Steve Nash really should have won multiple championships.

[NZB2323]

I have Nash on the same tier as Stockton, Kidd, Payton, and CP3.

Kidd and Payton won titles as role players later in their careers, but none of them won a title in their prime.

Nash is the best offensive player out of the bunch but the worst defensive player.

[canada_dry]

Maybe, maybe not. Had the Spurs not been in his way, he might have. But, if they beat SA in the three years they had the best chance to win a ring (2005, 2007, 2008 and assuming they get to the Finals in 07 and 08), they would have had to face the Pistons, Cavs, and Celtics in the Finals. I don't think they would've beaten Detroit in 2005 or even got past the Lakers in 2008 to face Boston and even if they did they would still not have won imo. So 2007 realistically was their best shot but unlike SA they did not have the team defense to slow LeBron down, so even that year is questionable

Theres no question about 07...lol

Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

[JustBuzzin]

Ok so, the reason people are acting like you're "in the wrong" is because you're using false generalizations (or stereotypes) to explain something complicated. You list big teammate names (without mentioning their dramatic injury history or front office blunders). You also use some junk points like bringing up the Lakers (when Nash was just old and too injured to play). That causes people to react and feel like they need to correct you.

Like you say, there are plenty of people who are calling him overrated, so it's hard to reconcile that with your argument that Nash needs to be held accountable (whatever that means). Nash is a player who has his own legions of haters. He's a divisive figure because of those MVPs already, so you coming in here to hold him accountable isn't something new. There's been fierce Nash debate ever since he won MVP. You're not really correcting an imbalance with your accountability act, you're just repeating the same stuff people have said about him for almost 20 years.

Everynow and then I see some smart Nash criticism. No one thinks he's perfect (mostly due to the defense and early career reluctance to ramp up scoring volume). But listing his best teammates and saying "wHy nO rInGz" isn't clever accountability. It's just more of the same low-level discourse. I've seen a lot of people go deep on Steve Nash with you, and you tend to just say you disagree and then cite the generalizations again.

I understand your point of view trust me I do.

Now look at it from my point of view...

I see Nash as an all-time great pg who happened to play with some of the better players during his prime. Those rosters Nash had compared to a guy like say CP3/Kidd and these guys have led much less to a Finals and even won a championship. I'm just saying Nash should have a ring because he had the talent to win a championship. People in this thread calling him the best offensive pg's of all-time. I expected at least 1 championship from Nash.

Is that really hating that I think Nash should have a championship?

Chris paul!

Blake, a top 3 mvp candidate at his peak, himself, deandre, reddick, DEPTH, something the suns always lacked, and couldn't get out the 1st round . Choke after choke. You should make a thread holding cp3 accountable of anything. Uext thats the example you want to use.

Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

Chris Paul is a choker. But he did at least make a Finals later in his career and was arguably the best or 2nd best player on the team.

[Effigy]

Small guards who don't play defense, other than Kyrie 1 time with Lebron James don't win championships.

You should Google Stephen Curry. He's awesome.

[Masigond]

I mean that's how you view it. You're entitled to have your own opinion. I'm not here to say you are wrong. I obviously have my own view.

i.e. MVPs should have overwhelming (scoring) stats and win championships? Without regards to context, competition and circumstances. Yes, we know.

That's why it's so hard to take you as a serious user. Best case: You don't really understand basketball as team sports. Worst case: Troll.

[ChipotleWest]

Small guards who don't play defense, other than Kyrie 1 time with Lebron James don't win championships.

You should Google Stephen Curry. He's awesome.

Steph is not a bad defender. Nash was horrible.

[SomeBunghole]

This is not a right or wrong topic. I simply expected Nash to win championships given his resume.

Again, they don't give championships out for resumes. It has nothing to do with it. It's a team sport. Nash never had the best team. That simple.

[JustBuzzin]

I mean that's how you view it. You're entitled to have your own opinion. I'm not here to say you are wrong. I obviously have my own view.

i.e. MVPs should have overwhelming (scoring) stats and win championships? Without regards to context, competition and circumstances. Yes, we know.

That's why it's so hard to take you as a serious user. Best case: You don't really understand basketball as team sports. Worst case: Troll.

You can call me every name in the book. I'm comfortable with how I view the game. If you don't like it stop replying to me. It's really that simple.

[Masigond]

I mean that's how you view it. You're entitled to have your own opinion. I'm not here to say you are wrong. I obviously have my own view.

i.e. MVPs should have overwhelming (scoring) stats and win championships? Without regards to context, competition and circumstances. Yes, we know.

That's why it's so hard to take you as a serious user. Best case: You don't really understand basketball as team sports. Worst case: Troll.

You can call me every name in the book. I'm comfortable with how I view the game. If you don't like it stop replying to me. It's really that simple.

If you don't like my posts, you're free to set me on your ignore list. As long as you confuse discussions with baiting for acknowledgements for your way too basic takes combined with seemingly being proud of your own ignorance, I will continue to call you out.

I guess that I am not the only one still waiting for a single profound answer to all the reasons that you have been given to you.

[JustBuzzin]

i.e. MVPs should have overwhelming (scoring) stats and win championships? Without regards to context, competition and circumstances. Yes, we know.

That's why it's so hard to take you as a serious user. Best case: You don't really understand basketball as team sports. Worst case: Troll.

You can call me every name in the book. I'm comfortable with how I view the game. If you don't like it stop replying to me. It's really that simple.

If you don't like my posts, you're free to set me on your ignore list. As long as you confuse discussions with baiting for acknowledgements for your way too basic takes combined with seemingly being proud of your own ignorance, I will continue to call you out.

You been calling me a troll in this entire thread. A mod already said I'm not breaking any rules.


Dude at this point you're just harassing me. I already said you are entitled to your own opinion. This thread was made to get people's opinion. Me debating and arguing against those opinions would be useless. You can call me out all you want. Whatever beef you have with me you can simply send me a PM and tell me the problem you have. Maybe I can work on whatever issue you have with me.

This is my last time responding to you because you clearly rather talk about me than the actual topic.

[Masigond]

You been calling me a troll in this entire thread. A mod already said I'm not breaking any rules.


Dude at this point you're just harassing me. I already said you are entitled to your own opinion. This thread was made to get people's opinion. Me debating and arguing against those opinions would be useless. You can call me out all you want. Whatever beef you have with me you can simply send me a PM and tell me the problem you have. Maybe I can work on whatever issue you have with me.

This is my last time responding to you because you clearly rather talk about me than the actual topic.

Dude, you are behaving like a flatearther.
JustBuzzin: The Earth is flat!
Users: No, it isn't. If you're flying around the world you get back to your starting point. How come if the Earth were really flat? How come that we see a ship disappearing when it sails away from the coast? If you're laserpointing a mast on a boat sailing away from you on a lake, the point will change its position. That's because the Earth's surface is curved.
JustBuzzin: I see your arguments, but I prefer to think that the Earth is flat.

All you have is a basic opinion that you want to have confirmed by others (why? I don't know. Do you gain anything if others agree that Nash was allegedly not worthy of his MVPs?). But your stance lacks substance, you are ignoring more profound takes like all these hints and proofs that showed that Nash made the Suns win big time in the regular season, and the pointing out of circumstances why they did not manage to win a championship. All you do is repeating your claim again and again. So why don't YOU finally start a true discussing instead of making allegations that collapse very quickly? Like that BS that Nash should have won with these and those players, even if they didn't play with him at all in a respective season or way out of their prime.

[VanWest82]

This is not a right or wrong topic. I simply expected Nash to win championships given his resume.

Again, they don't give championships out for resumes. It has nothing to do with it. It's a team sport. Nash never had the best team. That simple.

I would submit that it's possible they had the best team in 07 but Stern decided he wanted to ruin the playoffs and make it unfair. Suns and Spurs were really close that year.

[pr0wler]

The fact that in the 2006 season, Steve Nash somehow led a #2 offense with Shawn Marion and the likes of Boris Diaw, Kurt Thomas, and Raja Bell in the starting lineup, speaks volumes more than anything.

[bovice]

the 2000s to mid 2010s era of basketball was dominated by the teams who had the best bigs.

Lakers won with Shaq/whoever. Pau/Bynum. KG/Perkins. Duncan/whoever. Wallace/Sheed. Suns didn't have the size to match and Amare was sometimes hurt.

Even later, when Heat won with small ball, they still struggled vs size. Look at the Heat's h2h vs zbo/marc and other teams who had good big men.

Having skilled bigmen back then was a requirement to winning. Utah had a decent team but Boozer was too small to guard Pau and they could never get over the Lakers because of it.

[SomeBunghole]

I would submit that it's possible they had the best team in 07 but Stern decided he wanted to ruin the playoffs and make it unfair. Suns and Spurs were really close that year.

There's that, too. Depending on the way you look at the situation, Nash either had no control over his teammates or over the commish's decisions.

[lessthanjake]

I’ve kind of already said this, but honestly the bottom line is that the Spurs were better. The Suns’ best two years were 2005 and 2007. And they lost to the Spurs both times. The Suns got some bad luck in those series (Joe Johnson being out in 2005, and the suspensions in 2007), but they also weren’t *super* close series (i.e. Spurs won in 5 and 6 games). That was the height of the Spurs dynasty, with Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker all in their prime, along with a bunch of good role players (not to mention a great coach). Nash was great, but the Suns were genuinely not quite as talented as the Spurs. Without the bad luck, I think the Suns probably still would’ve lost, but it would’ve been closer and they had a chance to squeak it out. The main thing is that it was possible the Suns could’ve actively gotten *good* luck in some way against the Spurs in those years. In which case I think they could’ve/would’ve beaten the Spurs. And if they’d gotten past the Spurs, I think they could’ve won the title (especially in 2007, since in 2005 the Pistons were a really tough Finals opponent).

Besides 2005 and 2007, the Suns best years were 2006, 2008, and 2010. Ultimately, I don’t think a title was realistic in 2006, with Amare out. They overachieved that year, and I think WCF was basically their ceiling. 2008 was another loss to the Spurs (in 5 games, though it was closer than that suggests), so was similar to the above, with the added caveat that, if they’d beaten the Spurs, the Suns weren’t good enough that year to get past the Lakers and Celtics anyways, especially since they now didn’t have Marion. I think a similar thing about 2010 as I do about 2006. I don’t really think that team was talented enough to win the title, and WCF was probably the best one could expect. That said, they finally got over the Spurs hump that year and the Lakers and Celtics were probably not as good at that point as they’d been a couple years earlier. So I guess it was possible, but no one at the time really thought they could do better than they did, and I think that perception was right. In any of these years, they’d really have needed an immense amount of luck to win the title (i.e. something like injuries to major players for multiple playoff opponents).

EDIT: I’m much more focused on the Suns years, since I was a big Suns fan at the time so I have a lot of thoughts about those years. But I realize the thread is about Nash in general, not the Nash Suns. So the Mavs years are relevant too. I have less to say about those teams, except that the best Mavs team was the 2003 version, and they too lost to the Spurs while getting bad luck (Dirk missing half the series). That was a less talented Spurs team than the later ones IMO (albeit with Duncan at his very peak), and the Mavs were a talented team, so without the injury the Mavs could’ve potentially beaten them and then been a big favorite in the Finals. But Dirk going out obviously made that impossible. And I don’t really think the Mavs were quite championship caliber the other years—though I’m less familiar with the ins and outs of specific seasons of the Mavs in those years than with the Nash Suns, and I suspect it’s true that they *would’ve* been good enough if they’d used Nash more optimally.

[One_and_Done]

I have Nash on the same tier as Stockton, Kidd, Payton, and CP3.

Kidd and Payton won titles as role players later in their careers, but none of them won a title in their prime.

Nash is the best offensive player out of the bunch but the worst defensive player.

Nash was an MVP. Stockton wasn't sniffing that rarefied air.

Nash and CP3 are comparable certainly. The others not so much (though I'd have Stockton last of the bunch).

[One_and_Done]

If Nash had played with the favourable circumstances and team mates that Kobe did he'd have 6-7 titles probably.

[FarBeyondDriven]

he's just another in a long line of great Hall of Fame players that never quite had the team that could get it done because there just happened to be better teams in their way. I don't think there was a single season where they "should have won" a single championship let alone multiple. This isn't like Lebron losing to the Mavs.

There's one team I can think of that should have won a championship that didn't and that's my Kings who were the best team that 2002 season, led the league in wins and were even better than the Shaq/Kobe dynasty Lakers. That was such a well-constructed team with amazing chemistry that imo could hang with any of the all-time great teams in NBA history. But unfortunately it was rigged and we were robbed. I'm not bitter

[SpiderX1016]

Stupid Spurs... Stupid Duncan with his 3 point shot... Stupid Lakers.