Top 25 peaks of the 2001-25: #15-#16 Spots

[homecourtloss]

Best individual PO series is an interesting thought. Dray choking out the Rockets in '16 is a personal favorite among guys still eligible. I've never looked at a best relD series list before, but I'd bet that one would rank pretty well.

-19.2 rDRtg
+7.7 rORtg

Massive stuff.

By the way, it's one of Draymond's ten different series in which he was -10 rDRtg or better. Six of these were -13 or better.

Depends on the minutes cutoff but unless I forgot someone, 22 Giannis has the best rDRtg at -21.4 against the Bulls.

Caruso has three -22 (or better) series though so if we ignore his low per game minutes, his total would be the best of anyone.

I was only talking about Draymond's.

[LA Bird]

Playoff resiliency is part of it. It's more a combo of his 3 pt shooting abandoning him too often(which he relies on a lot), lack of midrange game to compensate, defense and being turnover prone(which has resulted in a lot of 7+to games in his playoff career).

Durant shot 31% from three in the 14/16 playoffs and had more turnovers than assists. While playing off of a MVP level point guard. If not for the protective shield from his Warriors rings, what exactly makes 14/16 Durant better than 19/20 Harden?

A lot of criticism with AD seems to boil down to floor raising imo yet he still led teams in NO that got out of the 1st rd once or twice

Firstly, Davis is also not much of a ceiling raiser. Remove low leverage possessions and the 2020 Lakers go from +10.8 with LeBron only to +11.4 with LeBron and Davis. That +0.6 lift is not a whole lot of ceiling raising. It's not like Davis took them to +17 heights like those Curry/Draymond lineups.

Also, making the playoffs twice and winning one series in seven years isn't exactly notable as a floor raiser given his underwhelming impact profile. Jrue Holiday scoring 28 ppg on 63% TS while shutting down Lillard in a Thurmond-esque performance (27.5 pp75 59.4 TS% -> 16.7 pp75 47.1% TS) was the MVP in the one series victory. And FWIW, there was a peaks project before AD went to LA and the 2018 floor raising version failed to even make the top 40 cut (behind someone like Howard who isn't getting any traction now).

I think in a peak's project winning counts for a lot(even if we want to say LeBron was better that year but honestly not by that much). It's like AD is having to overcome a rep of his own making though which is understandable which also applies to Harden to some degree. In 2020 though he was a very big part of a very dominant team. That's why I seem to be higher on him than most others currently voting.

Said team dominance has already been addressed in my post. Most of the victory margin in the close games came when both Davis and Harden were on the bench. But I get how important rings are to some people so I won't be arguing this further.

[Cavsfansince84]

Playoff resiliency is part of it. It's more a combo of his 3 pt shooting abandoning him too often(which he relies on a lot), lack of midrange game to compensate, defense and being turnover prone(which has resulted in a lot of 7+to games in his playoff career).

Durant shot 31% from three in the 14/16 playoffs and had more turnovers than assists. While playing off of a MVP level point guard. If not for the protective shield from his Warriors rings, what exactly makes 14/16 Durant better than 19/20 Harden?

A lot of criticism with AD seems to boil down to floor raising imo yet he still led teams in NO that got out of the 1st rd once or twice

Firstly, Davis is also not much of a ceiling raiser. Remove low leverage possessions and the 2020 Lakers go from +10.8 with LeBron only to +11.4 with LeBron and Davis. That +0.6 lift is not a whole lot of ceiling raising. It's not like Davis took them to +17 heights like those Curry/Draymond lineups.

Also, making the playoffs twice and winning one series in seven years isn't exactly notable as a floor raiser given his underwhelming impact profile. Jrue Holiday scoring 28 ppg on 63% TS while shutting down Lillard in a Thurmond-esque performance (27.5 pp75 59.4 TS% -> 16.7 pp75 47.1% TS) was the MVP in the one series victory. And FWIW, there was a peaks project before AD went to LA and the 2018 floor raising version failed to even make the top 40 cut (behind someone like Howard who isn't getting any traction now).

I think in a peak's project winning counts for a lot(even if we want to say LeBron was better that year but honestly not by that much). It's like AD is having to overcome a rep of his own making though which is understandable which also applies to Harden to some degree. In 2020 though he was a very big part of a very dominant team. That's why I seem to be higher on him than most others currently voting.

Said team dominance has already been addressed in my post. Most of the victory margin in the close games came when both Davis and Harden were on the bench. But I get how important rings are to some people so I won't be arguing this further.

Well, for one I had KD&Harden side by side on my last ballot so arguing them against each other doesn't hold much water with me. I see arguments for both being over the other. It also seems strange that you would bring up Jrue's series the way you did as if to just dismiss AD's series where he put up 33/12 on 59% ts. Surely that counts for something right? Regardless of what Jrue did on top of that. The main thing I brought up before was more insight into AD as a defender since you or someone else was discounting that he was actually dpoy level. ftr, it's not like I am some huge AD fan. I am just arguing on behalf of his 2020 season currently for reasons already stated. To sum up my reasoning as ringz seems pretty hostile tbh. No reason for it. Perfectly fine with me if you don't want to take it any further at this point.

[lessthanjake]

Another thing I just want to put a point on regarding Nash in the 2005 playoffs specifically is that his raw numbers became insanely good in the playoffs after the first round (which was a sweep where the Suns barely had to break a sweat). Against the Mavericks and the Spurs (both serious title contenders), Nash averaged:

27.1 PPG
11.4 APG
5.3 RPG
+10.0 rTS%

We should remember that these numbers came in a lower-scoring, lower-pace era. In era-inflation-adjusted terms (adjusting for both lower scoring efficiency back then and the fact that those series were played at lower pace than NBA basketball generally is now), you’d probably need to add like 10-15% to those PPG/APG/RPG numbers in today’s era to get at what they meant back then. These really were incredible numbers.

And, in putting up those numbers, the Suns had a ludicrous +14.71 rORTG with Nash on the floor against the Mavericks and an even-more-ludicrous +17.16 rORTG with Nash on the floor against the Spurs.

So 2005 Nash faced two major title contenders and just like absolutely nuked them offensively, both in terms of Nash’s own box data and the actual offense produced by his team. It really was an incredible display, and I just don’t know how anyone could suggest he was anything but amazing in those playoffs.

well i don't think anyone said he wasn't great. since we're bringing up box score stuff, all of the pace and league environment stuff is already baked into the big 3 stats from BBRef. Nash looks good but still not spectacular.

23.4 PER
0.164 WS48
4.7 BPM

WS48 is somewhat telling in that WS loves efficiency and nash was incredibly efficient and yet ended up with the same WS48 as 2018 harden, who had one of his lowest efficiency playoffs (54.8 TS%) playing the #1 regular season defense (Utah) for 5 games and the #1 playoff defense (Golden State) for 7 games. and yet, presumably because defense and other factors, harden still basically tied Nash in WS48 (0.163). and crushed him in BPM (8.1).

in terms of overall career, Nash's numbers would rank as follow in harden's career (only 9+ game playoffs counted for harden):

PER: 6th
WS48: 7th (9th with shorter runs included)
BPM: 8th (11th with shorter runs included)


Although I feel like there's an upper limit to how good we can consider Dallas since they're also the team that lost Nash so both they and Nash can't be simultaneously amazing, even if we bumped up his numbers a little for the 2 series you mentioned to 24.9 PER, 0.193 WS48, 7.0 BPM (purposely goal-seeked number, see below), it would be:

PER: 3rd (2018 harden's number behind 2019 and 2020)
WS48: 5th (2011 harden's number behind 2015, 2019, 2020, and 2021)
BPM: 6th (2017 harden's number behind 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021)

So this is part of my point. The “Nash isn’t good by box score” stuff isn’t really borne out of looking at Nash’s raw box score numbers. It’s borne out of the various box-score metrics taking numbers that look pretty great and spitting out a number that looks surprisingly mediocre. Like, even leaving aside that Nash’s 2005 playoff numbers are even better in the two series’s against great opponents, I don’t think we’d look at 23.9 PPG, 11.3 APG, and 4.8 RPG on +9.0 rTS% in the relatively-low-scoring mid-2000s and expect just 4.7 BPM, 0.164 WS/48, and 23.4 PER. Just as an example, those numbers look a whole lot like Chris Paul’s 2008 playoffs, in which he had 24.1 PPG, 11.3 APG, and 4.9 RPG on +4.5 rTS%. Indeed, Nash’s numbers actually look slightly better! Yet Chris Paul had a 11.3 BPM, 0.289 WS/48, and 30.7 PER in those playoffs. That is a massive difference! And the 2005 playoffs are just one example. We could do a similar exercise with various other RS or playoff data for Nash and see similar things. The box-score metrics not only don’t match the RAPM data, but they don’t even really match what we see in the slashlines. So there’s clearly something going on with the box-score metrics regarding Nash that pulls his numbers down a lot. I made a long post earlier positing some explanations as to what I think are the reasons for that, and why I think those reasons are dinging Nash too much. See here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=119775666#p119775666. That same post also addressed a huge mechanism through which I think all box numbers (whether box metrics or just slashlines) undersell Nash’s impact in a way that I don’t think any box metrics can really fix without throwing the metrics out of whack for a ton of other players.

[Jaivl]

15. 2020 Anthony Davis (> 18)
16. 2005 Steve Nash (> 06 > 07)

Remnants of the last thread. It's finally Davis' time to get rewarded for his outlier shooting performance.

And Nash has the largest impact footprint of any big responsabilities player left, by a big margin. Team record speaks for itself, Suns' offense speaks for itself, the changes on his teammates' scoring profile speak for themselves. I don't know where you guys are getting your RAPMs from. From 2005 to 2011, Engelmann PI RAPM, Nash is: #10, #4, #2, #2, #3, #3, #3. NBARAPM, same story or a bit below depending on the time frame, but still stellar.

Below these two, somewhat of a large gap for me. (obviously excluding healthy Embiid)

17. 2020 James Harden (> 19 > 18)
#7 PI RAPM (Engelmann) -- z-score 2.62, #4 DPM
+9.81 on/off (pbpstats)
+11.77 on/off "supremacy" (him without Westbrook minus Westbrook without him. +6.5 over Capela, +11.4 over Tucker)

18. 2003 Tracy McGrady
#13 PI RAPM (Engelmann) -- z-score 2.82, #7 DPM
+11.45 on/off (pbpstats)
+8.58 on/off "supremacy" (him without Armstrong minus Armstrong without him. Armstrong, really???

The battle of the guards "lead"-ing whoever into whatever. Tiebreaker goes to Harden due to consistency. I don't have strong feelings about them, I could easily be swayed in favour of any of the players below, so consider this a pre-emptive vote (so I don't forget later).

HM: Still unsure about what to do with Embiid. Draymond, Doncic, Manu, Westbrook, Kidd... Tatum, I guess? Sigh. And that's already 25. Jimmy Butler entering the conversation as well. Sorry Rose, Pierce... wait, 2004 Kirilenko, is that you?

[Cavsfansince84]

15. 2020 Anthony Davis (> 18)
16. 2005 Steve Nash (> 06 > 07)

Remnants of the last thread. It's finally Davis' time to get rewarded for his outlier shooting performance.

And Nash has the largest impact footprint of any big responsabilities player left, by a big margin. Team record speaks for itself, Suns' offense speaks for itself, the changes on his teammates' scoring profile speak for themselves. I don't know where you guys are getting your RAPMs from. From 2005 to 2011, Engelmann PI RAPM, Nash is: #10, #4, #2, #2, #3, #3, #3. NBARAPM, same story or a bit below depending on the time frame, but still stellar.

Below these two, somewhat of a large gap for me. (obviously excluding healthy Embiid)

17. 2020 James Harden (> 19 > 18)
#7 PI RAPM (Engelmann) -- z-score 2.62, #4 DPM
+9.81 on/off (pbpstats)
+11.77 on/off "supremacy" (him without Westbrook minus Westbrook without him. +6.5 over Capela, +11.4 over Tucker)

18. 2003 Tracy McGrady
#13 PI RAPM (Engelmann) -- z-score 2.82, #7 DPM
+11.45 on/off (pbpstats)
+8.58 on/off "supremacy" (him without Armstrong minus Armstrong without him. Armstrong, really???

The battle of the guards "lead"-ing whoever into whatever. Tiebreaker goes to Harden due to consistency. I don't have strong feelings about them, I could easily be swayed in favour of any of the players below, so consider this a pre-emptive vote (so I don't forget later).

HM: Still unsure about what to do with Embiid. Draymond, Doncic, Manu, Westbrook, Kidd... Tatum, I guess? Sigh. And that's already 25. Jimmy Butler entering the conversation as well. Sorry Rose, Pierce... wait, 2004 Kirilenko, is that you?

I'm not sure what the argument is against Luka to relegate him to that group and not place him on a ballot at this point. Great rs(best 3pt/ft% by far). As the clear #1, has a great playoffs and knocks off the #7, 3&2 teams by srs(including beating Okc when Kyrie was pretty bad). I might have him #1 on my ballot tbh. To me his mixture of size and all around play is unequalled by any perimeter players left and he might have been the best player in the finals.

[Jaivl]

15. 2020 Anthony Davis (> 18)
16. 2005 Steve Nash (> 06 > 07)

Remnants of the last thread. It's finally Davis' time to get rewarded for his outlier shooting performance.

And Nash has the largest impact footprint of any big responsabilities player left, by a big margin. Team record speaks for itself, Suns' offense speaks for itself, the changes on his teammates' scoring profile speak for themselves. I don't know where you guys are getting your RAPMs from. From 2005 to 2011, Engelmann PI RAPM, Nash is: #10, #4, #2, #2, #3, #3, #3. NBARAPM, same story or a bit below depending on the time frame, but still stellar.

Below these two, somewhat of a large gap for me. (obviously excluding healthy Embiid)

17. 2020 James Harden (> 19 > 18)
#7 PI RAPM (Engelmann) -- z-score 2.62, #4 DPM
+9.81 on/off (pbpstats)
+11.77 on/off "supremacy" (him without Westbrook minus Westbrook without him. +6.5 over Capela, +11.4 over Tucker)

18. 2003 Tracy McGrady
#13 PI RAPM (Engelmann) -- z-score 2.82, #7 DPM
+11.45 on/off (pbpstats)
+8.58 on/off "supremacy" (him without Armstrong minus Armstrong without him. Armstrong, really???

The battle of the guards "lead"-ing whoever into whatever. Tiebreaker goes to Harden due to consistency. I don't have strong feelings about them, I could easily be swayed in favour of any of the players below, so consider this a pre-emptive vote (so I don't forget later).

HM: Still unsure about what to do with Embiid. Draymond, Doncic, Manu, Westbrook, Kidd... Tatum, I guess? Sigh. And that's already 25. Jimmy Butler entering the conversation as well. Sorry Rose, Pierce... wait, 2004 Kirilenko, is that you?

I'm not sure what the argument is against Luka to relegate him to that group and not place him on a ballot at this point. Great rs(best 3pt/ft% by far). As the clear #1, has a great playoffs and knocks off the #7, 3&2 teams by srs(including beating Okc when Kyrie was pretty bad). I might have him #1 on my ballot tbh. To me his mixture of size and all around play is unequalled by any perimeter players left and he might have been the best player in the finals.

Not against him being included or anything, but for me, a very big part of that 2024 Mavs run was that half the roster clearly played out of their minds, irrespective of Doncic (who obviously played a big part).

Also, the 2024 Mavs were a negative team with Doncic and without Irving... which is perfectly normal, mind you, but it's not going to be enough when the direct comp I'm offering is 2020 James Harden, who is taking a similarly limited cast to +6, +7, +8... (also, he did that double lead guard + defensive roleplayer thing even better the years prior )

[Cavsfansince84]

Not against him being included or anything, but for me, a very big part of that 2024 Mavs run was that half the roster clearly played out of their minds, irrespective of Doncic (who obviously played a big part).

Also, the 2024 Mavs were a negative team with Doncic and without Irving... which is perfectly normal, mind you, but it's not going to be enough when the direct comp I'm offering is 2020 James Harden, who is taking a similarly limited cast to +6, +7, +8... (also, he did that double lead guard + defensive roleplayer thing even better the years prior )

I'm curious what that was after the trades though(on court - Kyrie). There's also room for both Luka and Harden on a ballot but at the end of the day its your call since its your ballot. I'm just throwing out arguments or rationales. I think its quite possible that the reason some of his teammates had good playoffs is largely due to Luka. Like if Harden's teammates had played much better in the 2018 wcf and they'd won it I wouldn't exactly be holding that against Harden here. I would think that it had something to do with the helio running the offense.

[lessthanjake]

To me, Luka is basically like Anthony Davis in the “Box numbers look good but multi-year RAPM says he shouldn’t be anywhere near this discussion” kind of way. But while Anthony Davis won a title with a great playoff performance, Luka has not done so. Of course, Davis having prime LeBron on his team is a huge factor there, but Luka did actually struggle a fair bit in the series’s that his team lost in the years one might actually vote for (i.e. 2022 and 2024). He’ll make my ballot eventually, but I think there’s several people I’d put in before him. Like, for instance, I’m pretty sure I’ll be voting for Jimmy Butler over Luka.

[f4p]

Another thing I just want to put a point on regarding Nash in the 2005 playoffs specifically is that his raw numbers became insanely good in the playoffs after the first round (which was a sweep where the Suns barely had to break a sweat). Against the Mavericks and the Spurs (both serious title contenders), Nash averaged:

27.1 PPG
11.4 APG
5.3 RPG
+10.0 rTS%

We should remember that these numbers came in a lower-scoring, lower-pace era. In era-inflation-adjusted terms (adjusting for both lower scoring efficiency back then and the fact that those series were played at lower pace than NBA basketball generally is now), you’d probably need to add like 10-15% to those PPG/APG/RPG numbers in today’s era to get at what they meant back then. These really were incredible numbers.

And, in putting up those numbers, the Suns had a ludicrous +14.71 rORTG with Nash on the floor against the Mavericks and an even-more-ludicrous +17.16 rORTG with Nash on the floor against the Spurs.

So 2005 Nash faced two major title contenders and just like absolutely nuked them offensively, both in terms of Nash’s own box data and the actual offense produced by his team. It really was an incredible display, and I just don’t know how anyone could suggest he was anything but amazing in those playoffs.

well i don't think anyone said he wasn't great. since we're bringing up box score stuff, all of the pace and league environment stuff is already baked into the big 3 stats from BBRef. Nash looks good but still not spectacular.

23.4 PER
0.164 WS48
4.7 BPM

WS48 is somewhat telling in that WS loves efficiency and nash was incredibly efficient and yet ended up with the same WS48 as 2018 harden, who had one of his lowest efficiency playoffs (54.8 TS%) playing the #1 regular season defense (Utah) for 5 games and the #1 playoff defense (Golden State) for 7 games. and yet, presumably because defense and other factors, harden still basically tied Nash in WS48 (0.163). and crushed him in BPM (8.1).

in terms of overall career, Nash's numbers would rank as follow in harden's career (only 9+ game playoffs counted for harden):

PER: 6th
WS48: 7th (9th with shorter runs included)
BPM: 8th (11th with shorter runs included)


Although I feel like there's an upper limit to how good we can consider Dallas since they're also the team that lost Nash so both they and Nash can't be simultaneously amazing, even if we bumped up his numbers a little for the 2 series you mentioned to 24.9 PER, 0.193 WS48, 7.0 BPM (purposely goal-seeked number, see below), it would be:

PER: 3rd (2018 harden's number behind 2019 and 2020)
WS48: 5th (2011 harden's number behind 2015, 2019, 2020, and 2021)
BPM: 6th (2017 harden's number behind 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021)

So this is part of my point. The “Nash isn’t good by box score” stuff isn’t really borne out of looking at Nash’s raw box score numbers. It’s borne out of the various box-score metrics taking numbers that look pretty great and spitting out a number that looks surprisingly mediocre.

On the one hand, I sort of agree. His numbers are weirdly low. On the other hand, I don't know what to tell you. Unlike RAPM, with its million adjustments, prior informed data, and black box calculations, the box score composites are cold hard formulas. PER accounts for pace, and the suns played quickly. WS doesn't like terrible team defense, and well, that's bad for a guy whose teams ignored playoff defense to absurd degrees. BPM is your baby so I don't know it as well, but unless it has a "last name starts with N" negative adjustment, I guess Nash just doesnt do what correlates to impact.

On WS, from looking at 1995 Hakeem's shockingly low playoff WS48, I could surmise a guess. There is a factor that accounts for your TS% vs your teams TS%. In effect, you get penalized for being worse than your team. That sort of makes sense on an intuitive level. 1995 Hakeem wasn't inefficient at 57 TS% but the rest of the rockets were even more efficient. But of course most of this was the rockets practically shooting 40% from 3. Again, does it make sense to credit the 40% 3 point shooter for the good offense? Sure.

But of course we all know that Kenny smiths 40% 3 point shooting was directly caused by Hakeem. Hakeem wasn't hogging the ball from Kenny. He was giving him as many open 3s as he could give him. Hakeem is essentially penalized for giving his dependent teammates good looks.

Now, unlike PER, I've never made a WS48 spreadsheet to test the magnitude of this effect. It may be quite small for all i know. And who knows , maybe it's perfectly valid. But its possible a guy creating good looks like Nash is suffering a little as well. Now nash's own TS% is great so the effect may be nothing and it's not like harden and cp3 weren't getting their teammates good looks.

Having said all that, one nice thing is that PER, WS48, and BPM tend to be quite different. If you are mediocre in one of them, maybe its all the worse for that stat that it ignored your greatness. If you are mediocre in all 3 like nash, well, arguing all 3 are wrong is a tougher hill to climb. Everybody else inducted so far looks plenty great by usually all 3 of them.

Like, even leaving aside that Nash’s 2005 playoff numbers are even better in the two series’s against great opponents, I don’t think we’d look at 23.9 PPG, 11.3 APG, and 4.8 RPG on +9.0 rTS% in the relatively-low-scoring mid-2000s and expect just 4.7 BPM, 0.164 WS/48, and 23.4 PER. Just as an example, those numbers look a whole lot like Chris Paul’s 2008 playoffs, in which he had 24.1 PPG, 11.3 APG, and 4.9 RPG on +4.5 rTS%. Indeed, Nash’s numbers actually look slightly better! Yet Chris Paul had a 11.3 BPM, 0.289 WS/48, and 30.7 PER in those playoffs. That is a massive difference!

Cp3 is definitely as all timer in terms of how much the box composites love him compared to his slashlines. He's like top 5 all time in prime playoff PER and WS48. It's tough to explain. Again, BPM is mostly a black box to me, but PER and WS48 are there on BBRef to be parsed. They don't play favorites like RAPM seems to. The formula is the formula. For all of history, for all teams, for all players. They didnt even change their formula like BPM when 2017 Westbrook looked too good.

You don't think the box score likes nash enough, but like I said, am I supposed to believe harden, who is one of i think 10 players ever with a box score triple crown in 2018, was less impactful than Nash but just magically created a team that practically never lost when healthy? He just got lucky that eric Gordon and PJ tucker, who had each played on exactly one +0.500 team before they joined harden, were actually the key to it all? Or that capela, who hasn't done jack since leaving harden, was the secret? The team ran basically their entire offense through a guy who wasn't impactful, and that guy wasn't helping on defense, but 65 wins just fell out of the sky. The 2019 rockets had cp3 looking like trash, had a replacement level bench, and they won 53, crushed a +5 team in the 1st round, and gave a team with 2 (maybe 3) peaks above harden, all they wanted but weirdly it wasnt the guy putting up 35/7 driving it. If Nash looks weak by the box score, I argue regular season RAPM underrates harden even more, especially since the playoff stuff tends to really like him.

[One_and_Done]

Could AD have carried a team on runs like Butler did in 20, 22, or 23? I doubt it.

[Top10alltime]

OK, I see how RealGM is. Not voting the clear best on the court, 2021-24 Embiid (take your pick).

I also rebutted the playoffs take, but they ignore facts, and focus on hating Embiid because they want to push their homeboy, Giannis.

We can't be talking about Nash right now either, Nash joined the GOAT offensive cast of all-time, and when his PnR playmaking was exposed in the 05 Spurs series, he was cooked. That's OFC, ignoring the other side of the ball, where Nash is arguably the worst defender in NBA history.

Okay, I assume you’re mostly trolling, but: (1) that “GOAT offensive cast of all-time” that Nash joined had a -1.5 rORTG the year before he joined them, and from 2005-2010 had a -1.57 rORTG in 26 games without Nash; and (2) it’s obviously nonsensical to say Nash’s “PnR playmaking was exposed in the 05 Spurs series” when the Suns had an absolutely massive +17.16 rORTG with Nash on the court in that series.

Yes, yet another disingenous, apples to oranges comparison for comparing the 2003-04 Suns and the 2004-05 Suns, we have LTJ bringing this up this time. This is absolutely ridiculous. But, here we go again.

1. That was still the GOAT offensive cast of all time. But that -1.5 rORtg is because...

a) Stephon Marbury, the Suns PG, played 34 games before he left the Suns in a trade that season. They sent Penny Hardaway away as well. This left the Suns without a point guard, which Nash filled in for the next season (obviously Nash is better than Stephon Marbury at offense, he's a top 6-15 offensive player of all-time, but without a PG, and losing an important SG, Nash' impact looks better than it actually was. This is a problem as Marbury was playing the most MPG out of any Sun, at 41.6, while Hardaway had 25+ MPG.
b) Amare Stoudemire missed 30 games. That's a big deal, considering at the time, he was arguably the Sun's best player. Context needs to be added, and you are ignoring it.
Please, stop ignoring context

Then as for the other, -1.6 rORtg, you are just blatantly ignoring, that the Suns needed someone to be a connective guy, to connect all the pieces together. That was Nash, he connected all the pieces around him. that -1.57 rORtg is missing the context. With Nash, that team was a great fit around him. TBH, even though he changed as a player, he didn't have this extravagant jump that people are willing to picture in their minds, just because he came into the most optimal situation of all-time.

2004 Mavs with Nash were 113.2 ORTG, and then dropped to "just" 110.3 ORTG in 2005 (this is w/o context).
With context, the 2005 Mavs with Dirk were 111.7 ORTG.

So Nash' real impact, is much, much closer to a small 1.5 points worth of offense, rather than 9 or 10 points worth on offense.

Many people wished for Nash' situation with guys like Amare, Marion, and Joe. They didn't get it. Nash is just not supposed to be part of the discussion yet.

2. What? That comment has nothing to do with Nash' PnR operation (his only form of creating in the half-court). I want you to check Nash' numbers without Amare, who was carrying Nash' throughout that series. And this is just an assumption, since I haven't checked, but Nash was probably playing with his starters throughout that series, most of the time (Guys like Quentin, Amare, Joe, and Marion, since you seem to be uneducated on the topic). And boy oh boy, he had the greatest offensive support ever, guys like Dirk, Harden, Embiid, Kobe, Lebron, Shaq wished they could play with this:

Amare vs Spurs: 39.9 OA pts/75 on +10.9 opp adj rTS with over 5 ORB per game (OFC, he was on Duncan, Nash on guys like Parker and doesn't have any vision)
Joe vs Spurs: 20.1 OA pts/75 on +6.9 opp adj rTS

43.9 3PT% (filtering Nash) and over 10 ORB per game

(Another small example for those who have 2007 Nash as his peak):

Amare vs Spurs: 33.9 OA pts/75 on +6.5 opp adj rTS (Again, on Duncan)

Also, here's examples of what HAS to do with PnR operation (again, that's the only way of him creating in the HC)

Watch on YouTube

6:06, 10:12
1st play: Watch how there's a PnR screen set, and then the man rolls, but Nash (with his poor vision not even being able to see over guys like Parker) PnR is clamped up and he has to take a different scoring counter.

2nd play: Watch again how the Spurs clamp up Nash' PnR playmaking. Another PnR screen set, then a roll, but Nash with his poor vision unable to see over bigger guys gives a limitation, then it proceeds to go to the Spurs.

This is what happens when you are 6'3", have terrible vision, you can only create in the HC with PnR, and don't have ATG gravity. The 2004-05 Spurs were Nash' kryptonite, there's a reason he dropped off so massively against the Spurs in his career, they were just his kyrptonite. I listed 2005, but there's also instances like 2008. Nash' kyrptonite is elite PnR defense, and without it, we wouldn't know Nash like we know him today.


All this was just disproving your bias (and I proved you don't watch games here) of Steve Nash, who really shouldn't be in discussions. There are other one-way guys with bulletproof skillsets at their best things (scoring, playmaking, defending, etc), and are absolutely trash at the other end.
That also is the defense of Nash, arguably the worst of all-time.

Thank you for trying, though. This was nice while it lasted. If someone other than LTJ (who actually watches games) would like to argue against me, give it a go. Christ bless you all, and goodbye

[lessthanjake]

well i don't think anyone said he wasn't great. since we're bringing up box score stuff, all of the pace and league environment stuff is already baked into the big 3 stats from BBRef. Nash looks good but still not spectacular.

23.4 PER
0.164 WS48
4.7 BPM

WS48 is somewhat telling in that WS loves efficiency and nash was incredibly efficient and yet ended up with the same WS48 as 2018 harden, who had one of his lowest efficiency playoffs (54.8 TS%) playing the #1 regular season defense (Utah) for 5 games and the #1 playoff defense (Golden State) for 7 games. and yet, presumably because defense and other factors, harden still basically tied Nash in WS48 (0.163). and crushed him in BPM (8.1).

in terms of overall career, Nash's numbers would rank as follow in harden's career (only 9+ game playoffs counted for harden):

PER: 6th
WS48: 7th (9th with shorter runs included)
BPM: 8th (11th with shorter runs included)


Although I feel like there's an upper limit to how good we can consider Dallas since they're also the team that lost Nash so both they and Nash can't be simultaneously amazing, even if we bumped up his numbers a little for the 2 series you mentioned to 24.9 PER, 0.193 WS48, 7.0 BPM (purposely goal-seeked number, see below), it would be:

PER: 3rd (2018 harden's number behind 2019 and 2020)
WS48: 5th (2011 harden's number behind 2015, 2019, 2020, and 2021)
BPM: 6th (2017 harden's number behind 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021)

So this is part of my point. The “Nash isn’t good by box score” stuff isn’t really borne out of looking at Nash’s raw box score numbers. It’s borne out of the various box-score metrics taking numbers that look pretty great and spitting out a number that looks surprisingly mediocre.

On the one hand, I sort of agree. His numbers are weirdly low. On the other hand, I don't know what to tell you. Unlike RAPM, with its million adjustments, prior informed data, and black box calculations, the box score composites are cold hard formulas. PER accounts for pace, and the suns played quickly. WS doesn't like terrible team defense, and well, that's bad for a guy whose teams ignored playoff defense to absurd degrees. BPM is your baby so I don't know it as well, but unless it has a "last name starts with N" negative adjustment, I guess Nash just doesnt do what correlates to impact.

On the bolded, I think this gets to a key point. Box metrics tell us whether a player’s box score data *correlates* with impact. It does not directly tell us whether a player actually produced impact. Essentially definitionally, it’s usually going to be close to actual impact, because if it wasn’t usually close to actual impact then the measure wouldn’t correlate with it. But any measure that correlates with impact on the aggregate is going to still have some data points where it is far off from impact. I think Nash is one of those examples, and I’ve explained in detail several mechanisms through which I think the metrics are either overpenalizing Nash for certain things in the box score or not able to adequately account for his impact while still correlating well in the aggregate. To summarize briefly, if a guy has a way bigger effect on his teammates’ TS% than guys with similar numbers of assists (because the shot quality he produces for the team is so incredibly good), has a way better effect on his team’s turnover rate than other guys with a similar number of turnovers (because he’s taking an abnormally high amount of his team’s risks on offense), and is not having as negative an impact on opponent’s turnover rate as guys with a similar number of steals (because he takes an abnormally high number of charges), then if you use those stats (and others, of course) to basically create a line of best fit that correlates with impact in the aggregate then you are very likely to underestimate that player. I think these are the major reasons why box metrics are so much lower on Nash than RAPM is. And they are indicative of why box metrics are lower on him than the slashlines—since the factors that make the metrics low on him largely involve turnovers and steals data that is not part of the basic PPG/APG/RPG/TS% slashlines we are talking about.

Having said all that, one nice thing is that PER, WS48, and BPM tend to be quite different. If you are mediocre in one of them, maybe it’s all the worse for that stat that it ignored your greatness. If you are mediocre in all 3 like nash, well, arguing all 3 are wrong is a tougher hill to climb. Everybody else inducted so far looks plenty great by usually all 3 of them.

So I get the intuition here. It is indeed more concerning for a player to be low across a bunch of box data than if it’s just one measure. But ultimately, box metrics do all use the same data, and if there’s no real way for measures using that data to correlate with RAPM (or to just generally look sensical in the player rankings it spits out in general) if they are calibrated in a way that would properly credit a particular player (which, as explained above, is what I think is definitely the case with Nash), then we would definitely expect that player to be underrated by all of them.

Basically, none of these metrics are going to put enough weight on assists to give Nash adequate credit for his effect on teammates’ TS%, because if they did then the measure would wildly overrate like every other player with lots of assists. These metrics are also not going to put so little weight on turnovers that it doesn’t penalize Nash too much for his turnovers, because if the measures did that then it’d end up overrating like every other player with a lot of turnovers. I think you basically can’t calibrate box data in a way that properly rates Steve Nash *and* isn’t thrown way out of whack for lots of other players. I imagine this sort of thing is exactly why BPM’s creator said: “Yes, Steve Nash was ridiculous on offense, and no, the box score still can’t fully capture that fact.”

Like, even leaving aside that Nash’s 2005 playoff numbers are even better in the two series’s against great opponents, I don’t think we’d look at 23.9 PPG, 11.3 APG, and 4.8 RPG on +9.0 rTS% in the relatively-low-scoring mid-2000s and expect just 4.7 BPM, 0.164 WS/48, and 23.4 PER. Just as an example, those numbers look a whole lot like Chris Paul’s 2008 playoffs, in which he had 24.1 PPG, 11.3 APG, and 4.9 RPG on +4.5 rTS%. Indeed, Nash’s numbers actually look slightly better! Yet Chris Paul had a 11.3 BPM, 0.289 WS/48, and 30.7 PER in those playoffs. That is a massive difference!

Cp3 is definitely as all timer in terms of how much the box composites love him compared to his slashlines. He's like top 5 all time in prime playoff PER and WS48. It's tough to explain. Again, BPM is mostly a black box to me, but PER and WS48 are there on BBRef to be parsed. They don't play favorites like RAPM seems to. The formula is the formula. For all of history, for all teams, for all players. They didnt even change their formula like BPM when 2017 Westbrook looked too good.

You don't think the box score likes nash enough, but like I said, am I supposed to believe harden, who is one of i think 10 players ever with a box score triple crown in 2018, was less impactful than Nash but just magically created a team that practically never lost when healthy? He just got lucky that eric Gordon and PJ tucker, who had each played on exactly one +0.500 team before they joined harden, were actually the key to it all? Or that capela, who hasn't done jack since leaving harden, was the secret? The team ran basically their entire offense through a guy who wasn't impactful, and that guy wasn't helping on defense, but 65 wins just fell out of the sky. The 2019 rockets had cp3 looking like trash, had a replacement level bench, and they won 53, crushed a +5 team in the 1st round, and gave a team with 2 (maybe 3) peaks above harden, all they wanted but weirdly it wasnt the guy putting up 35/7 driving it. If Nash looks weak by the box score, I argue regular season RAPM underrates harden even more, especially since the playoff stuff tends to really like him.

As to Harden, this is the second thread that Harden has been on my ballot, so obviously I think he was a great player. But I do think some of what you’re saying is a bit contrary to what actually happened. You say Harden “magically created a team that practically never lost when healthy” and say somewhat sarcastically that “The team ran basically their entire offense through a guy who wasn’t impactful, and that guy wasn’t helping on defense, but 65 wins just fell out of the sky.” But it’s important to recognize that the 2018 Rockets had a +4.92 net rating when Harden was off the court. So yeah, while Harden was certainly impactful, I’d say that team functioned very well even without Harden, regardless of what you happen to think about the other players on the team.

And if we talk about those games with Chris Paul, where the Rockets went an insane 44-5, the Rockets were +12.14 in Harden’s minutes. That’s really good, but it’s not an on-court number that would usually result in a 74-win pace. A huge thing that drove that 44-5 record was that the Rockets had a +4.94 net rating even without Harden on the floor. This is incredible for a team to do without their best player. For reference, I posted about how great teams generally do without their best player here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=119652544#p119652544. The upshot is that great players on historically great teams usually have teams that have about a -2 net rating with them off the court. That post of mine noted that Duncan was really lucky to have a team that had a positive net rating with him off the court, but even the Spurs only produced a +2.70 net rating overall in the data we have for them without Duncan. So yeah, that +4.94 net rating without Harden on the floor was abnormally good. It was probably partly just luck that they did that well, but luck or not it certainly still plays into how well the team did and isn’t something we can credit to Harden.

And, by the way, even in the 23 games Harden played without Chris Paul in that season, the Rockets still had a +3.04 net rating without Harden on the floor (compared to +6.34 with Harden on the floor). Even that is better than what we generally see from historically great teams without their best player. So yeah, Harden was great, but I think you’re way underselling how well that team was functioning in general. You can list names of players on the team and downplay them, but the reality is that they really did play quite well that year and it’s pretty clearly not *just* a function of Harden.

And even in 2019, they had a +0.96 net rating without Harden, so the Rockets with “cp3 looking like trash” still functioned better without Harden than we generally see even from historically great teams without their best player. Across 2018 & 2019 combined, the Rockets were +3.15 without Harden on the court. That’s really high. I think you may just be underrating the other players on those Rockets teams and/or underrating how well they fit together.

[lessthanjake]

OK, I see how RealGM is. Not voting the clear best on the court, 2021-24 Embiid (take your pick).

I also rebutted the playoffs take, but they ignore facts, and focus on hating Embiid because they want to push their homeboy, Giannis.

We can't be talking about Nash right now either, Nash joined the GOAT offensive cast of all-time, and when his PnR playmaking was exposed in the 05 Spurs series, he was cooked. That's OFC, ignoring the other side of the ball, where Nash is arguably the worst defender in NBA history.

Okay, I assume you’re mostly trolling, but: (1) that “GOAT offensive cast of all-time” that Nash joined had a -1.5 rORTG the year before he joined them, and from 2005-2010 had a -1.57 rORTG in 26 games without Nash; and (2) it’s obviously nonsensical to say Nash’s “PnR playmaking was exposed in the 05 Spurs series” when the Suns had an absolutely massive +17.16 rORTG with Nash on the court in that series.

Yes, yet another disingenous, apples to oranges comparison for comparing the 2003-04 Suns and the 2004-05 Suns, we have LTJ bringing this up this time. This is absolutely ridiculous. But, here we go again.

1. That was still the GOAT offensive cast of all time. But that -1.5 rORtg is because...

a) Stephon Marbury, the Suns PG, played 34 games before he left the Suns in a trade that season. They sent Penny Hardaway away as well. This left the Suns without a point guard, which Nash filled in for the next season (obviously Nash is better than Stephon Marbury at offense, he's a top 6-15 offensive player of all-time, but without a PG, and losing an important SG, Nash' impact looks better than it actually was. This is a problem as Marbury was playing the most MPG out of any Sun, at 41.6, while Hardaway had 25+ MPG.
b) Amare Stoudemire missed 30 games. That's a big deal, considering at the time, he was arguably the Sun's best player. Context needs to be added, and you are ignoring it.
Please, stop ignoring context

Then as for the other, -1.6 rORtg, you are just blatantly ignoring, that the Suns needed someone to be a connective guy, to connect all the pieces together. That was Nash, he connected all the pieces around him. that -1.57 rORtg is missing the context. With Nash, that team was a great fit around him. TBH, even though he changed as a player, he didn't have this extravagant jump that people are willing to picture in their minds, just because he came into the most optimal situation of all-time.


2004 Mavs with Nash were 113.2 ORTG, and then dropped to "just" 110.3 ORTG in 2005 (this is w/o context).
With context, the 2005 Mavs with Dirk were 111.7 ORTG.

So Nash' real impact, is much, much closer to a small 1.5 points worth of offense, rather than 9 or 10 points worth on offense.

Lol, you assert that the Suns were the best offensive supporting cast ever and don’t actually make any argument as to how that could possibly be the case. Your only argument about the Suns is to excuse their mediocre rORTGs without Nash by saying they “needed someone to be a connective guy, to connect all the pieces together.” You haven’t actually explained anything positive about the offensive supporting cast over the course of two posts asserting that they were the GOAT offensive supporting cast.

Do me a favor and peruse the ORAPMs of those guys outside of their years with Nash. Marion’s five-year ORAPM in the years before Nash was +0.4, and it was negative in the years after Nash. Amare’s ORAPM was negative before Nash showed up and his five-year ORAPM on the Knicks after he left Phoenix was also negative. Joe Johnson had a negative ORAPM in the years before Nash joined, and then he had a +1.7 ORAPM in the five years after he left Phoenix (note: it goes up higher in spans later than that, but at that point we’re getting pretty far afield from what 23-year-old Joe Johnson was on the Suns). The idea that this was the GOAT offensive supporting cast when the other key players mostly had negative ORAPMs in surrounding years without Nash and the team had a negative rORTG in games without Nash is just obviously absurd. You mention Amare missing games in 2004, but the 2004 Suns also still had a negative rORTG even in the games Amare played.

There’s been some incredible offensive supporting casts over the years. Some offensive supporting casts have included guys like Durant/Klay, Kareem/Worthy, Wade/Bosh, etc. Even without the data I’ve provided, it seems pretty obvious that the Suns don’t really measure up. Now, if you wanted to talk about the Suns playing offensively-slanted lineups, then that’d actually be a valid point. But calling them the GOAT offensive supporting cast is obvious nonsense.

2. What? That comment has nothing to do with Nash' PnR operation (his only form of creating in the half-court). I want you to check Nash' numbers without Amare, who was carrying Nash' throughout that series. And this is just an assumption, since I haven't checked, but Nash was probably playing with his starters throughout that series, most of the time (Guys like Quentin, Amare, Joe, and Marion, since you seem to be uneducated on the topic). And boy oh boy, he had the greatest offensive support ever, guys like Dirk, Harden, Embiid, Kobe, Lebron, Shaq wished they could play with this:

Amare vs Spurs: 39.9 OA pts/75 on +10.9 opp adj rTS with over 5 ORB per game (OFC, he was on Duncan, Nash on guys like Parker and doesn't have any vision)
Joe vs Spurs: 20.1 OA pts/75 on +6.9 opp adj rTS

43.9 3PT% (filtering Nash) and over 10 ORB per game

Lol, okay so you’re definitely trolling. Someone saying “since you seem to be uneducated on the topic” to someone who has repeatedly talked in this project about much he watched this particular team is definitely baiting/trolling. It gets even more obvious when you’re citing to Joe Johnson’s numbers specifically against the Spurs, without realizing that Joe Johnson missed multiple games in that series. Or when you’re citing to teammates’ rTS% to downplay a guy whose main source of offensive value is in massively boosting his teammates’ TS%. Of course I also know it’s obviously trolling since I happen to know you definitely weren’t even born when this series occurred, so you can’t possibly *really* think you have a lot of knowledge about it.

FWIW, you assert that Nash was playing with starters, but admit you haven’t checked. But Nash played 63 minutes of that series with only 2 or fewer of Amare, Marion, Johnson, and Richardson on the floor. And guess what? The Suns had a +13.13 rORTG in those minutes. So yeah, Nash was dumpstering the Spurs defense even with bench guys on the floor with him. You also asked about Nash’s rORTG against the Spurs without Amare. It was +6.03. Which is quite good without one’s second-best player (though it’s also just a 33-minute sample, so we’re getting to very small samples). And, to put those two numbers together, in Nash’s 27 minutes without Amare on the court and with only 2 or fewer of Marion, Johnson, or Richardson on the court, the Suns had a +18.25 rORTG. Nash’s rORTG data is just really great across the board. You can’t parse it in some way that meaningfully downplays what he did, and certainly can’t support your assertion that his offense was “exposed” against the Spurs.

Also, here's examples of what HAS to do with PnR operation (again, that's the only way of him creating in the HC)

Watch on YouTube

6:06, 10:12
1st play: Watch how there's a PnR screen set, and then the man rolls, but Nash (with his poor vision not even being able to see over guys like Parker) PnR is clamped up and he has to take a different scoring counter.

2nd play: Watch again how the Spurs clamp up Nash' PnR playmaking. Another PnR screen set, then a roll, but Nash with his poor vision unable to see over bigger guys gives a limitation, then it proceeds to go to the Spurs.

This is what happens when you are 6'3", have terrible vision, you can only create in the HC with PnR, and don't have ATG gravity. The 2004-05 Spurs were Nash' kryptonite, there's a reason he dropped off so massively against the Spurs in his career, they were just his kyrptonite. I listed 2005, but there's also instances like 2008. Nash' kyrptonite is elite PnR defense, and without it, we wouldn't know Nash like we know him today.

Yeah, so someone saying Nash has “terrible vision” is definitely not posting seriously.

All this was just disproving your bias (and I proved you don't watch games here) of Steve Nash, who really shouldn't be in discussions. There are other one-way guys with bulletproof skillsets at their best things (scoring, playmaking, defending, etc), and are absolutely trash at the other end.
That also is the defense of Nash, arguably the worst of all-time.

Thank you for trying, though. This was nice while it lasted. If someone other than LTJ (who actually watches games) would like to argue against me, give it a go. Christ bless you all, and goodbye

Again, someone saying “I proved you don’t watch games here” to someone who has repeatedly talked about having watched a huge amount of the games of this particular team is clearly trolling. Particularly when the person saying it was not even born when this team played.

And, on the very off chance that you’re being serious, I’ll just note that if your eye test tells you that Steve Nash has “terrible vision,” then your eyes really need to be recalibrated.

[iggymcfrack]

Another thing I just want to put a point on regarding Nash in the 2005 playoffs specifically is that his raw numbers became insanely good in the playoffs after the first round (which was a sweep where the Suns barely had to break a sweat). Against the Mavericks and the Spurs (both serious title contenders), Nash averaged:

27.1 PPG
11.4 APG
5.3 RPG
+10.0 rTS%

We should remember that these numbers came in a lower-scoring, lower-pace era. In era-inflation-adjusted terms (adjusting for both lower scoring efficiency back then and the fact that those series were played at lower pace than NBA basketball generally is now), you’d probably need to add like 10-15% to those PPG/APG/RPG numbers in today’s era to get at what they meant back then. These really were incredible numbers.

And, in putting up those numbers, the Suns had a ludicrous +14.71 rORTG with Nash on the floor against the Mavericks and an even-more-ludicrous +17.16 rORTG with Nash on the floor against the Spurs.

So 2005 Nash faced two major title contenders and just like absolutely nuked them offensively, both in terms of Nash’s own box data and the actual offense produced by his team. It really was an incredible display, and I just don’t know how anyone could suggest he was anything but amazing in those playoffs.

well i don't think anyone said he wasn't great. since we're bringing up box score stuff, all of the pace and league environment stuff is already baked into the big 3 stats from BBRef. Nash looks good but still not spectacular.

23.4 PER
0.164 WS48
4.7 BPM

WS48 is somewhat telling in that WS loves efficiency and nash was incredibly efficient and yet ended up with the same WS48 as 2018 harden, who had one of his lowest efficiency playoffs (54.8 TS%) playing the #1 regular season defense (Utah) for 5 games and the #1 playoff defense (Golden State) for 7 games. and yet, presumably because defense and other factors, harden still basically tied Nash in WS48 (0.163). and crushed him in BPM (8.1).

in terms of overall career, Nash's numbers would rank as follow in harden's career (only 9+ game playoffs counted for harden):

PER: 6th
WS48: 7th (9th with shorter runs included)
BPM: 8th (11th with shorter runs included)


Although I feel like there's an upper limit to how good we can consider Dallas since they're also the team that lost Nash so both they and Nash can't be simultaneously amazing, even if we bumped up his numbers a little for the 2 series you mentioned to 24.9 PER, 0.193 WS48, 7.0 BPM (purposely goal-seeked number, see below), it would be:

PER: 3rd (2018 harden's number behind 2019 and 2020)
WS48: 5th (2011 harden's number behind 2015, 2019, 2020, and 2021)
BPM: 6th (2017 harden's number behind 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021)

So this is part of my point. The “Nash isn’t good by box score” stuff isn’t really borne out of looking at Nash’s raw box score numbers. It’s borne out of the various box-score metrics taking numbers that look pretty great and spitting out a number that looks surprisingly mediocre. Like, even leaving aside that Nash’s 2005 playoff numbers are even better in the two series’s against great opponents, I don’t think we’d look at 23.9 PPG, 11.3 APG, and 4.8 RPG on +9.0 rTS% in the relatively-low-scoring mid-2000s and expect just 4.7 BPM, 0.164 WS/48, and 23.4 PER. Just as an example, those numbers look a whole lot like Chris Paul’s 2008 playoffs, in which he had 24.1 PPG, 11.3 APG, and 4.9 RPG on +4.5 rTS%. Indeed, Nash’s numbers actually look slightly better! Yet Chris Paul had a 11.3 BPM, 0.289 WS/48, and 30.7 PER in those playoffs. That is a massive difference! And the 2005 playoffs are just one example. We could do a similar exercise with various other RS or playoff data for Nash and see similar things. The box-score metrics not only don’t match the RAPM data, but they don’t even really match what we see in the slashlines. So there’s clearly something going on with the box-score metrics regarding Nash that pulls his numbers down a lot. I made a long post earlier positing some explanations as to what I think are the reasons for that, and why I think those reasons are dinging Nash too much. See here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=119775666#p119775666. That same post also addressed a huge mechanism through which I think all box numbers (whether box metrics or just slashlines) undersell Nash’s impact in a way that I don’t think any box metrics can really fix without throwing the metrics out of whack for a ton of other players.

Well, the thing about BPM is it attempts to make an adjustment for defense. So in the playoffs you referenced, Chris Paul's 11.3 BPM comes from an 8.2 OBPM and a 3.1 DPBM while Nash's 4.5 BPM comes from a 5.9 OBPM and a -1.2 BPM. Does the formula possibly over-rely on Chris Paul having 3x the steal rate that Nash did in those seasons? Perhaps. But also, Nash is possibly the weakest defender that will get voted in this project while Paul is a top 5 wing defender of all-time. Maybe the numbers overrated his defense in New Orleans, but not his defense in Los Angeles. There's also a difference in pace. If you look at stats per 100 possessions, CP3 averaged 30/6/16/4 with 4 turnovers while Nash averaged 23/5/17/1 with 5 turnovers.

Really though, I think the vagaries of the box composites are less important though than this idea that Nash's impact numbers are just consistently amazing and there has to be an argument between them and the box stats. For instance, let's look at the 97-14 PI RS+RAPM which is my favorite RAPM of the period. Manu finishes ahead of Nash in every one of his potential peak seasons from 2005-2008. Draymond has a better 2 year RAPM than Nash and has 3 seasons better than Nash's best by RAPTOR. I don't think the impact metrics are anywhere as unanimous favoring Nash as the box metrics are against him.

Like even if the box metrics underrate Nash, surely they don't underrate him as much as Draymond Green, right? Well, Draymond has a peak BPM of 6.8 in the playoffs and averages 5.0 from 2014-2019. Nash has a peak BPM of 5.2 in the playoffs and averages 4.3 from 2014-2019. What's the argument for Nash over Draymond? It's certainly not minutes. Their averages are almost identical.

[lessthanjake]

well i don't think anyone said he wasn't great. since we're bringing up box score stuff, all of the pace and league environment stuff is already baked into the big 3 stats from BBRef. Nash looks good but still not spectacular.

23.4 PER
0.164 WS48
4.7 BPM

WS48 is somewhat telling in that WS loves efficiency and nash was incredibly efficient and yet ended up with the same WS48 as 2018 harden, who had one of his lowest efficiency playoffs (54.8 TS%) playing the #1 regular season defense (Utah) for 5 games and the #1 playoff defense (Golden State) for 7 games. and yet, presumably because defense and other factors, harden still basically tied Nash in WS48 (0.163). and crushed him in BPM (8.1).

in terms of overall career, Nash's numbers would rank as follow in harden's career (only 9+ game playoffs counted for harden):

PER: 6th
WS48: 7th (9th with shorter runs included)
BPM: 8th (11th with shorter runs included)


Although I feel like there's an upper limit to how good we can consider Dallas since they're also the team that lost Nash so both they and Nash can't be simultaneously amazing, even if we bumped up his numbers a little for the 2 series you mentioned to 24.9 PER, 0.193 WS48, 7.0 BPM (purposely goal-seeked number, see below), it would be:

PER: 3rd (2018 harden's number behind 2019 and 2020)
WS48: 5th (2011 harden's number behind 2015, 2019, 2020, and 2021)
BPM: 6th (2017 harden's number behind 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021)

So this is part of my point. The “Nash isn’t good by box score” stuff isn’t really borne out of looking at Nash’s raw box score numbers. It’s borne out of the various box-score metrics taking numbers that look pretty great and spitting out a number that looks surprisingly mediocre. Like, even leaving aside that Nash’s 2005 playoff numbers are even better in the two series’s against great opponents, I don’t think we’d look at 23.9 PPG, 11.3 APG, and 4.8 RPG on +9.0 rTS% in the relatively-low-scoring mid-2000s and expect just 4.7 BPM, 0.164 WS/48, and 23.4 PER. Just as an example, those numbers look a whole lot like Chris Paul’s 2008 playoffs, in which he had 24.1 PPG, 11.3 APG, and 4.9 RPG on +4.5 rTS%. Indeed, Nash’s numbers actually look slightly better! Yet Chris Paul had a 11.3 BPM, 0.289 WS/48, and 30.7 PER in those playoffs. That is a massive difference! And the 2005 playoffs are just one example. We could do a similar exercise with various other RS or playoff data for Nash and see similar things. The box-score metrics not only don’t match the RAPM data, but they don’t even really match what we see in the slashlines. So there’s clearly something going on with the box-score metrics regarding Nash that pulls his numbers down a lot. I made a long post earlier positing some explanations as to what I think are the reasons for that, and why I think those reasons are dinging Nash too much. See here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=119775666#p119775666. That same post also addressed a huge mechanism through which I think all box numbers (whether box metrics or just slashlines) undersell Nash’s impact in a way that I don’t think any box metrics can really fix without throwing the metrics out of whack for a ton of other players.

Well, the thing about BPM is it attempts to make an adjustment for defense. So in the playoffs you referenced, Chris Paul's 11.3 BPM comes from an 8.2 OBPM and a 3.1 DPBM while Nash's 4.5 BPM comes from a 5.9 OBPM and a -1.2 BPM. Does the formula possibly over-rely on Chris Paul having 3x the steal rate that Nash did in those seasons? Perhaps. But also, Nash is possibly the weakest defender that will get voted in this project while Paul is a top 5 wing defender of all-time. Maybe the numbers overrated his defense in New Orleans, but not his defense in Los Angeles. There's also a difference in pace. If you look at stats per 100 possessions, CP3 averaged 30/6/16/4 with 4 turnovers while Nash averaged 23/5/17/1 with 5 turnovers.

I think you’re looking at the per-100-possession stats in the regular season, not the playoffs. But yeah, since the Suns played a bit higher pace in those playoffs, the per-100-possession numbers looked like 30/14/6 for Nash and 33/15/7 for Chris Paul. Of course, per-100-possession numbers don’t change the fact that Nash had a +9.0 rTS% compared to +4.5 rTS% for Chris Paul. So Chris Paul has a little more volume, but on worse scoring efficiency. That feels roughly even. The massive difference in box-metric data surely comes from other stuff that isn’t listed there, such as the turnovers and steals stuff that I have discussed.

Really though, I think the vagaries of the box composites are less important though than this idea that Nash's impact numbers are just consistently amazing and there has to be an argument between them and the box stats. For instance, let's look at the 97-14 PI RS+RAPM which is my favorite RAPM of the period. Manu finishes ahead of Nash in every one of his potential peak seasons from 2005-2008. Draymond has a better 2 year RAPM than Nash and has 3 seasons better than Nash's best by RAPTOR. I don't think the impact metrics are anywhere as unanimous favoring Nash as the box metrics are against him.

So Manu being ahead of Nash isn’t surprising to me. I’ve said I think Manu probably was a more impactful player per minute than Nash, and I’m voting for him this thread too. With Manu, the issue is just the minutes. If he’d played similar minutes to Nash, then I’d be voting for him above Nash.

As for the rest of this, please note that not only is RAPTOR a box-impact hybrid during Draymond’s years, but during Nash’s years it is “Approximate RAPTOR”, which is just a box metric that layers on a component that is RPM (which is itself a box-impact hybrid). So I don’t think Nash having relatively low RAPTOR really does anything to suggest that his actual impact isn’t just underrated by box metrics and box components.

And yeah, Draymond does have a higher 2-year RAPM, but not if we get to longer time horizons. Hard to really know what time horizon to prefer in a peaks project, since 2-year RAPM is still very noisy, but obviously it’s closer to being zeroed into a specific peak year. But yeah, if someone wanted to vote for Draymond at this point, 2-year RAPM would be an extremely good data point for him! He even has 2-year RAPM above most of the people that have already been voted in! I’d note though that it’s really rare for a star player to have higher 2-year RAPM than RAPM in longer timeframes and Draymond is one of the exceptions, so that potentially suggests there’s some significant positive noise for Draymond in that sample (though it could also just be indicative of him being far better in those two years than in other years, or more likely a bit of both).

Like even if the box metrics underrate Nash, surely they don't underrate him as much as Draymond Green, right? Well, Draymond has a peak BPM of 6.8 in the playoffs and averages 5.0 from 2014-2019. Nash has a peak BPM of 5.2 in the playoffs and averages 4.3 from 2014-2019. What's the argument for Nash over Draymond? It's certainly not minutes. Their averages are almost identical.

Yeah, Draymond’s combination of RAPM and box data is super strong at this point in the project. I think the argument for Nash over Draymond is mostly that in his peak he was the main driver of his team, while that’s not true of Draymond. Your mileage may vary as to how much that matters (especially given that the Warriors achieved more than the Suns—though I’ll note that I’d probably be voting for Draymond over Nash if the Warriors had won the 2016 title), but it does feel somewhat significant when it comes to assessing the “greatness” of a player’s year. It’s a big reason why it’s significant in my mind that I think Manu was the Spurs’s best player in 2005. There’s also other little factors with Draymond, such as him missing a key playoff game in his peak year.

[Top10alltime]

Okay, I assume you’re mostly trolling, but: (1) that “GOAT offensive cast of all-time” that Nash joined had a -1.5 rORTG the year before he joined them, and from 2005-2010 had a -1.57 rORTG in 26 games without Nash; and (2) it’s obviously nonsensical to say Nash’s “PnR playmaking was exposed in the 05 Spurs series” when the Suns had an absolutely massive +17.16 rORTG with Nash on the court in that series.

Yes, yet another disingenous, apples to oranges comparison for comparing the 2003-04 Suns and the 2004-05 Suns, we have LTJ bringing this up this time. This is absolutely ridiculous. But, here we go again.

1. That was still the GOAT offensive cast of all time. But that -1.5 rORtg is because...

a) Stephon Marbury, the Suns PG, played 34 games before he left the Suns in a trade that season. They sent Penny Hardaway away as well. This left the Suns without a point guard, which Nash filled in for the next season (obviously Nash is better than Stephon Marbury at offense, he's a top 6-15 offensive player of all-time, but without a PG, and losing an important SG, Nash' impact looks better than it actually was. This is a problem as Marbury was playing the most MPG out of any Sun, at 41.6, while Hardaway had 25+ MPG.
b) Amare Stoudemire missed 30 games. That's a big deal, considering at the time, he was arguably the Sun's best player. Context needs to be added, and you are ignoring it.
Please, stop ignoring context

Then as for the other, -1.6 rORtg, you are just blatantly ignoring, that the Suns needed someone to be a connective guy, to connect all the pieces together. That was Nash, he connected all the pieces around him. that -1.57 rORtg is missing the context. With Nash, that team was a great fit around him. TBH, even though he changed as a player, he didn't have this extravagant jump that people are willing to picture in their minds, just because he came into the most optimal situation of all-time.


2004 Mavs with Nash were 113.2 ORTG, and then dropped to "just" 110.3 ORTG in 2005 (this is w/o context).
With context, the 2005 Mavs with Dirk were 111.7 ORTG.

So Nash' real impact, is much, much closer to a small 1.5 points worth of offense, rather than 9 or 10 points worth on offense.

Lol, you assert that the Suns were the best offensive supporting cast ever and don’t actually make any argument as to how that could possibly be the case. Your only argument about the Suns is to excuse their mediocre rORTGs without Nash by saying they “needed someone to be a connective guy, to connect all the pieces together.” You haven’t actually explained anything positive about the offensive supporting cast over the course of two posts asserting that they were the GOAT offensive supporting cast.

Do me a favor and peruse the ORAPMs of those guys outside of their years with Nash. Marion’s five-year ORAPM in the years before Nash was +0.4, and it was negative in the years after Nash. Amare’s ORAPM was negative before Nash showed up and his five-year ORAPM on the Knicks after he left Phoenix was also negative. Joe Johnson had a negative ORAPM in the years before Nash joined, and then he had a +1.7 ORAPM in the five years after he left Phoenix (note: it goes up higher in spans later than that, but at that point we’re getting pretty far afield from what 23-year-old Joe Johnson was on the Suns). The idea that this was the GOAT offensive supporting cast when the other key players mostly had negative ORAPMs in surrounding years without Nash and the team had a negative rORTG in games without Nash is just obviously absurd.

There’s been some incredible offensive supporting casts over the years. Some offensive supporting casts have included guys like Durant/Klay, Kareem/Worthy, Wade/Bosh, etc. Even without the data I’ve provided, it seems pretty obvious that the Suns don’t really measure up. Now, if you wanted to talk about the Suns playing offensively-slanted lineups, then that’d actually be a valid point. But calling them the GOAT offensive supporting cast is obvious nonsense.

Wow. Did you just ignore the context? All of the Suns left and were injured in those 2003-04 Suns, but OFC you ignore it, because it doesn't fit into your biased, completely easy to debunk agenda.

Did you know, in the games Amare played, they had a positive rORtg? You are acting like this team was absolutely garbage without Nash, when it's the opposite. Please, I urge you to watch those Suns' (you want to lie, but it's pretty obvious you haven't watched them, or just lost memory of watching them). I also don't care about RAPM, like you guys treat it as some holy grail. This is as it is an inconsistent statistic across different sources, and I am not going to value that highly. The idea that this wasn't the GOAT offensive support, just shows the double standards and glaze when it comes to Nash.

Nash WAS a connective piece, it fit when he came in (sort of like Draymond, Nash is definitely more valuable offensively though, but both are connective pieces). Nash is unreliable when it comes to scoring as the 1st option, and his shooting is sort-of like a counter to defenses whenever he is playmaking (Dirk is a better shooter too). Nash just isn't that good, is more fraudulent than you guys are saying. Now for the explanation....

Nash and Dirk together were monsters, but Nash couldn't utilize that to a great extent, even though that duo should've been something all-time (but Nash had extremely small impact, literally leading negative offenses in the non-Dirk minutes, and when he left, literally dropped off by only 1.5 points.

Then he went to the Suns. They needed a PnR playmaker (sort of like Stockton, just better). It fit Nash' game perfectly. Not only did it run tons of PnRs (which is Nash' main form of playmaking, and only way of him creating in the HC, if you've ever watched a game a day in your life). They had a GOAT-tier spacing for that time, and along with this they were pushing the pace. Literally common knowledge.

And did you just say that Wade + Bosh was a better fit for Bron than the SUNS!!! I'm arguing with a casual here, with fancy wording, but I'll explain to you basketball. How can the Miami Heat be a better fit when the system they were running isn't utilizing Lebron's greatest aspects (on-ball), and using Wade as a smaller, worse Bron attacking rim (what is this level of takes, this is worse than Kcktiny). They fired him to share the ball with a rim-running guard, who has negative spacing limits Bron offensive game on-ball, and even when Bron is good off-ball, I'd rather have a GOAT on-ball, on the ball. Bosh isn't even a real stretch big, although he's good for Lebron. Not even a better fit than Marion.

2. What? That comment has nothing to do with Nash' PnR operation (his only form of creating in the half-court). I want you to check Nash' numbers without Amare, who was carrying Nash' throughout that series. And this is just an assumption, since I haven't checked, but Nash was probably playing with his starters throughout that series, most of the time (Guys like Quentin, Amare, Joe, and Marion, since you seem to be uneducated on the topic). And boy oh boy, he had the greatest offensive support ever, guys like Dirk, Harden, Embiid, Kobe, Lebron, Shaq wished they could play with this:

Amare vs Spurs: 39.9 OA pts/75 on +10.9 opp adj rTS with over 5 ORB per game (OFC, he was on Duncan, Nash on guys like Parker and doesn't have any vision)
Joe vs Spurs: 20.1 OA pts/75 on +6.9 opp adj rTS

43.9 3PT% (filtering Nash) and over 10 ORB per game

Lol, okay so you’re definitely trolling. Someone saying “since you seem to be uneducated on the topic” to someone who has repeatedly talked in this project about much he watched this particular team is definitely baiting/trolling. It gets even more obvious when you’re citing to Joe Johnson’s numbers specifically against the Spurs, without realizing that Joe Johnson missed multiple games in that series. Or when you’re citing to teammates’ rTS% to downplay a guy whose main source of offensive value is in massively boosting his teammates’ TS%. Of course I also know it’s obviously trolling since I happen to know you definitely weren’t even born when this series occurred, so you can’t possibly *really* think you have a lot of knowledge about it.

FWIW, you assert that Nash was playing with starters, but admit you haven’t checked. But Nash played 63 minutes of that series with only 2 or fewer of Amare, Marion, Johnson, and Richardson on the floor. And guess what? The Suns had a +13.13 rORTG in those minutes. So yeah, Nash was dumpstering the Spurs defense even with bench guys on the floor with him. You also asked about Nash’s rORTG against the Spurs without Amare. It was +6.03. Which is quite good without one’s second-best player (though it’s also just a 33-minute sample, so we’re getting to very small samples). And , to put those two numbers together, in Nash’s 27 minutes without Amare on the court and with only 2 or fewer of Marion, Johnson, or Richardson on the court, the Suns had a +18.25 rORTG. Nash’s rORTG data is just really great across the board. You can’t parse it in some way that meaningfully downplays what he did, and certainly can’t support your assertion that his offense was “exposed” against the Spurs.

You've talked about it, but I've exposed your lack of ball knowledge. He missed 2 games that series (so I guess it was crucial), but he still was a force in the series (and very, very great offensive help for Nash). I'm citing the rTS, to show you how good of a situation that was. Magic Johnson wished he could play with these guys in 1987. Lebron wished he could play with these guys in 2013. But they didn't, he just had a worse offensive team (It's common knowledge, but you with your biased agenda will say otherwise, because you are wrong). You also do not know the age of me, but yeah I wasn't born then. The games are available on Youtube though, so I have more knowledge on you than this (primarily because I've watched, and you haven't).

I don't know how to check numbers series by series, please do show me how to look for this, thank you if you are going to do that, if not, then fine. That's why I haven't checked, I don't know how to. I'll fact-check the data AND post it on here too. IDK why I'm wasting my time with someone who is a casual with fancy words, though.

I can support this assertion, his PnR playmaking (his primary source of his playmaking) was clearly shut down in that series (with actual FILM to back up my evidence, and then you ignore the film because you don't watch, and say my eye test is bad (when it's literally what's on the court))

Watch on YouTube

3:23 - Steve Nash is the PnR operator here, as you can see Amare sets a PnR screen right there and then, Nash drives to the rim and Amare rolls out to the basket. What happens? Nash' PnR playmaking was neutralized because he couldn't SEE over Tony Parker (I'll give you a lesson, seeing on the court is what vision means). With Nash' lack of height, that's a problem, and it can't make him have great vision.
6:56 - Nash' second best form of playmaking (transition PM) was exposed here, I just wanted to point this here.

And OFC, my other clips below showing Nash' PnR playmaking exposed against the Spurs.

Also, here's examples of what HAS to do with PnR operation (again, that's the only way of him creating in the HC)

Watch on YouTube

6:06, 10:12
1st play: Watch how there's a PnR screen set, and then the man rolls, but Nash (with his poor vision not even being able to see over guys like Parker) PnR is clamped up and he has to take a different scoring counter.

2nd play: Watch again how the Spurs clamp up Nash' PnR playmaking. Another PnR screen set, then a roll, but Nash with his poor vision unable to see over bigger guys gives a limitation, then it proceeds to go to the Spurs.

This is what happens when you are 6'3", have terrible vision, you can only create in the HC with PnR, and don't have ATG gravity. The 2004-05 Spurs were Nash' kryptonite, there's a reason he dropped off so massively against the Spurs in his career, they were just his kyrptonite. I listed 2005, but there's also instances like 2008. Nash' kyrptonite is elite PnR defense, and without it, we wouldn't know Nash like we know him today.

Yeah, so someone saying Nash has “terrible vision” is definitely not posting seriously.

Nash does have bad vision when we are calling him the GOAT playmaker like he's even better than Luka, Magic, Bron, CP3 or Jokic. That's the comparison here, not an average playmaker. Nash' build just doesn't make him suited for that, he doesn't have ATG gravity either.

All this was just disproving your bias (and I proved you don't watch games here) of Steve Nash, who really shouldn't be in discussions. There are other one-way guys with bulletproof skillsets at their best things (scoring, playmaking, defending, etc), and are absolutely trash at the other end.
That also is the defense of Nash, arguably the worst of all-time.

Thank you for trying, though. This was nice while it lasted. If someone other than LTJ (who actually watches games) would like to argue against me, give it a go. Christ bless you all, and goodbye

Again, someone saying “I proved you don’t watch games here” to someone who has repeatedly talked about having watched a huge amount of the games of this particular team is clearly trolling. Particularly when the person saying it was not even born when this team played.

And, on the very off chance that you’re being serious, I’ll just note that if your eye test tells you that Steve Nash has “terrible vision,” then your eyes really need to be recalibrated.

You are a proven liar, you can yap all you want about watching those Suns, but when you tell me those Spurs weren't Nash' kryptonite in '05(due to locking down Nash' PnR operation), then it's quite obvious you didn't watch the games (which are available on YT), and will just lie (which, I'm sorry, but that is wrongdoing, and you are terrible at that). I don't have to be born to watch these games, when its available online.

I'm serious, when we compare him to GOAT level playmakers (he's a top 10 PM all-time), he has bad vision due to his build. Same thing with Stephen Curry. Nash in '05 was just lucky he was playing in the GOAT offensive situation, and lucky Amar'e peaked at the same time as him (this also applies to Jokic and Murray). All these other guys wished they played with this, and OFC we're ignoring defense (Arguable worst defender ever). There are too many one-way guys with bulletproof skillsets at the things they're good at, for Nash to make it in conversations right now.

[DraymondGold]

Jake you're a proven liar? Don't you know lying is a a wrongdoing? And here I never realized Nash actually had bad vision and was just lucky Sorry, some posts are funny enough that ya have to laugh

Jokes aside, here's some film analysis from Thinking Basketball on Nash and Manu who have gotten some traction:

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

[Owly]

Another thing I just want to put a point on regarding Nash in the 2005 playoffs specifically is that his raw numbers became insanely good in the playoffs after the first round (which was a sweep where the Suns barely had to break a sweat). Against the Mavericks and the Spurs (both serious title contenders), Nash averaged:

27.1 PPG
11.4 APG
5.3 RPG
+10.0 rTS%

We should remember that these numbers came in a lower-scoring, lower-pace era. In era-inflation-adjusted terms (adjusting for both lower scoring efficiency back then and the fact that those series were played at lower pace than NBA basketball generally is now), you’d probably need to add like 10-15% to those PPG/APG/RPG numbers in today’s era to get at what they meant back then. These really were incredible numbers.

And, in putting up those numbers, the Suns had a ludicrous +14.71 rORTG with Nash on the floor against the Mavericks and an even-more-ludicrous +17.16 rORTG with Nash on the floor against the Spurs.

So 2005 Nash faced two major title contenders and just like absolutely nuked them offensively, both in terms of Nash’s own box data and the actual offense produced by his team. It really was an incredible display, and I just don’t know how anyone could suggest he was anything but amazing in those playoffs.

well i don't think anyone said he wasn't great. since we're bringing up box score stuff, all of the pace and league environment stuff is already baked into the big 3 stats from BBRef. Nash looks good but still not spectacular.

23.4 PER
0.164 WS48
4.7 BPM

WS48 is somewhat telling in that WS loves efficiency and nash was incredibly efficient and yet ended up with the same WS48 as 2018 harden, who had one of his lowest efficiency playoffs (54.8 TS%) playing the #1 regular season defense (Utah) for 5 games and the #1 playoff defense (Golden State) for 7 games. and yet, presumably because defense and other factors, harden still basically tied Nash in WS48 (0.163). and crushed him in BPM (8.1).

in terms of overall career, Nash's numbers would rank as follow in harden's career (only 9+ game playoffs counted for harden):

PER: 6th
WS48: 7th (9th with shorter runs included)
BPM: 8th (11th with shorter runs included)


Although I feel like there's an upper limit to how good we can consider Dallas since they're also the team that lost Nash so both they and Nash can't be simultaneously amazing, even if we bumped up his numbers a little for the 2 series you mentioned to 24.9 PER, 0.193 WS48, 7.0 BPM (purposely goal-seeked number, see below), it would be:

PER: 3rd (2018 harden's number behind 2019 and 2020)
WS48: 5th (2011 harden's number behind 2015, 2019, 2020, and 2021)
BPM: 6th (2017 harden's number behind 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021)

So this is part of my point. The “Nash isn’t good by box score” stuff isn’t really borne out of looking at Nash’s raw box score numbers. It’s borne out of the various box-score metrics taking numbers that look pretty great and spitting out a number that looks surprisingly mediocre. Like, even leaving aside that Nash’s 2005 playoff numbers are even better in the two series’s against great opponents, I don’t think we’d look at 23.9 PPG, 11.3 APG, and 4.8 RPG on +9.0 rTS% in the relatively-low-scoring mid-2000s and expect just 4.7 BPM, 0.164 WS/48, and 23.4 PER. Just as an example, those numbers look a whole lot like Chris Paul’s 2008 playoffs, in which he had 24.1 PPG, 11.3 APG, and 4.9 RPG on +4.5 rTS%. Indeed, Nash’s numbers actually look slightly better! Yet Chris Paul had a 11.3 BPM, 0.289 WS/48, and 30.7 PER in those playoffs. That is a massive difference! And the 2005 playoffs are just one example. We could do a similar exercise with various other RS or playoff data for Nash and see similar things. The box-score metrics not only don’t match the RAPM data, but they don’t even really match what we see in the slashlines. So there’s clearly something going on with the box-score metrics regarding Nash that pulls his numbers down a lot. I made a long post earlier positing some explanations as to what I think are the reasons for that, and why I think those reasons are dinging Nash too much. See here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=119775666#p119775666. That same post also addressed a huge mechanism through which I think all box numbers (whether box metrics or just slashlines) undersell Nash’s impact in a way that I don’t think any box metrics can really fix without throwing the metrics out of whack for a ton of other players.

At first glance
...
If you think a box-score aggregate seemingly shouldn't be spitting out some numbers ... my guess is ... assuming you broadly know the shape of the model (and I'm a long way from perfect in this regard) ... you probably haven't looked closely enough.

In this comparison ...
1) pace - it's kind of alluded to in the other direction in terms of earlier play being low-scoring (though that's going to be a balance of pace and efficiency) but look at per 100 possession numbers and
23.9 ppg to 24.1 (on similar minutes)
turns to
29.9 to 32.9
do that across the board and Paul starts to open up some advantages

2) turnovers - as you note elsewhere individual turnovers and impact on team turnovers are not the exact same thing ... still purely for a box model the slashline you gave missed out on
(per 100)
5.9 turnovers to 2.5
A pretty big gulf.

3) Parsing rebounds - offensive rebounds are arguably more valuable at an individual level or at least more creditable to the individual (defensive rebounding being a team affair) so whilst total-based rebounds looks the same (though less so after accounting for pace) ... Paul is skewed more towards the offensive glass
Nash
0.8 oreb per 100, 5.3 dreb; 1.7 oreb%, 11 dreb%
Paul
1.8 oreb per 100, 4.9 dreb; 3.7 oreb%, 9.8 dreb%

4) Steals- you allude to this elsewhere and whether it's getting things right or missing something (in Nash's case or too often in general) anyway it's another clear box difference ... 1.2 steal percentage to 3.2 (or 1.2 to 3.2 per 100).


One can make more generalized arguments as to whether box-numbers are missing something on Nash and why. You have elsewhere and I'm broadly sympathetic to the argument that they are and maybe some of the whys offered.

That said in a specific case the reasons his numbers come out different (to Paul's) is perhaps clearer when you look closer at what's going in and how it might be less similar than at an incomplete first glance.

[iggymcfrack]

As the discussion’s progressed over the course of this thread, I feel even more confident in Manu and Draymond as the top 2 guys on my list. I’m feeling significantly less confident on AD.

The raw impact signals that aren’t any sort of box hybrid are significantly worse than I would have thought. With that said, I’m not sure how a player who’s maybe the 2nd best playoff defender in the league and is also the most efficient playoff scorer of all-time wouldn’t be impactful.

At this point, I feel like the bottom half of my ballot is open with AD, Westbrook, Nash, Harden, and possibly Butler all candidates. I’m going to try to look at all of them freshly with an open mind.