Post#90 » by trex_8063 » Thu Sep 7, 2023 12:53 am
Nash is one of my three favourite players all-time [probably top two]; so it always feels like a supreme irony that I appear to be in the bottom 10-20% of this forum in terms of how highly I think of his career. Obviously a great player; I just don’t think his candidacy for top 25 of all-time is particularly strong. So if the following seems excessively critical or negative in slant, understand it’s because it comes from a position of providing counterpoint to such high placement.
I think my hesitancy [in ranking him so high] stems from two primary factors: 1) being a bit less bullish on his impact profile [compared to some], while also (1b) questioning how universal it is (in different situations). And 2) perhaps I put more faith or stock [compared to some] in box-based metrics.
I’m not going to dwell on his box-based metrics; suffice to say they fall below a number of other candidates presently on the table (ALL of them except Moses, as a matter of fact; as well as one or two not yet on the ballot [e.g. Wade or Jokic, or even Stockton slightly]).
Looking at his impact profile, I acknowledge he led some of the greatest relative ORtg's in league history. To be fair, those teams were strategically ahead of the curve, and were the early sign of what has now been amply demonstrated: that the "right way" to play (at least if your goal is offensive efficiency) is space & pace, ball movement, off-ball movement, and lots of threes. D'Antoni seemed to recognize this earlier than much of the league, and to his credit: so did Steve Nash. And Mike basically just gave Nash the reins to make it happen (also a credit to Nash).
However, it still feels a pinch situational (to me). I mean, to my possibly mistaken perception, Nash couldn’t be plugged into ANY circumstance and instantly manufacture greatness. We only ever really saw it in Phoenix.
The offenses in Dallas in the early 00’s were great, at least in the rs [still very good in the playoffs]; I believe the ‘04 Mavs are the best rs rORTG of all-time, actually. Though Nash was never “the man” on those squads (that was Dirk); and fwiw, they were “elevated” above a pretty sluggish league average (that greatest ever rORTG, in raw terms, is LOWER than ‘23 league avg [would have placed just 26th in the league last year]). I’d also comment that those teams were somewhat constructed for offense (at the expense of defense), with big rotational minutes for Dirk/Nash/Finley + Van Exel or Jamison. And finally Nash’s individual impact metrics underwhelm somewhat [relative to reputation] while in Dallas.
Maybe Don Nelson was holding him back (some would say Sloan held Stockton back, too, fwiw). But it does perhaps suggest that Nash was fortunate to find D'Antoni (and vice versa); maybe a bit of a Duncan/Pop situation.
I'm not sure how critical I want to be about '13. It was with D'Antoni again, and Nash was injured a bit, and past his prime anyway. Though it was a disappointing season to say the least (anyone remember Peace predicting 73 wins?), and it's perhaps suggestive that Nash can't automatically mesh with just any cast of stars and make them great [on offense]. Sometimes the chemistry just doesn't work.
Anyway, where his impact is concerned, I wanted to have a look at his RAPM profile vs others of the databall era. (NOTE: I'm including rs AuPM as proxy ['94-'96, and earlier for Sixer players], just to have a broader sample of players/years).....
Nash never led the league in RAPM (highest finish was 3rd, I believe). Was top 5 three or four times, top 10 six.
Looking at his best 7 years [not necessarily consecutive] added, here are players of the databall era he falls behind:
LeBron James
Kevin Garnett
Shaquille O'Neal
Tim Duncan
(mostly late career/post-prime) David Robinson
Chris Paul
*Manu Ginobili
Stephen Curry
Dirk Nowitzki
*Dwyane Wade
And only a little ahead of *Alonzo Mourning, *[mostly late career/post-prime] John Stockton, Kobe Bryant, and *Kevin Durant. (players marked with * are also not yet voted in)
Which is to say he looks very good, though not necessarily burnin' down the house by RAPM.
And since this also is a rate metric, it's worth mentioning that Nash's best years come while averaging around 2600 or so minutes per season, between 33-35 [avg 34.1] mpg. The people ahead of him---with the exception of Ginobili [played less], Curry and mostly late-career Robinson [played same(ish) mpg]---were averaging >36 mpg, often somewhere nearer to 3000+ minutes (same for some of the guys immediately below him; Durant for example averaged 36.8 mpg in the seven seasons in question).
Also needs mentioning that RAPM [or any impact indicator] is not strictly a measure of "player goodness". It could be said to measure "player goodness" + "utilization" + "fit" (+/- some additional contextual considerations, such as roster colinearity). That is: their impact within a given circumstance. For as portable as we would think Nash should be, Phoenix was the only place where we really saw it all come together.
NOT saying box-based metrics are a measure of "player goodness", btw. They do, however, take stock of things we'd typically think of as valuable: efficient scoring, turnover economy, rebounding, distributing the ball (yes, not all assists are created equal), and so on. Personally, I like to COMBINE impact indicators and the box indicators. Maybe that's a mistake, but that's my comfort zone: not putting all my eggs in one basket [or, family of data].
I also want to provide a slight counterpoint to a narrative that is used in his favour: that of the Phoenix turnaround. It was a helluva change, from '04 to '05, and without a doubt Nash was the single biggest factor in engineering that change.
But he wasn't the ONLY factor. There were actually a handful of moving parts here.
It might not seem so at a glance, because the top three in minutes played [both seasons] were: Joe Johnson, Shawn Marion, Amar'e Stoudemire (in that order).
However, the '04 roster was in such flux that Amar'e was third in playing time despite missing a third of the season and barely topping 2k minutes. He actually played about 43% more minutes in '05 than he had in '04; which is not irrelevant.
He also appears to improve quite a lot, which I don't think we can entirely chalk up to Nash "lifting" him. I mean, it's not at all uncommon for players to show significant improvement from their 2nd season to their 3rd (and perhaps especially young ones??). Some notable examples from recent(ish) history: Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jayson Tatum, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Draymond Green, Anthony Davis, Carmelo Anthony, Clint Capela, Patrick Ewing, Boris Diaw, Josh Howard, Kevin Garnett, John Stockton and Karl Malone. 3rd-season improvement is perhaps even expected (arguably the MOST expected or common year-to-year improvement we typically see).
So how much is improvement and 43% greater availability of Amar'e worth to a team that only won 29 games? I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that's worth "a few" wins, at least.
They also added Quentin Richardson, who was not a great player, but a fair/decent one (and being somewhat of a 3pt specialist, he was a decent fit next to Nash). By the same token, they were also able to off-load some garbage time players to pick up an aging Jim Jackson mid-season. Again, not a special player, but better than EVERYTHING they traded away to get him, and a not awful fit (shooter) next to Nash. How much are these pieces worth as additions to a bad team, considering their minutes were probably mostly taking the place of *Casey Jacobsen and a washed up Anfernee Hardaway? That might be at least a couple more wins.
*Now that I've mentioned Jacobsen, I should expound on just how bad the extended cast of the '04 Suns were: 4th and 5th [respectively] in playing time on that team were Casey Jacobsen (a career scrub who washed out of the league in his mid-20s) and Jake Voskuhl (a replacement-level player at best). Voskuhl actually averaged >24 mpg that year; he would never again average more than 16 mpg in any other season of his career. These are simply NOT good NBA players.......yet they combined for a staggering 3,434 minutes on that '04 squad.
Speaking of Voskuhl, the reason he played less in '05 was they also added Steven Hunter, who took the place of the C minutes of Jahidi White and some of Voskuhl's. Hunter was not a particularly noteworthy player, but he's a clear improvement over EITHER of the other two at C. How much improvement does that translate to?
Joe Johnson had a staggering improvement from behind the arc in '05, which no doubt was PARTLY due to Nash and the SSOL system. But I'm skeptical that is the ONLY thing accounting for a sudden +17.3% improvement from trey (which he would never again even come within 6.5% of). The rest of his career DOES, however, show him as a more than capable 3pt shooter, which he was NOT in his first three seasons ['02-'04]. He obviously put in some work in during that off-season. Is this worth anything to this bad team?
Anyway, I'm just illustrating that there were several moving parts within that sudden improvement. Nash I'll comfortably award with the lion's share of credit; but is he responsible for all +33 wins? No, most certainly not. I’d estimate that something like a quarter of the improvement [at least] can be traced back to OTHER factors.
And if we’re to use the turnaround in Phoenix as a point in his favour, it’s probably only fair to look at the flip-side of that coin: what happened to the team he left?
This is more difficult to parse out, as there were even more moving parts on that end. They didn’t just lose Steve Nash; they also lost Antoine Walker and Antawn Jamison (as well as low-minute Travis Best and Eduardo Najera, fwiw).
Relevant additions to the roster were Jason Terry, Erick Dampier, Jerry Stackhouse, Alan Henderson, and rookie Devin Harris.
Nash was, in essence, replaced by Jason Terry as a featured backcourt player. So I’ll first look at the OTHER moving pieces in comparison.
I’m not terribly high on Walker or Jamison, personally.
Walker was a chucker, a turnover-prone chucker, who was grossly overrated by mainstream media because he frequently (for some bad Boston teams, fwiw) crossed that magical 20-pt threshold that makes many a casual fan go gooey. But he just wasn’t that good. To be fair, in ‘04 he’s shooting less [which is good], assisting a little more (though his are generally going to be of the vanilla variety), and he is a decent rebounding forward (particularly on the offensive glass in ‘04). I thought he was passable on defense, too. But he’s no prize.
Jamison was a good offensive forward: decent finisher near the rim, could make little runners and such in the mid-range, OK outside shooter. He could score, basically, and his efficiency really seemed to benefit in playing next to Dirk and Nash in ‘04. He was really excellent on the offensive glass in ‘04 for Dallas, too; also took pretty good care of the ball.
However, he’s a weak defensive forward. Much of what he gains you on offense, he gives back on defense. Still a net positive player, but probably not as much as his box suggests.
Best and Najera were whatever…….basically replacement-level players, more or less what you’d expect of guys who were 9th and 10th [respectively] in minutes played.
Let’s look at who replaced these guys’ minutes…..
Best, as back-up PG, was largely replaced by rookie Devin Harris, who even as a rookie was a small upgrade (for whatever that’s worth in the guy who’s 9th in minutes). The minutes of Walker, Jamison, and Najera were replaced by Jerry Stackhouse, Erick Dampier, and Alan Henderson (as well as increased minutes for Josh Howard; more on that in a moment).
Dirk had been playing mostly C [according to bbref] in ‘04, which looking at the typical line-ups probably was the case. That’s certainly gotta put a cap on your defense. A frontcourt of Dirk/Dampier and Howard or Stackhouse is definitely a defensive upgrade from Dirk/Walker/Jamison. Dampier is a much better defensive C than Dirk (and arguably the best defender mentioned here), and replacing Jamison with pretty much anyone except maybe Carmelo Anthony is going to be a defensive upgrade at SF. This is probably a slight offensive downgrade in your frontcourt, however, for losing Jamison (though the aforementioned Devin Harris perhaps mitigates that slightly). Dampier doesn’t try to score a lot (good shooting efficiency on what he does score), and he’s an EXCELLENT offensive rebounder, though he’s also extremely turnover-prone (luckily he doesn’t touch the ball a lot).
My hunch is the defensive improvement is larger than the offensive downgrade. So I call this a small net gain overall.
Josh Howard, in his second season [‘05] gets perhaps marginally better. His shooting efficiency improves significantly, mostly by way of improved mid-range shooting (and +3% at the FT line), though he’s still not a good scorer; and he’s still a little turnover prone (slightly WORSE than his rookie season, actually). His rebounding numbers decline a bit, too, though his tendency to foul gets a little better. He’s still active defensively. Overall it’s only a slight improvement on a per-minute basis, though his minutes do go up substantially (increasing by 54% over ‘04).
Does that account for much on an already good team? Idk. Maybe, but probably not much (he’s still only a slightly above average NBA player at this stage; I can’t see a substantial increase in minutes for a slightly above average player moving the needle a lot for a team that was already >50 wins).
Dirk himself has a better year in ‘05 than he’d had in ‘04. That’s a double-edged sword in terms of evaluating Nash: on the one hand it mutes the loss resulting from Nash’s departure; on the other hand, Dirk having a substantial improvement to his scoring the year after Nash leaves tarnishes Steve’s reputation for consistently elevating his teammates.
Anyway, those are the main moving pieces (aside from the Nash/Terry roster swap). Generally, they translate to a small, but clear, net positive change, imo. The roster changes outlined above, plus the increased utilization of Josh Howard should translate to notable defensive improvement, with only a small downgrade to the offense (I would think).
But Jason Terry for Steve Nash should be viewed as a downgrade, right? And actually a pretty big one, if we’re advocating for Nash here. On paper, it seems like this should probably be a small net loss overall for this Mavs team…..maybe a net neutral change if you’re particularly low on Nash [and/or high on Terry], or a SIZABLE downgrade overall if you’re generally high on Nash.
What actually happened?
Well, the Mavs got better by +1 SRS and 6 wins, and went one round further in the playoffs. And just to show it wasn’t a fluke, they improved by another +0.1 SRS and 2 more wins the following year, and made it to the NBA Finals. (to be fair, the ‘03 Mavs with Nash had been more or less equally wicked, though)
Yes, the Dallas offense got substantially worse in ‘05 (and one would point to the loss of Nash as the primary explanation). It was a massive improvement on defense that produced the slightly better overall result.
But, what are we saying then? That Nash/Jamison traded for Dampier/Terry should be viewed as a basically equal swap? That the defensive improvement the latter duo gives you will balance the offensive decline you suffer? That’s not exactly a flattering piece of argumentation for Nash.
His reputation is almost that of a savaant, who [because he's not a primary scorer] you can just "plug and play" with any cast, any environment, and the result will always be monster impact. But I don't feel his career is fully reflective of that sentiment. It felt to me like a lot of fortuitous things crystalized in Phoenix (can go into more detail later, perhaps).
At any rate, with a few prime years next to Dirk, and then some decent casts for a few years in Phoenix (where his impact was unleashed), and still a title nor even a Finals appearance ever materialized.**
This^^^ last stab is a generic argument, I realize, but one which has, in so many words, been used against both Stockton and Malone, fwiw. And I'll repeat: I've been going for counterpoint in this post.
(**Disclaimer: I vomited a little in my mouth [not really] while playing devil’s advocate with that argument, as I’m still kinda sore about ‘07. The Robert Horry Hip-check Incident still strikes me as one of the larger playoff injustices in NBA history. A total thug/goon move that CLEARLY should not benefit the Spurs, in the end, did exactly that. I realize the league had put in place some new rules after the Malice in the Palace, but players weren’t fully used to them yet (how often are you really tested on such rules?). And come on, it’s the playoffs; you shouldn’t have rules like that (when no real tussle actually even occurred) cripple a team in a playoff series (particularly the team on the receiving end of the goon play). I just felt the league handled that poorly. It felt like the Suns had the momentum at that point; and while obviously it’s pure speculation, I feel they would have won the series if not for that incident. And once past the Spurs, who else had the steam to stop them?
For me, the WC semis Suns/Spurs was the REAL Finals that year: those were the two best teams, imo.)
Anyway…..
These things produce a reluctance to support him yet, for me. Still a great player, still one of my favourite players, but I just don’t view him as a top 25 player/career. Top 35, sure.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
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