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TC had a good point in the Duncan/Kobe thread about how this comparison isn’t really discussed even if it’s more natural than the Duncan/Kobe comparison, so thought I’d get the ball rolling.

Assuming you have perfect knowledge of how their careers and league trends played out, is there any situation in which you’d take Nash first?

I actually have Nash ranked ahead of Kobe on my ATL.

I expect I’d re-draft in 1996 Nash ahead of Kobe in a vacuum, where that vacuum doesn’t listen to thinks like jersey sales.

If I’m Philly picking first though, can’t imagine any realistic choice but the hometown boy.


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Maybe if you already have a team constructed and need to fill a role that Nash fits better than Kobe. If not I’m taking Kobe over Nash every time no question he was simply the better player.

Nash became an All-Star in his 6th season at age 27, while the season before that was the first one he even averaged over 10 points per game all while being a notoriously bad defender. If you're drafting Nash over Kobe you're not getting notable returns untill after his rookie contract is already done.

Besides Kobe being better earlier than Nash despite entering the league 4 years younger, Kobe was also a noticeably more consistent play-off performer and I'm willing to argue Kobe peaked higher as well and simply contributed a lot more over his career than Nash did. To me there isn't really much of a discussion to be had here.

Dutchball97 wrote:Nash became an All-Star in his 6th season at age 27, while the season before that was the first one he even averaged over 10 points per game all while being a notoriously bad defender. If you're drafting Nash over Kobe you're not getting notable returns untill after his rookie contract is already done.

Besides Kobe being better earlier than Nash despite entering the league 4 years younger, Kobe was also a noticeably more consistent play-off performer and I'm willing to argue Kobe peaked higher as well and simply contributed a lot more over his career than Nash did. To me there isn't really much of a discussion to be had here.

Eh, I don't for a minute believe that Steve Nash as a 4-year college player already known for his insane BBIQ and great shooting was vastly more raw than a high school kid. I think the delay in Nash's emergence as a star is basically the sort of thing you expect when a guy is drafted without the team intending to give him the chance to be a star.

I have no problem with the rest of the world preferring to draft Kobe over Nash and I definitely see the argument aside from this particular point, but for myself, I think Nash could have been great much sooner and that is crucial to why I'd be so high on drafting him.

Nash’s post-MVP years are completely deleted from the universe. I’ve never ever seen those years discussed, literally ever in any amount of detail.

From 08-12 Nash was better than Kobe year for year according impact metrics. And he had some decent defensive seasons thrown in at the end there as well that I don’t automatically discount.

Getting along with Shaq leaps to mind . . . .

Not really, the longevity difference is too significant, even if you say Kobe would've left a Charlotte type team it's not like they could wait 10 years for Nash to become a superstar either.

being fair in the comparision, maybe kobe would benefit from a team having future insight too?

if we knew what we now know about basketball back then wouldnt we consider getting kobe to focus on his 3 point shot more and use him more as a lead guard since earlier?

maybe he could have been even better too, remember how good of a midrange shooter he was, imagine if Developed his pull up 3 game as much too?

ShotCreator wrote:Nash’s post-MVP years are completely deleted from the universe. I’ve never ever seen those years discussed, literally ever in any amount of detail.

From 08-12 Nash was better than Kobe year for year according impact metrics. And he had some decent defensive seasons thrown in at the end there as well that I don’t automatically discount.

Once the Suns dropped off people just stopped caring about Nash. Honestly, same thing would have happened to Dirk's post 2007 years if he hadn't won a title in 2011.

Doesn't help that his boxscore stats are modest, not much different about what people think about Chris Paul for the past billion years.

Steve Nash's prime is a LOT longer than most people think it is - I remember back then people were amazed by how good he was at his age.

Kobe was a better player for longer, so in a vacuum it's not close.

falcolombardi wrote:being fair in the comparision, maybe kobe would benefit from a team having future insight too?

if we knew what we now know about basketball back then wouldnt we consider getting kobe to focus on his 3 point shot more and use him more as a lead guard since earlier?

maybe he could have been even better too, remember how good of a midrange shooter he was, imagine if Developed his pull up 3 game as much too?

Yup. A lot of what held Kobe’s individual game back had to do with him having a ‘90s paradigm in his head the whole time.

Have Kobe be born later and he might be considerably better.

Of course he’s in a comparison with a guy born before he was who intuited more optimal strategy for himself.


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Doctor MJ wrote:Eh, I don't for a minute believe that Steve Nash as a 4-year college player already known for his insane BBIQ and great shooting was vastly more raw than a high school kid. I think the delay in Nash's emergence as a star is basically the sort of thing you expect when a guy is drafted without the team intending to give him the chance to be a star.

tbf to Phoenix, if any team in the league thinks Nash is a potential star coming out of Santa Clara he doesn't last to them. But also they had no idea when they drafted him that Dallas was going to gift them Jason Kidd. Sam Cassell was in the last year of his contract so my guess is the hope was Nash could be the primary backup to KJ by his 2nd season and eventually maybe the starter.

But even with KJ and Cassell and then KJ and Kidd, he still managed to get into over 60 games as a rookie and played 20 mpg in year 2. The Suns were definitely giving him real opportunity considering the PG's in front of him.

And of course Dallas traded 2 first round picks for, immediately gave him a big contract extension and installed him as the engine of their offense in his 3rd season. And Nellie certainly knew how to use offensive talent.

I agree there are plenty of scenarios in which Nash doesn't take 5 years to become a quality starter and 8 years to become a star. But I don't think its because his teams were stupid. He was given chances. He simply wasn't the player he later became yet.

In 06 and 07. Nash and Kobe were pretty neck and neck. You can certainly argue Nash over Kobe for a year or two there, in his prime.

With a career value, Nash is relatively weak. In numbers like W/S, VORP, Box +-, etc. Nash falls well short of Kobe. He was 4th all time in career assists, and that's the only place where his value is high. In terms of longevity, Nash had around 05-10 prime compared to Kobe's 01-10. Nash can add a couple seasons of all star on top, but so can Kobe. Kobe then has Nash beat in number of great seasons too.

I might pick Nash over Kobe because Nash has a higher chance of sticking it out with a bad franchise. However, I wonder if I am patient with Nash as a prospect until he's 27 (chances are pretty low to be frank).

Texas Chuck wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote:Eh, I don't for a minute believe that Steve Nash as a 4-year college player already known for his insane BBIQ and great shooting was vastly more raw than a high school kid. I think the delay in Nash's emergence as a star is basically the sort of thing you expect when a guy is drafted without the team intending to give him the chance to be a star.

tbf to Phoenix, if any team in the league thinks Nash is a potential star coming out of Santa Clara he doesn't last to them. But also they had no idea when they drafted him that Dallas was going to gift them Jason Kidd. Sam Cassell was in the last year of his contract so my guess is the hope was Nash could be the primary backup to KJ by his 2nd season and eventually maybe the starter.

But even with KJ and Cassell and then KJ and Kidd, he still managed to get into over 60 games as a rookie and played 20 mpg in year 2. The Suns were definitely giving him real opportunity considering the PG's in front of him.

And of course Dallas traded 2 first round picks for, immediately gave him a big contract extension and installed him as the engine of their offense in his 3rd season. And Nellie certainly knew how to use offensive talent.

I agree there are plenty of scenarios in which Nash doesn't take 5 years to become a quality starter and 8 years to become a star. But I don't think its because his teams were stupid. He was given chances. He simply wasn't the player he later became yet.

Well, we've been through this debate before so I know you have your thoughts.

What I see is that by Nash's 2nd (and last) year in his initial Phoenix run, the Suns were doing better with him out there than Jason Kidd. By contrast, the Lakers were doing better with Eddie Jones than Kobe Bryant all the way until they traded Jones. It was a clear cut case of "Young prospect hasn't earned the starting spot, but we believe he's going to be a superstar so we're going to go all in."

This gets into why I'm irritated when people think early Kobe was much better than early Nash. Nash literally had done more to earn playing time than Kobe did, but because his team's decision makers saw Jason Kidd as the franchise player, Nash got traded.

I know you're influenced by the fact that Nash didn't immediately become great in Dallas, but we know he had injury issues from the jump there in addition to the fact that he wasn't super young and he'd already demonstrated quite a lot to those watching him closely in Phoenix.

So yeah, I stand by my conclusion that Nash taking longer to become a star was about circumstances rather than him being too raw of a basketball talent.

I'm surprised none of you have mentioned the biggest X factor in all this: The Mike Dantoni system. Nash never had an elite season outside of Mike Dantoni. He is the definition of a system player. He, like Harden more recently, saw a major jump in numbers when playing for Dantoni.

Does Nash get Dantoni as well? Then possibly I take him over Kobe. But then again if the Dantoni system can turn Steve Nash and James Harden into perennial MVP candidates imagine what he'd do with a young Kobe Bryant.

Kobe was the flat out better player by a significant margin. In a vacuum you choose Kobe everytime.

Fundamentals21 wrote:In 06 and 07. Nash and Kobe were pretty neck and neck. You can certainly argue Nash over Kobe for a year or two there, in his prime.

With a career value, Nash is relatively weak. In numbers like W/S, VORP, Box +-, etc. Nash falls well short of Kobe. He was 4th all time in career assists, and that's the only place where his value is high. In terms of longevity, Nash had around 05-10 prime compared to Kobe's 01-10. Nash can add a couple seasons of all star on top, but so can Kobe. Kobe then has Nash beat in number of great seasons too.

I might pick Nash over Kobe because Nash has a higher chance of sticking it out with a bad franchise. However, I wonder if I am patient with Nash as a prospect until he's 27 (chances are pretty low to be frank).

So I alluded to this before on another thread:

Given that Kobe was prominent as a star earlier than Nash, played on great teams basically from day one, and played longer than Nash, the general assumption would be that Kobe had more career team success than Nash even if Nash has a peak argument, but this isn't necessarily the case depending on your metric.

Yeah, Kobe's got the rings and there's a lot of achievement that is associated with that but:

If we go by who led their team in +/- the most times:

Nash 8
Kobe 3

And if we go by total +/- in their career:

Nash +5250
Kobe +4721

I'm not saying this should mean folks should rank Nash ahead of Kobe on GOAT lists because I don't do that myself, but this data does represent a HUGE upset and shouldn't be brushed off without an attempt to understand it.

This is part of the broader point that Kobe's +/- is WAY lower than any of us would have assumed.

If you ask folks who don't know the data who had more of this type of success between Kobe and Tim Duncan, most people would say it was close because those are the guys who played on high profile great teams from Day 1 in the league...yet despite this the gap between the two is insane. Duncan checks in a +10000, or more than double what Kobe did.

As I've said elsewhere, I do think this data underrates Kobe to a degree, but what is absolutely the case is that Kobe as a +/- guy really underachieves compared to the top guys (like Duncan, Nash, KG, Dirk, LeBron, Paul, Curry).

And again, while I don't feel comfortable saying Nash achieved more than Kobe in his career because of the slow start, the fact that Nash managed to have bigger total +/- numbers than Kobe despite Kobe's head start really makes clear that it wouldn't have even been close if Nash had been properly pegged as an superstar-prospect from Day 1.

Stalwart wrote:I'm surprised none of you have mentioned the biggest X factor in all this: The Mike Dantoni system. Nash never had an elite season outside of Mike Dantoni. He is the definition of a system player. He, like Harden more recently, saw a major jump in numbers when playing for Dantoni.

Does Nash get Dantoni as well? Then possibly I take him over Kobe. But then again if the Dantoni system can turn Steve Nash and James Harden into perennial MVP candidates imagine what he'd do with a young Kobe Bryant.

Kobe was the flat out better player by a significant margin. In a vacuum you choose Kobe everytime.

It's wiser not to talk about coaching systems as labels in the abstract, particularly as cudgels to discredit players.

The "D'Antoni system" is merely this:

1. Play fast.
2. Shoot 3's.
3. Let your smartest player improvise.

The idea that a guy thriving as the smartest player represents an inflation of his capabilities is nonsensical.

We can certainly have conversations about how Kobe would have done with his whole career under Mike D'Antoni, but it's not like playing under Phil Jackson represented a handicap.

Doctor MJ wrote:

Stalwart wrote:I'm surprised none of you have mentioned the biggest X factor in all this: The Mike Dantoni system. Nash never had an elite season outside of Mike Dantoni. He is the definition of a system player. He, like Harden more recently, saw a major jump in numbers when playing for Dantoni.

Does Nash get Dantoni as well? Then possibly I take him over Kobe. But then again if the Dantoni system can turn Steve Nash and James Harden into perennial MVP candidates imagine what he'd do with a young Kobe Bryant.

Kobe was the flat out better player by a significant margin. In a vacuum you choose Kobe everytime.

It's wiser not to talk about coaching systems as labels in the abstract, particularly as cudgels to discredit players.

The "D'Antoni system" is merely this:

1. Play fast.
2. Shoot 3's.
3. Let your smartest player improvise.

The idea that a guy thriving as the smartest player represents an inflation of his capabilities is nonsensical.

We can certainly have conversations about how Kobe would have done with his whole career under Mike D'Antoni, but it's not like playing under Phil Jackson represented a handicap.

Well...to pretend the Dantoni system doesn't have a history of greatly enhancing the impact and output of its primary ballhandler/playmaker wouldn't be very wise either.