Doctor MJ wrote:f4p wrote:the problem is, they literally ONLY weigh team ORtg with steve nash. it's a trend back to the peaks project. i literally got in a debate with someone about peak 2017 kawhi leonard against peak nash and defense was considered a wash since kawhi wasn't a DPOY any more and the only relevant information was team ORtg in the playoffs, and even when kawhi was actually better, then it had to be ORtg against a particular team.
no titles, terrible resiliency, weak box score numbers, weak postseason RAPM, weak playoff on/off plus/minus. all subsumed to team ORtg. he seemingly gets the narrowest argument of anyone on this board. and as i detailed in the last project thread, this project is actually following the box score rankings almost step for step (23 of the inductees/nominees so far are from the top 24 in my box score rankings, steve nash is 58th, 31 spots below anyone so far).For example, taking a look at team results that are eye-popping, and really highlight the value of Nash.
2005-2008; 2010 PHX PS:
+9.53 rORTG in 2543 min Nash on floor
52.04% from 2
40.65% from 3
+2.01 rORTG in 708 min Nash off floor
48% from 2
35.08% from 3
Then you look at Houston
2015; 2017-20 HOU PS:
+2.26 rORTG in 2535 min Harden on floor
52.13% from 2
35.38% from 3
-4.74 rORTG in 744 min Harden off floor
50.13% from 2
32.93% from 3
Based on this, you could argue that Nash created cleaners shots for teammates, and was able to lift a fine offense to all-time level heights, which is probably more impressive to people than lifting a bad offense to respectable heights (at least the former might be better for championship contention).
Even in 2011, a "meh," Nash is pretty good.
The Suns had a 114.3 ORtg with Nash on the court, which would be about a +7 rORtg. When Nash was off the court they had a 102.3 ORtg, which is about -5 rORtg.
yeah, that's great. really, his offenses are great. but it's only one half of the game. he doesn't seem especially amazing by things like plus minus.
according to that Cheema RAPM that Ohayo posted a few weeks ago:
Postseason RAPM
Harden +4.12 (basically tied with steph for 6th)
Nash +2.22 (basically tied with middleton for 28th if i counted correctly)
We have regular postseason On/off
Harden 2011-2022: +11.0
Nash 2001-2010: +4.6, even posting a -0.5 in 2005 and +0.1 in 2010
you can look at series like the 2005 and 2010 conference finals to see how offensively slanted nash's teams tended to be in the playoffs and to see why some of these offensive results should probably be taken with a grain of salt, in light of the other evidence (longevity, box score, resiliency, actual vs expected titles) painting nash in a much lesser light compared to the other potential nominees.
2005 WCF - the suns offense improved its relative rating by +6.8. so their league-leading +8.4 offense got even 6.8 points more ridiculous. if their +1.0 regular season defense holds, they smush the spurs, who were only 0.7 SRS better than the suns. instead their defense gets +10.1 worse to +11.1, meaning this was just an offensive slugfest series. they lose.
2010 WCF - the suns offense improved its relative rating by an even more amazing +8.2. so their league-leading +7.7 offense got even 8.2 points more ridiculous. if their +2.6 regular season defense holds, they smush the lakers, who were only 0.1 SRS better than the suns. instead their defense gets an even more amazing +12.8 worse to +15.4, meaning this was just even more of an offensive slugfest series than in 2005. they lose.
in fact from 2001-2010, nash's offenses improved by 3.0 in the playoffs but his defenses fell off by 1.9. and if not for the crazy defensive outlier first 2 rounds in 2010, it would literally be 2.8 and 2.8. so a significant part of his amazing team playoff offenses seems to have come at a significant defensive cost as his teams leaned in hard on an all-offense strategy.
I think it's good to see push back here. The thing that made me want to respond here pushing back against your push back is the idea of "resiliency".
The term can mean various things, but looking at what you've said about playoff +/-, to me that seems like a reasonable part of your argument.
Thing is, some other views tell a very different story.
If I compare:
a) The number of games a player's team has won in the playoffs
b) The number of games a player has had a positive +/- in the playoffs
For Nash I get: a) 57, b) 69.
That +12 number is actually the largest number I found in a previous study for any of the stars I checked (not going to swear that this means he's the all-time leader).
If I add in a threshold where only opponents who played at a 50+ win pace are counted, I get:
a) 26 b) 37
So that +11 is slightly less than 12, but percentage-wise it's a more dramatic difference.
This then to say that I think Nash's capacity for winning on the court against strong teams in the playoffs - which seems like major component of resilience to me - is quite solid.
Do you happen to have data for this documented for different star players? Seems like a very cool approach.
(PS / sidenote, if you'd happen to have any down-time - would appreciate intel regarding the priv message I sent
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