mdonnelly1989 wrote:falcolombardi wrote:Nash has a low key underatted case as a top 1 offensive player impact ever, and a strong one for top 5
I dont know if the defense is enough to move him below kidd, frazier or payton but i guess is possible
How do you think he compares to Curry
Offensively? Around equals tbh, maybe nash by the smallest margin per "max impact" possible, but curry being a bit more versatile thanks his off-ball movement
Defensively, curry edge although i think nash defensive weakness is a bit overstated as a sort of mega negative rather than a slight one. He is fairly solid in his rotations and effort imo and curry just happens to be a fair amount bigger and stronger
Overall curry by a small margin but i am high on nash
Going more in depth. I think criticisms on nash ball dominance or "heliocentrism" are way overstated
Botg because he dominated the ball a lot less than people imagine (people seem to imagine he must have "ball hogged" as much as a luka currently) and because suns offense was way more dinamic than people (and me before rewstching nash suns games) remember it like
If you watch nash suns they are sort of like a reverse motion system.
Instead of having a "static" guy on ball while everyone else cuts/screens the way a team like the warriors do. Nash pushes the pace and makes quick decisions to drive/shot/pass....and he often cancels mid action to improvise somethingh else as everyone else reacts to the advabtage he created
Think running into a leaning jump forward jumper (like a floater but in a 2-handed jumpshot motion) and either hitting it smoothly or throwing a perfect dime on the jump to a cutter who just saw nash do start his jumper and started cutting just in case he gets a pass
Or driving past a big, stopping to freeze the defend, put the big in jail with his back and doing a hand off 2 meters off the rim to a running stoudamire who quicly realized the chance for a hand off dunk
He was not -quite- curry/reggie off ball movement wise but even though he was a on-ball player he was almost always running until he gave up the ball
you rarely saw him walk up the ball slowly or run a slow set. He would always be applying constant pressure in some way and making consistently great quick reads for passing and scoring off the chaos he created
The motion thingh i mention is because diaw,richardson, grant hill, barbosa, marion amd even (and perhaps surprisingly, mainly) stoudamire would "read and react" to nash quickly and cut/spot timely and accurstely to nash moves and then do quick decisions to shoot/pass or drive after receiving his passes
The whole thingh is just so smooth and contradicts the idea that on-ball quarterbacks turn role players into nothingh but lob or 3-point finishers. The suns are a constant moving machine around nash on-ball play in a similar way warriors best offense is a constant movement machine around curry off ball threath
Where a chris paul is like peyton manning running perfectly executed sets, nash is more like a lamar jackson or patrick mahomes. He can run, pass, run pass and you never know which is coming as he is always moving.
That is the best way to describe nash, he is always moving, he just does it more on ball than curry and more than your usual ball handler
You dont create the arguably goat offense relative to era with "just" a 6 foot guard playing pick and roll as everyonr else spots up. Nash is not big enough to just do a lebron through teams and get to the paint to score nonstop. He is a bit too small for that. Instead he achieves this by creating openings consistently that all of his twammates or himself later in the play can exploit to score
Where lebron and curry always "start with white" so to speak. Aka curry and lebron sort of compromise the defense before the play even starts cause their shooting or driving threat is so big that teams react preventively to take that option away. They always play chess with 1 move advantage as far as compromising the defense goes
Nash instead doesnt cause either effect (maybe if he shot mpre 3's today?) As teams didnt guard his 3 as tightly as curry's and he obviously is not lebron going to the paint.
Instead he maximizes his skillset to the max exploiting every small advantage by pushing the pace, using his handles and size to sneak in the paint and put the defense in an awkward position to stop his passing and because he is a more gifted passer/decision maker than curry and even bron. He makes it work. He does thinghs then reacts mid move to the defense reaction and finds somethingh ovet and over.
His motor/agressiveness may be low key as valuable as his mind, handles or jumper. And all these 4 thinghs combine for a perfect package that wouldnt work nearly as well if only one of the 4 thinghs was lesser
I think both are incresible offensive players who created absurd results when they got a coach (D'Antoni and kerr) who had a revolutionary approach based on their skillset.
But of the two it is nash who has the overall better offensive results relative to era and resiliency in my opinion. I suspect because he is faster at adapting to the defense and finding the best way to change the team approach than curry