Iverson vs Nash

[GeorgeMarcus]

Nash is clearly better than Iverson
Nowtizki and Bryant were the template of how scorers could be dominant players.
Iverson was less efficient than even them and played worse defense than Nash.

Can't remove AI's efficiency from his supporting cast. He played for the worst spaced offenses of the 21st century, and was regularly relied on to create offense out of thin air. An older/worse version of Iverson immediately shot up to 56.7 TS% on high volume in Denver.

He was definitely a better defender than Nash too. Iverson was average at worst on that end while Nash was a straight up bad defender.

[Ambrose]

Nash's off-ball D is remarkably underrated. He was not a bad team defender. He wasn't good on-ball and that's all anyone ever focuses on. There is absolutely an argument for him being a better defender than AI. Regardless, it doesn't matter, the offensive gap between these two is significantly largely than the defensive gap in favor of Nash.

[Hussien Fatal]

Lol at somebody saying Nash is a better defensive player. Iverson lead the league in steals 3 times and he also received DPOTY votes. Nash has never lead the league in any defensive metric nor has he received any defensive award consideration. Iverson was a better defensive player and this shouldn’t even be part of this discussion because neither player was known for defense.

Nash has played with better teammates and more talent than Iverson by far. The best player to play with Iverson was an out of prime Deke. Nash got to run with a Prime Dirk. Even though Nash clearly played with better players during his time with either the suns or the mavs, he never was able to have as much success as Iverson, who took his team to the finals.

Iverson while clearly less efficient was still a much better scorer than Nash. Iverson’s scoring Prowess was the main reason his team was able to make it to the finals. Nash’s lack of scoring held him and his team back. Considering his all time efficiency he should have been shooting a lot more and the fact that he didn’t hurt his team everywhere he has played. The real great point guards like, magic, isiah and Steph knew when their teams needed them to score and that is why they had the ability to be the best player on a championship level team. Nash could not operate a true contender because he didn’t elevate his scoring Volume when needed. Like I mentioned before John Stockton has the same exact character defect.

Nash is a fine player but Iverson was more impactful and more important to his team because most of his teams relied on his skill set.

Gambling for steals = defensive powerhouse now.

Can you please tell me where in my post I called him a defensive powerhouse? Kinda weird you said that considering it came out of nowhere...I’m still scratching my head on that one pal.

[GeorgeMarcus]

Nash's off-ball D is remarkably underrated. He was not a bad team defender. He wasn't good on-ball and that's all anyone ever focuses on. There is absolutely an argument for him being a better defender than AI. Regardless, it doesn't matter, the offensive gap between these two is significantly largely than the defensive gap in favor of Nash.

I don't see how Nash's off-ball D was so underrated. Iverson averaged more than triple the amount of steals, and defensive impact stats paint a comfortable advantage for AI on that end of the floor.

[Hussien Fatal]

Nash's off-ball D is remarkably underrated. He was not a bad team defender. He wasn't good on-ball and that's all anyone ever focuses on. There is absolutely an argument for him being a better defender than AI. Regardless, it doesn't matter, the offensive gap between these two is significantly largely than the defensive gap in favor of Nash.

There is no argument for Nash here as far as defense goes, zero argument at all.

I think Iverson’s advantage in scoring is more valuable than Nash’s advantage in play making. I trust Iversons game in the playoffs way before Nash and that’s because of Ai’s massive scoring advantage.

[Rapcity_11]

Nash is clearly better than Iverson
Nowtizki and Bryant were the template of how scorers could be dominant players.
Iverson was less efficient than even them and played worse defense than Nash.

Can't remove AI's efficiency from his supporting cast. He played for the worst spaced offenses of the 21st century, and was regularly relied on to create offense out of thin air. An older/worse version of Iverson immediately shot up to 56.7 TS% on high volume in Denver.

He was definitely a better defender than Nash too. Iverson was average at worst on that end while Nash was a straight up bad defender.

Iverson at SG was in no way an average defender.

He was at 22.8 PP36 in that solid efficiency year. It took a massive volume drop in volume for AI to be semi-efficient. Not exactly a strong argument in his favour.

[GeorgeMarcus]

Nash is clearly better than Iverson
Nowtizki and Bryant were the template of how scorers could be dominant players.
Iverson was less efficient than even them and played worse defense than Nash.

Can't remove AI's efficiency from his supporting cast. He played for the worst spaced offenses of the 21st century, and was regularly relied on to create offense out of thin air. An older/worse version of Iverson immediately shot up to 56.7 TS% on high volume in Denver.

He was definitely a better defender than Nash too. Iverson was average at worst on that end while Nash was a straight up bad defender.

Iverson at SG was in no way an average defender.

He was at 22.8 PP36 in that solid efficiency year. It took a massive volume drop in volume for AI to be semi-efficient. Not exactly a strong argument in his favour.

Lol what? He averaged 26.4ppg, there was no massive drop in volume. He shot lower volume multiple years on the Sixers with much worse efficiency (no surprise).

I also disagree with your argument about his defense, but I welcome any substantive evidence you might have.

[Hussien Fatal]

Nash is clearly better than Iverson
Nowtizki and Bryant were the template of how scorers could be dominant players.
Iverson was less efficient than even them and played worse defense than Nash.

Can't remove AI's efficiency from his supporting cast. He played for the worst spaced offenses of the 21st century, and was regularly relied on to create offense out of thin air. An older/worse version of Iverson immediately shot up to 56.7 TS% on high volume in Denver.

He was definitely a better defender than Nash too. Iverson was average at worst on that end while Nash was a straight up bad defender.

Iverson at SG was in no way an average defender.

He was at 22.8 PP36 in that solid efficiency year. It took a massive volume drop in volume for AI to be semi-efficient. Not exactly a strong argument in his favour.

Iverson played SG yes but he didn’t guard the SG, that was eric snows job. Iverson was tops in the league in steals through out his prime. Still has the playoff record for steals in a game at 10. Iverson when getting a lot of steals was impactful on the defensive side of the ball no question.

[Ambrose]

Nash's off-ball D is remarkably underrated. He was not a bad team defender. He wasn't good on-ball and that's all anyone ever focuses on. There is absolutely an argument for him being a better defender than AI. Regardless, it doesn't matter, the offensive gap between these two is significantly largely than the defensive gap in favor of Nash.

I don't see how Nash's off-ball D was so underrated. Iverson averaged more than triple the amount of steals, and defensive impact stats paint a comfortable advantage for AI on that end of the floor.

Comfortably? The difference in DRAPM is like 0.1. While getting steals is nice, they do not make you a good defender.

[Ambrose]

Nash's off-ball D is remarkably underrated. He was not a bad team defender. He wasn't good on-ball and that's all anyone ever focuses on. There is absolutely an argument for him being a better defender than AI. Regardless, it doesn't matter, the offensive gap between these two is significantly largely than the defensive gap in favor of Nash.

There is no argument for Nash here as far as defense goes, zero argument at all.

I think Iverson’s advantage in scoring is more valuable than Nash’s advantage in play making. I trust Iversons game in the playoffs way before Nash and that’s because of Ai’s massive scoring advantage.

This is nonsense. Nash is one of the five best playmakers ever. Iverson is nowhere near a top five scorer. It is much easier to find an Iverson caliber scorer (35ppg on 51 TS% per 100) than a Nash caliber playmaker. Plus Nash is a significantly better scorer than Iverson is a playmaker. They are literal tiers apart offensively.

[GeorgeMarcus]

Nash's off-ball D is remarkably underrated. He was not a bad team defender. He wasn't good on-ball and that's all anyone ever focuses on. There is absolutely an argument for him being a better defender than AI. Regardless, it doesn't matter, the offensive gap between these two is significantly largely than the defensive gap in favor of Nash.

I don't see how Nash's off-ball D was so underrated. Iverson averaged more than triple the amount of steals, and defensive impact stats paint a comfortable advantage for AI on that end of the floor.

Comfortably? The difference in DRAPM is like 0.1. While getting steals is nice, they do not make you a good defender.

That's not true at all. I haven't calculated the exact averages, but I just checked DRAPM every year between 00-01 and 09-10. Not only was AI superior all 10 years, but most of the time by a considerable margin.

Regarding your last statement, you already mentioned how Nash was a bad man defender. When it comes to off-ball perimeter defense, steals/disruptions are the primary consideration.

[Hussien Fatal]

Nash's off-ball D is remarkably underrated. He was not a bad team defender. He wasn't good on-ball and that's all anyone ever focuses on. There is absolutely an argument for him being a better defender than AI. Regardless, it doesn't matter, the offensive gap between these two is significantly largely than the defensive gap in favor of Nash.

There is no argument for Nash here as far as defense goes, zero argument at all.

I think Iverson’s advantage in scoring is more valuable than Nash’s advantage in play making. I trust Iversons game in the playoffs way before Nash and that’s because of Ai’s massive scoring advantage.

This is nonsense. Nash is one of the five best playmakers ever. Iverson is nowhere near a top five scorer. It is much easier to find an Iverson caliber scorer (35ppg on 51 TS% per 100) than a Nash caliber playmaker. Plus Nash is a significantly better scorer than Iverson is a playmaker. They are literal tiers apart offensively.

I rate Iverson pretty high when it comes to scoring, his accolades and raw numbers put him in the conversation with the greatest scores ever. In Nash’s defense I will say he can run an offense better than Iverson as far as playmaking and running the point. But Iverson played the SG position during his prime years so it wasn’t his job to set the offense each possession.

[Bidofo]

It's a comparison of the West and East. The West was tough for Phoenix not because of talent issues but because there was an inherent flaw in their system the best Western teams could exploit at any time.

The Raptors were a tough team and so were the Bucks and AI vanquished both doing all the scoring. Those teams were as tough as any in the West.

This reads like someone who will pretty much say anything on a whim to prop their guy up. What makes you think the Raptors and Bucks even come close to the bloodbath 00s West?

So Iverson's competition is:
47 win Raptors, 1.69 SRS (14th), 14th defense
52 win Bucks, 3.13 SRS (8th), 20th defense
and that's "tough." A bottom 10 defense in the league is "tough."

Meanwhile Nash goes against:
50 win '03 Blazers, 2.97 SRS (6th), 13th defense (a first round opponent that's already arguably better than both the '01 Raps and Bucks, and the Jailblazers were actually "tough")
59 win '03 Kings, 6.68 SRS (2nd), 2nd defense
60 win '03 Spurs, 5.65 SRS (3rd), 3rd defense (lost in 6)
58 win '05 Mavs, 5.86 SRS (3rd), 9th defense
59 win '05 Spurs, 7.84 SRS (1st), 1st defense (lost in 5)
60 win '06 Mavs, 5.96 SRS (3rd), 11th defense (lost in 6)
58 win '07 Spurs, 8.35 SRS (1st), 2nd defense (lost in 5)
50 win '10 Spurs, 5.07 SRS (4th), 8th defense
57 win '10 Lakers, 4.78 SRS (5th), 4th defense (lost in 6)

Pretty much every year he made it to the WCF, he was facing two teams that were better than anything Iverson EVER faced in the East. It might take the '03 Blazers 6-7 games to beat the Bucks/Raptors, but every other team here is sweeping, 5 games max.

How do we get around this that Nash had less success with a far more talented team?

Are you allergic to context or purposefully being dense? You get around it by not judging players entirely on the basis of a binary outcome that they can influence only so much. You are essentially saying "The team Iverson played on in 2001, and the ONLY playoff run of his career worth mentioning, won a whole 3 more games through the conference + NBA Finals than the 2006 and 2010 Suns that Nash was on, and for that reason, the individual player Iverson is better than the individual player Nash." That logic just doesn't make sense to me. Do you consider the 2018 Cavs as the second best team in the league that year just for making the finals?

Btw Iverson doesn't even have more success lol. It's 1MVP + 1 Finals appearance (which like I said taken into context isn't THAT impressive) vs 2 MVPs + 3 WCF as the #1 and 1 WCF as the #2 (in a historically stacked conference go against perennial contenders every year). Nash is higher on the all-time assists list than Iverson is on the all-time scorers list. The SSOL Suns inspired the offenses of today. Iverson was a revolutionary cultural guy, but on the court he fizzled in the playoffs every other year, including his Denver years.

As an (somewhat related) aside, I saw in another thread you rank Ewing > Reed on an all time centers list. How does that make sense if you value winning and rings above all? Ewing should be in the same tier as Nash/CP3 and Reed in the same as Iverson/Thomas for you. Why don't Reed's rings count in that comparison?

[Ambrose]

I don't see how Nash's off-ball D was so underrated. Iverson averaged more than triple the amount of steals, and defensive impact stats paint a comfortable advantage for AI on that end of the floor.

Comfortably? The difference in DRAPM is like 0.1. While getting steals is nice, they do not make you a good defender.

That's not true at all. I haven't calculated the exact averages, but I just checked DRAPM every year between 00-01 and 09-10. Not only was AI superior all 10 years, but most of the time by a considerable margin.

Regarding your last statement, you already mentioned how Nash was a bad man defender. When it comes to off-ball perimeter defense, steals/disruptions are the primary consideration.

Hmmm, I looked at 97-14 RAPM and they were both into the 1,000's, with the difference between them 0.14. When I looked year by year you appear to be correct.

[GeorgeMarcus]

Comfortably? The difference in DRAPM is like 0.1. While getting steals is nice, they do not make you a good defender.

That's not true at all. I haven't calculated the exact averages, but I just checked DRAPM every year between 00-01 and 09-10. Not only was AI superior all 10 years, but most of the time by a considerable margin.

Regarding your last statement, you already mentioned how Nash was a bad man defender. When it comes to off-ball perimeter defense, steals/disruptions are the primary consideration.

Hmmm, I looked at 97-14 RAPM and they were both into the 1,000's, with the difference between them 0.14. When I looked year by year you appear to be correct.

For the record I do take Nash in this comparison. I just get a little defensive about AI because he's become underrated by non-casuals (1) because of efficiency that was very much a product of circumstance and (2) because a lot of people think of him as some kind of defensive liability. Maybe because he was a SG in a PG's body, but he defended PGs so that didn't really matter.

[Ambrose]

There is no argument for Nash here as far as defense goes, zero argument at all.

I think Iverson’s advantage in scoring is more valuable than Nash’s advantage in play making. I trust Iversons game in the playoffs way before Nash and that’s because of Ai’s massive scoring advantage.

This is nonsense. Nash is one of the five best playmakers ever. Iverson is nowhere near a top five scorer. It is much easier to find an Iverson caliber scorer (35ppg on 51 TS% per 100) than a Nash caliber playmaker. Plus Nash is a significantly better scorer than Iverson is a playmaker. They are literal tiers apart offensively.

I rate Iverson pretty high when it comes to scoring, his accolades and raw numbers put him in the conversation with the greatest scores ever. In Nash’s defense I will say he can run an offense better than Iverson as far as playmaking and running the point. But Iverson played the SG position during his prime years so it wasn’t his job to set the offense each possession.

That's a simplistic and underwhelming way of looking at scoring. If you care about accolades 2 MVP's > 1. Iverson's best year doesn't hit top 30 ever in pts/100. Of seasons over 35 pts/100 (Iverson has five) none of his are in the top one hundred seventy in TS%. His adjusting shooting stats are abysmal. For his entire career he has one season where he was above league average for points added per FGA. He's 13th in career pts/100 and dead last among all of them in efficiency.

If you don't like those, Iverson peaked with the 22nd best ppg season ever. Of the 13 players who averaged 25 ppg for their career he's 10th in ppg, 11th in TS%, 4th in FGA/G, 3rd in MPG, and 3rd in usage. The primary reasons he's so high all time in career scoring is because he played more minutes and shot more than nearly everyone ever. Compared to his top peers he's the obvious outlier that doesn't belong.

Meanwhile Nash led a top two offense nine years in a row, and that featured seasons without Amare, D'Antoni, Marion, Dirk, Nelson, and Shaq. The only constant component to those teams was Steve Nash. Basically only Magic has matched Nash's offensive run in history. Nash, at age 36/37, and after Amare/MDA/Marion had left the Suns, led more top 10 offenses than Iverson did in his whole career. There is no argument that Iverson is close to Nash as an offensive player.

[Hussien Fatal]

This is nonsense. Nash is one of the five best playmakers ever. Iverson is nowhere near a top five scorer. It is much easier to find an Iverson caliber scorer (35ppg on 51 TS% per 100) than a Nash caliber playmaker. Plus Nash is a significantly better scorer than Iverson is a playmaker. They are literal tiers apart offensively.

I rate Iverson pretty high when it comes to scoring, his accolades and raw numbers put him in the conversation with the greatest scores ever. In Nash’s defense I will say he can run an offense better than Iverson as far as playmaking and running the point. But Iverson played the SG position during his prime years so it wasn’t his job to set the offense each possession.

That's a simplistic and underwhelming way of looking at scoring. If you care about accolades 2 MVP's > 1. Iverson's best year doesn't hit top 30 ever in pts/100. Of seasons over 35 pts/100 (Iverson has five) none of his are in the top one hundred seventy in TS%. His adjusting shooting stats are abysmal. For his entire career he has one season where he was above league average for points added per FGA. He's 13th in career pts/100 and dead last among all of them in efficiency.

If you don't like those, Iverson peaked with the 22nd best ppg season ever. Of the 13 players who averaged 25 ppg for their career he's 10th in ppg, 11th in TS%, 4th in FGA/G, 3rd in MPG, and 3rd in usage. The primary reasons he's so high all time in career scoring is because he played more minutes and shot more than nearly everyone ever. Compared to his top peers he's the obvious outlier that doesn't belong.

Meanwhile Nash led a top two offense nine years in a row, and that featured seasons without Amare, D'Antoni, Marion, Dirk, Nelson, and Shaq. The only constant component to those teams was Steve Nash. Basically only Magic has matched Nash's offensive run in history. Nash, at age 36/37, and after Amare/MDA/Marion had left the Suns, led more top 10 offenses than Iverson did in his whole career. There is no argument that Iverson is close to Nash as an offensive player.

If you use Iversons advanced metrics with context you would then understand why his efficiency suffered but I’ll let you research that one. As I stated it wasn’t Iverson’s responsibility to run the offense as an off guard. His job was to score points, he would have to score around 35% of his teams points every game for his team to have a chance.

Nash has ran an elite offense on multiple occasions but Iverson was always an elite scorer. Iverson paired with a bunch of offensively limited team defenders garnered more success than Nash who was playing with multiple all stars. Ai has the third most scoring titles, and he’s 2nd all time in playoff ppg. 7th all time in ppg. 2nd highest rate of 40 and 50 point playoff games. Only guard in nba history to average 26ppg or more for 10 straight seasons. Clearly he is one of the greatest scorers to ever play despite his efficiency. Nash albeit is one of the greatest playmakers ever. I prefer AI because he proved he could be the best player on a championship finalist.

Nash isn’t a good enough scorer to be the best player on a championship team or finals contender. Transport Nash to that sixers team, the results are much worse because Nash couldn’t score on the level as Iverson.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

it's funny how much I disagree with some of the takes I have read.
I would easily take 2000-01 Nash, before his ankle (I think) injury over any version of Iverson. That guy might have made second or even first All NBA, if he stayed healthy.
And I was saying that back then, no revisionism.

It's justa a different way to see the game, I guess.

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[Rapcity_11]

Can't remove AI's efficiency from his supporting cast. He played for the worst spaced offenses of the 21st century, and was regularly relied on to create offense out of thin air. An older/worse version of Iverson immediately shot up to 56.7 TS% on high volume in Denver.

He was definitely a better defender than Nash too. Iverson was average at worst on that end while Nash was a straight up bad defender.

Iverson at SG was in no way an average defender.

He was at 22.8 PP36 in that solid efficiency year. It took a massive volume drop in volume for AI to be semi-efficient. Not exactly a strong argument in his favour.

Lol what? He averaged 26.4ppg, there was no massive drop in volume. He shot lower volume multiple years on the Sixers with much worse efficiency (no surprise).

I also disagree with your argument about his defense, but I welcome any substantive evidence you might have.

I said PP36. 22.8 PP36 isn't particularly high volume.

Also not that impressive as a second option. Iverson's whole thing is that he's supposed to carry the offense, right?

[prophet_of_rage]

"Raptors and Bucks were tough teams"

2001 Raptors-14th in SRS
2001 Bucks-8th in SRS

Suns playoff opponents in 2005 alone
Grizzlies-7th in SRS
Mavericks-3rd in SRS
Spurs-1st in SRS

The Raptors and Bucks were tough teams. You're being ridiculous to say they weren't. Did you watch the series?

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the 2001 raptors were a tough team? did you see that team? outside of vince carter, who is even a threatening player? the team was famous for being a retirement home, not a contender.

It's always interesting seeing people claim how awful the Sixers were even though they were more talented than the Raptors and still needed a close series to beat them. Dikembe Mutumbo is better than Antonio Davis and Mark Jackson combined - even when they were in their primes, much less when they were ancient.

Yes, I sat 20 rows up for the Iverson 50 point game where he outdueled Carter. You had Carter as a dominant mismatch in isolation. You had Alvin Williams as a big tough point guard. The interior was controlled by a still mobile Davis and a ground bound but still feared Oakley and then Mo Pete stretched the floor.

In 2001 they were one of the better teams in the league and defensively were tough.

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