about his playoff performance. In fact I think I've been clear that I think Nash to be the superior scorer, tho I don't think the gap is as big as is being asserted by some of his supporters. I was simply addressing some assertions made about Nash.

[john248]

My vote goes to Steve Nash again. Both these guys have gotten torched in the playoffs; Nash by Parker and Bibby, and Stockton by Porter, GP, and Kenny Smith. Still, Stockton has the defensive edge that was dirty yet effective. Generally, you can hide Nash on a weak offensive player but he wasn't all that good at being a free safety on that end. Offensively, there's a difference even if the numbers are similar. Nash was a willing shooter. In 05, puts up 30 and 12 against the Mavs then scored 48 in game 5 against the Spurs when his teammates were covered (23/10 series). I see talk about Nash's 07 against the Spurs. Game 1, gets high in the nose down 2 with less than a minute. Returns to the game down 4 with 45 seconds. Not claiming the Suns would've won, but we all remember this series. Game 5, Nash posts a poor shooting game since Amare and Diaw were suspended, so you have minutes going to James Jones though Marion stepped up huge. Really, it was Manu who scores 15 in the 4th quarter and Bowen hits a clutch 3. Nash, Marion, and Bell pretty much play 46+ minutes and couldn't sustain that rush by the 4th quarter. Game 6, Duncan goes near triple double.

[john248]

John,

I think you are missing my point. Obviously Stockton has some playoff failures on his resume too, You don't make the playoffs every year for 19 years and not have some bad games/series.

But a point that has been hammered home over and over as this huge advantage for Nash is that he rises up and scores when his team needs it. And he made the point that Nash would rank much higher with rings and that the reason he didn't have rings was bad luck. So I took all those points and the reality of how the games played out when Dirk and Amare were gone due to injury and suspension respectively and it doesn't match the narrative.

That's all I'm saying.

I see what you're saying. Not going to get into the ring convo here. Nash did lose Amare and Joe Johnson in 06, and we do see his scoring going up that season (15.5 to 18.8, 16.3 to 19.2 per36, 22.7 to 26.7 per100). So over the course of 1 season, we see a scoring bump. He also then leads the league in TS% in 06 which is telling because his volume went up as did his TS. Replacing Amare, Johnson, and Q with Bell, Diaw, and Kurt Thomas. Not sure about the Dirk thing. Too lazy too look up games with/out Dirk.

[colts18]

Because no one is propping up Stockton as volume scorer in the playoff's. Nash is all offense. Zero defense. He can't slip on offense because that is all he has to hang his hat...him and his team...

Your post doesn't make sense because Nash didn't decline in the playoffs, in fact he improved in the playoffs and so did his offense.

From 05-07, here is what he did in the series that his team lost:
22-11-4, 51-44-91, .602 TS%

In 4 of the games in those series, the Suns outscored their opponent with Nash on the court, but lost because their bench blew the lead. In the 07 Spurs series, the Suns outscored the Spurs in 4 games with Nash on the court but got 2 wins out of them.

[Clyde Frazier]

I know this has been semi-touched upon from a gameplan standpoint, and it's a pretty simple notion, but stockton played with a guy who averaged 27 PPG on 59% TS over a span of 13 seasons. I just don't know that stockton was ever asked to step up his game scoring-wise (even throwing out sloan's rigid system).

He spent his time facilitating to an elite volume scorer and scoring when the opportunities presented themselves. At the very least, it seems logical, especially for the time. And that isn't to say he would have equaled nash in scoring output in the playoffs, but I think he'd come closer if the situation was different.

[Owly]

My vote goes to Steve Nash again. Both these guys have gotten torched in the playoffs; Nash by Parker and Bibby, and Stockton by Porter, GP, and Kenny Smith. Still, Stockton has the defensive edge that was dirty yet effective. Generally, you can hide Nash on a weak offensive player but he wasn't all that good at being a free safety on that end. Offensively, there's a difference even if the numbers are similar. Nash was a willing shooter. In 05, puts up 30 and 12 against the Mavs then scored 48 in game 5 against the Spurs when his teammates were covered (23/10 series). I see talk about Nash's 07 against the Spurs. Game 1, gets high in the nose down 2 with less than a minute. Returns to the game down 4 with 45 seconds. Not claiming the Suns would've won, but we all remember this series. Game 5, Nash posts a poor shooting game since Amare and Diaw were suspended, so you have minutes going to James Jones though Marion stepped up huge. Really, it was Manu who scores 15 in the 4th quarter and Bowen hits a clutch 3. Nash, Marion, and Bell pretty much play 46+ minutes and couldn't sustain that rush by the 4th quarter. Game 6, Duncan goes near triple double.

Add '05 Jason Williams to the Nash list. Then too I'd question whether Smith ever torched Stockton. That presupposes something like man coverage and I suspect Jet shooting 17 of 27 from 3 has a lot to do with posting Hakeem, get a double and kick out, as such it's much more team related stuff (e.g. Houston swinging it round well, beating the rotations) than "Kenny Smith torched Stockton". I don't know if this is meant to be read as implied or not, but the difference on D isn't some small thing (it could perhaps be interpreted so depending on how one reads "edge" and the "both guys got torched, Stockton once more" section).

[Basketballefan]

Steve Nash was watched as the best guy on his team (and I don't going to say it's not true) but:

All star playing along Steve Nash
98: Kidd
00, 01: Finley
02, 03, 04: Dirk
05: Amare, Marion
06: Marion
07: Marion, Amare
08: Amare, Shaq
09: Amare
10: Amare
12: Bryant, Howard

So Basically, since he entered his prime (around 2001 or 2002) he was surrounded with 1 or 2 all-star.
Some of them in his prime like, and other still good enough to make the allstar. Dirk, Amare (as his peak he was a scoring machine), old Shaq, a great year by an old Bryant or prime Howard.
Still never reached finals.


Stockton played with Malone, who was allstar from 88 to 2002. Then in 1989 Eaton. (he played early with Dantley, but we're talking about since Stock was starting)

Nash get all the props, but he always played with a similar scorers or finishers like Malone in Dirk, Marion, Amare (Probably not as good as Malone, but able to score 25 ppg)

Then you can say Stockton did not get MVP consideration... but how many consideration gets Russell Westbrook?
He is playing with Durant, and it's really difficult to get consideration playing with a better player. Russell in another team would be higher for sure. Is he much worse than MVP Rose? I don't think so.

How many consideration got Nash playing alongside Finley and Dirk? Not much.

Look i voted for Stockton but you're assessment of Nash is quite silly. At least half those years you mentioned he did not have a championship quality roster at his disposal. 98-01' as well as 2013 is ridiculous to mention, Nash was a role player for those first number of years and in 2013 he was washed up along with all the injuries to Dwight, Pau etc and bad coaching. The only years you mentioned that were legitimate title-quality rosters were 03, maybe 04 05, 07 and maybe 2010. Injuries and bad team defense is mainly what kept them from going to the finals, that plus they went up against Spurs countless times. What dynasty in the West did Stockton have to go through??

[G35]

Because no one is propping up Stockton as volume scorer in the playoff's. Nash is all offense. Zero defense. He can't slip on offense because that is all he has to hang his hat...him and his team...

Your post doesn't make sense because Nash didn't decline in the playoffs, in fact he improved in the playoffs and so did his offense.

From 05-07, here is what he did in the series that his team lost:
22-11-4, 51-44-91, .602 TS%

In 4 of the games in those series, the Suns outscored their opponent with Nash on the court, but lost because their bench blew the lead. In the 07 Spurs series, the Suns outscored the Spurs in 4 games with Nash on the court but got 2 wins out of them.

I don't understand the problem in 2005.

Nash played 210 minutes in that series. Which is the most by any player on the Suns or the Spurs.

Barbosa played 15 minutes in that series, is this who we are blaming? Honestly the Suns really only played 7 guys that series, but that's how they played all year. In 2005 the Spurs beat the Suns at their own game. The Spurs didn't clamp down on defense, that was not until 2007, they outscored the Suns. Which for someone who is suppose to be so proficient at scoring how do you get beat at what you do best? I still don't know how people find excuses for that.

The problem you are seeing is when you build a team, now I'm going to go slower right here, around one player who controls everything for your team and that player only affects one side of the ball you are putting your team at a disadvantage. When said player leaves the game what happens to your team? Well is it a SURPRISE the Suns aren't as good on offense when Nash leaves? That's what is suppose to happen when you make him the only facilitator. That's poor game recognition and team building. Why didn't any one see this coming? When you have stars that can affect the game with and without the ball you have something special......

[G35]

I know this has been semi-touched upon from a gameplan standpoint, and it's a pretty simple notion, but stockton played with a guy who averaged 27 PPG on 59% TS over a span of 13 seasons. I just don't know that stockton was ever asked to step up his game scoring-wise (even throwing out sloan's rigid system).

He spent his time facilitating to an elite volume scorer and scoring when the opportunities presented themselves. At the very least, it seems logical, especially for the time. And that isn't to say he would have equaled nash in scoring output in the playoffs, but I think he'd come closer if the situation was different.

Yes, a great point that is seemingly overlooked. Stockton was not asked to score, he was asked to get the ball to Malone. How can someone shoot as well as Stockton did for 19 years and people think he couldn't have scored if asked......

[Ryoga Hibiki]

I know this has been semi-touched upon from a gameplan standpoint, and it's a pretty simple notion, but stockton played with a guy who averaged 27 PPG on 59% TS over a span of 13 seasons. I just don't know that stockton was ever asked to step up his game scoring-wise (even throwing out sloan's rigid system).

He spent his time facilitating to an elite volume scorer and scoring when the opportunities presented themselves. At the very least, it seems logical, especially for the time. And that isn't to say he would have equaled nash in scoring output in the playoffs, but I think he'd come closer if the situation was different.

Yes, a great point that is seemingly overlooked. Stockton was not asked to score, he was asked to get the ball to Malone. How can someone shoot as well as Stockton did for 19 years and people think he couldn't have scored if asked......

because in 19 years he never, ever, did it

[Texas Chuck]

Career scoring numbers:

One guy is 13 ppg on 61% TS for his career
One guy is 14 ppg on 61% TS for his career

Is this one point a game really that huge of an advantage?

[magicmerl]

Through #239

12 Steve Nash - RSCD3_, Doctor MJ, ronnymac2, tsherkin, colts18, DQuinn1575, PCProductions, Jim Naismith, Ryoga Hibiki, Quotatious, GC Pantalones, john248
11 John Stockton - trex_8063, FJS, SactoKingsFan, Clyde Frazier, magicmer1, Ray-Ban Sematra, penbeast0, JordansBulls, batmana, Chuck Texas, Owly