Highest possible ranking for Steve Nash?

[SHAQ32]

Keeping up with the 'highest possible ranking' theme

2x MVP (there are still some that say should be 3x), consistently led top offenses, 50/40/90 percentages, +/-, helped bring pace back to the NBA, etc

[rk2023]

I think there's a world where you could argue him very low end of teens - 20. Would just have to value playmaking more than most, trust +/- variants, and weight heavily towards prime.

[lessthanjake]

This is a very interesting question. I think Nash has an extremely big possible range—perhaps the largest of any player I can think of. We are talking about someone who is very arguably the greatest offensive player in history, but who never even made the finals and who was not a good defender. That can lead to some wildly different evaluations of him IMO.

Let’s say you said that you just care about how well an individual player played regardless of how much their team won in the playoffs (after all, it’s a team game so an individual player is only one piece of the puzzle), and you said that you value individual offense much more than individual defense because your star has more impact on offense than on defense (since you can make them central to virtually every action on offense in a way that doesn’t happen on defense) especially for a guard. In that case, I can actually see a way of getting Nash into the top 10. After all, the primary criteria we’d be left with there would be individual offensive impact—a criteria at which Nash might be the greatest of all time. I don’t think one could reasonably rank him #1 all time even though you could reasonably rank him #1 all time in offense, but I think if you could reasonably decide to not ding him all that much for defense and lack of winning titles, such that the #1 all-time offensive impact is enough to leave him around #10 overall. But I also think one could reasonably put really high value on postseason success, a high value on individual defense, and could try to nitpick the offensive-impact data (he had offense-minded coaches that put offensively-skewed lineups on the court, he had players like Dirk and Amare with him, etc.), in which case you could probably end up with Nash in the #40-50 range. He’s just got an enormous range IMO.

[kcktiny]

It's funny how those who cannot or will not evaluate a player defensively simply choose to ignore it.

Nash was a poor defender his entire career - not an average, or worse than average, but a poor defender. I don't see him as a Top 20 player, not even close, and not even a Top 10 PG.

Looking at peak performance I value the following PGs more than Nash:

Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Walt Frazier
Maurice Cheeks
Gary Payton
Magic Johnson
Gus Williams
Fat Lever
John Stockton
Jason Kidd
Chauncey Billups
Chris Paul
Steph Curry

[lessthanjake]

It's funny how those who cannot or will not evaluate a player defensively simply choose to ignore it.

Nash was a poor defender his entire career - not an average, or worse than average, but a poor defender. I don't see him as a Top 20 player, not even close, and not even a Top 10 PG.

Looking at peak performance I value the following PGs more than Nash:

Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Walt Frazier
Maurice Cheeks
Gary Payton
Magic Johnson
Gus Williams
Fat Lever
John Stockton
Jason Kidd
Chauncey Billups
Chris Paul
Steph Curry

I think it’s more a question of how much individual defense matters (especially for guards), compared to offense. If you look at data on offense, I think there’s a pretty good case to be made that a Steve Nash-led offense would legitimately score about 3-5% more points with him on the floor than an offense centered around even some of the truly elite offensive players in history—many of whom weren’t necessarily elite players defensively themselves (see some of the data I recently provided in another thread). And if you compare to some truly great players whose greatness was more about their defense, Steve Nash’s offenses would legitimately score more like about 5-7% more points with him on the floor than with those more defensive-focused stars. Those are really big differences! Even if we grade out Nash as a poor defender, does poor defense from an individual guard have a big enough effect on the defense to cancel out those extra points? Maybe? But I don’t know that it’s so clear. For what it’s worth, the raw on-off defensive numbers for him aren’t actually even all that bad (for instance: the Suns had a roughly even defensive rating overall when he was on and off the court in his years there). Of course, that’s probably in large part because his ridiculously good offense helps the defense a lot—as it is easier to defend after a made basket. But if his offensive prowess not only made the team score more points, but also mostly mitigated his defensive weakness, then it becomes harder for other players with weaker offenses to make up for it with their superior defense.

[ceiling raiser]

I always thought the best guards of the 2000s were pretty similar in terms of careers. Wherever you have Wade and Kobe all-time, Nash probably belongs in the same bucket IMO. To me that's in the 15-25 range. So high end is top 15.

[One_and_Done]

Top 20. I could see arguments for taking him above guys like West, Oscar, D.Rob, Barkley, Kobe, etc, indeed I would take him over most of them. He could easily be in the 16-25 group.

[migya]

Prime too short and defense too poor for him to be top 20. Lower than Stockton.

[cupcakesnake]

If Nash reached his prime earlier (he joined Phoenix for his age 30 season), I could see him popping up more in that 15-20 range. Even if his Dallas career had been a little smoother (it often felt like Nash's on-ball time was taking a backseat to the latest Nellieball experiment), maybe we get 2 stronger Dallas seasons and can make an argument.

I have him 22nd on my all-time ranking, and he's one of my favorite players of all-time. If I could have him higher while still feeling honest about it, I probably would, right?

[SHAQ32]

Prime too short

He had a 12-year prime?

2001-2012, 16 ppg, 10 apg, 50/43/91

[lessthanjake]

To go back to the point about defense, I think we should remember that impact data on Steve Nash is actually often really high. So, things like WOWY and RAPM—where he grades out fairly easily in the top 10 all time. There’s an open question whether impact data adequately accounts for defense, but in theory it should, and it certainly does so more than box-score-based measures do. It’s at least suggestive that the effect of his amazing offense swamps the effect of his poor defense, to the point where he’d have a very high “highest possible ranking.”

[One_and_Done]

Nash is a liability on D, but so is Jokic who people are claiming has a GOAT prime. Unlike Jokic, Nash plays at the position where defense matters the least.

[kcktiny]

things like WOWY and RAPM—where he grades out fairly easily in the top 10 all time

A Top 10 all-time PG, or a Top 10 all-time among all players?

[lessthanjake]

things like WOWY and RAPM—where he grades out fairly easily in the top 10 all time

A Top 10 all-time PG, or a Top 10 all-time among all players?

Top 10 all-time among all players if you look at prime years (if you look at career total numbers, instead of looking at 10-year prime, he does admittedly fall to 20th). Specifically, his prime WOWYR is 4th or 5th all time depending on how you scale it, and his 10-year GPM is 2nd all time. See here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/metrics/wowyr/. And Thinking Basketball also lists his 5-year RAPM as being 7th all time. These are suggestive of the idea that the effect of his incredible offense swamps the effect of his poor defense, since we’re talking about overall impact numbers here—so they are inherently measuring a player’s effect on both ends of the floor.

In the end, as much as I do love him, I don’t put Nash anywhere that high, since I do think “greatness” even in a team sport is in part about raw achievement in the game, and unfortunately Nash never even made it past the conference finals. To me that does matter in an assessment of greatness. But if we are talking about what the highest possible ranking for him would be, surely that “highest possible ranking” would be what someone would give if they looked primarily at these sorts of impact numbers and decided they don’t really care about rings since it’s a team game, and then maybe discounted these numbers a bit due to lesser longevity (the above numbers are mostly 10-year prime numbers, and Nash doesn’t have much beyond those 10 years, while some other players do). And perhaps add a squishy positive factor like him being an early vanguard for the league’s dominant offensive style changing. Couldn’t that over ally picture reasonably get us to something like 10th?

[kcktiny]

Top 10 all-time among all players if you look at prime years... looking at 10-year prime...

I was going to ask you which PGs were above him, but I see from that list it has Nash ranked 3rd overall and as the top PG - and also above Michael Jordan.

This list doesn't pass the laugh test.

Any method of evaluation that ranks Nash above Jordan - let alone vastly better defensive PGs that were very good players on offense - clearly has no clue how to properly evaluate defense.

From 0001-0910 (10 years) Nash's teams (4 yrs Dallas, 6 yrs Phoenix) ranked 1st in the league in offensive efficiency, but just 25th (out of 33 teams) in defensive efficiency.

But in Jordan's 10 best years (8687-9293, 9596-9798) Chicago as a team ranked 1st/best in offensive efficiency, 6th in defensive efficiency.

Are those promoting Nash as some kind of offensive savant also promoting Jordan as an offensive genius?

surely that “highest possible ranking” would be what someone would give if they looked primarily at these sorts of impact numbers

What sort of "impact" is this rating system measuring?

It has Dikembe Mutombo listed 9th and Bill Russell listed 11th, as if to attest to the fact that it somehow does measure defense.

But it also lists Walt Frazier - one of the greatest backcourt defenders in league history and a player that unquestionably has a legitimate case for Top 5 PG ever when looking at both sides of the ball - way down in the 90s, with PGs like Derek Fisher and Mike Bibby listed above him. That clearly fails the smell test.

Couldn’t that over all picture reasonably get us to something like 10th?

And what could be the possible reason for ranking Nash peak (looking at 10 years) as better than Chris Paul? This makes no sense.

Nash was all-NBA 1st team 3 times, but Paul was all-NBA 1st team 4 times.

Plus Paul was all-defensive 1st team 7 times, Nash never sniffed an all-defensive team.

Look at each's best 10 year stretch - Nash from say 0102-1011 and Paul from 0708-1617. Paul scored a bit better (19.1 vs. 16.7 pts/g), Nash shot better (56.3% vs. 52.6% eFG%). Nash had about 800 more assists but at the cost of 860 more turnovers. This not to mention Paul was the better rebounder and had over 1000 more steals.

So what could be the possible reason for ranking Nash over Paul (let alone other PGs) as the overall better player? Paul's offensive numbers are as good as - if not better - than Nash's, and his defense an order of magnitude better than Nash.

[lessthanjake]

Top 10 all-time among all players if you look at prime years... looking at 10-year prime...

I was going to ask you which PGs were above him, but I see from that list it has Nash ranked 3rd overall and as the top PG - and also above Michael Jordan.

This list doesn't pass the laugh test.

Any method of evaluation that ranks Nash above Jordan - let alone vastly better defensive PGs that were very good players on offense - clearly has no clue how to properly evaluate defense.

From 0001-0910 (10 years) Nash's teams (4 yrs Dallas, 6 yrs Phoenix) ranked 1st in the league in offensive efficiency, but just 25th (out of 33 teams) in defensive efficiency.

But in Jordan's 10 best years (8687-9293, 9596-9798) Chicago as a team ranked 1st/best in offensive efficiency, 6th in defensive efficiency.

Are those promoting Nash as some kind of offensive savant also promoting Jordan as an offensive genius?

surely that “highest possible ranking” would be what someone would give if they looked primarily at these sorts of impact numbers

What sort of "impact" is this rating system measuring?

It has Dikembe Mutombo listed 9th and Bill Russell listed 11th, as if to attest to the fact that it somehow does measure defense.

But it also lists Walt Frazier - one of the greatest backcourt defenders in league history and a player that unquestionably has a legitimate case for Top 5 PG ever when looking at both sides of the ball - way down in the 90s, with PGs like Derek Fisher and Mike Bibby listed above him. That clearly fails the smell test.

Couldn’t that over all picture reasonably get us to something like 10th?

And what could be the possible reason for ranking Nash peak (looking at 10 years) as better than Chris Paul? This makes no sense.

Nash was all-NBA 1st team 3 times, but Paul was all-NBA 1st team 4 times.

Plus Paul was all-defensive 1st team 7 times, Nash never sniffed an all-defensive team.

Look at each's best 10 year stretch - Nash from say 0102-1011 and Paul from 0708-1617. Paul scored a bit better (19.1 vs. 16.7 pts/g), Nash shot better (56.3% vs. 52.6% eFG%). Nash had about 800 more assists but at the cost of 860 more turnovers. This not to mention Paul was the better rebounder and had over 1000 more steals.

So what could be the possible reason for ranking Nash over Paul (let alone other PGs) as the overall better player? Paul's offensive numbers are as good as - if not better - than Nash's, and his defense an order of magnitude better than Nash.

You can look up what those metrics are measuring. It’s multiple measures all spitting out similar results for Nash there, so it’d take a lot of effort to explain what each one is (though you can look it up if you’re curious). But they’re basically all measures that are in some way looking at on-off impact while controlling for the quality of players on the floor when the player is on and off. Since it’s looking at overall impact in that way, these sorts of measures do inherently account for defense since defense obviously affects someone’s on-off numbers.

I like Chris Paul a lot, but the case for Steve Nash over Chris Paul would be that Steve Nash had superior effect on his team’s offensive efficiency. You’ll find that there are people who see Steve Nash as a top 3 offensive player of all time and arguably the offensive GOAT, and that there’s actually a good deal of evidence/data supporting that sort of conclusion (just as one example, see this thread I made recently and some of the responses in it: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2302989). And this is ultimately what’s being reflected in the super high impact numbers discussed above. Of course, Chris Paul has longevity and defense over him, so there could be an argument for Chris Paul over Nash (indeed, I noted in this thread that I think Nash’s range is really large, and that he could actually be ranked fairly low too), but I don’t think it’s all that hard to articulate a perfectly reasonable argument for Nash over Paul.

Bottom line is that I feel like a guy who’s a two-time MVP and places well into the top 10 all time in a bunch of different impact metrics surely has a “highest possible rating” that is quite high. All it would take to get him that high is basically just to really like those metrics (or at least to really like/trust them in the aggregate, since we’re talking about multiple metrics here saying similar things about Nash), and to not care very much about certain areas where his case is relatively deficient (such as winning titles or having extreme longevity), alongside perhaps putting some weight on a player’s effect on the way the game is played (since the current three-point-heavy way of playing finds a good deal of its initial roots in Nash’s Suns).

[SpreeS]

He is borderline TOP10 gurad of all time

MJ, Oscar, Magic, Curry, West, Paul, Kobe are my TOP 7

Stockton, Nash, Harden, Wade, Frazier - He is in this group and I am tending to 9-11th place with Stockton and Harden

So if we include bigs and fowrards I would say around 25th is max for Nash

[Jaivl]

Looking at peak performance I value the following PGs more than Nash:

Maurice Cheeks
Fat Lever
Chauncey Billups

Others like Payton, Gus, etc are already iffy, but, I'm sorry -- that's straight up laughable.

- Lever is a great pickpocket, but he could not score, he never led a good offense despite playing next to Alex freaking English (offenses got quite worse after the Kiki -> Lever trade but there's a decent amount of rotation and aging), wasn't half the creator Nash was, and he could not stay healthy (not even at his great 1988 peak).
- Billups is pretty strictly a worse Nash that happened to win a ring.
- Cheeks is a good PG that happened to be the 4th/5th best player on some great teams. Reminder, Nash is an 2-time MVP.

Mutombo is an offensive liability. I'm taking Rik Smits over him, all day.

[tsherkin]

I feel like top 20-25 sounds about right for Nash in my head. Some days I'm a little higher on him than others.

[One_and_Done]

Did someone just compare 2 time MVP Nash to Mo Cheeks, Fat Lever and Billups?