Retro POY '04-05 (Voting Complete)

[Doctor MJ]

My vote:

1. Nash
2. Dirk
3. Duncan
4. Wade
5. Garnett

The one year I have Nash at #1, and it's really a landslide for me. Dirk's #2 and he's clearly not as good as he was the next where I rated him at 4. I feel like everything's already been said, but just to bullet point it:

-Comes to Phoenix, and totally turns around the team.
-When he gets hurt, the team falls apart again.
-Pushes the offense to all-time great levels out from nowhere. In the half decade before Phoenix had Kidd and Marbury at their peak, and the best offensive rating they had managed was 104.6, and with Nash they immediately jump up to 114.5. Completely insane that he was able to surpass them like that.

-He does this as a distributor always looking to get others there shot, but come crunch time he becomes a volume scorer and the #1 option. According to 82games, in the clutch (games within 5, last 5 minutes) he has the highest PER in the whole league with a value of 55.1.

-Then in the playoffs he has answers more questions. Despite a missing Joe Johnson and a choking Shawn Marion, he leads them past an excellent Dallas team going for 30/6/12 on 64 TS%. He continues to perform ridiculously well only losing to the eventual champion Spurs - who it should be noted beat the Suns in both regular season matchups in which Duncan played, so this was by no means an underperformance by the Suns.

Dirk earns the second spot basically by maintaining his play at a high level all year. At the time, I ranked him 3rd after the regular season behind Nash & Shaq. No one did anything to surpass him, and Shaq, well, more on him later.

Duncan at 3. Similar to Dirk. #4 after the regular season, rises up one spot due Shaq's fall. He doesn't rise based on the playoffs though because he just didn't play that well. As I mentioned before, awfully debatable whether he was even his team's playoff MVP. This is really not a year where you should put a guy at #1 because he has the combo of superstar status and a finals MVP.

The playoffs really revealed how it would be with Wade & Shaq. Wade was the 2nd best player in the playoffs (behind Nash), and Shaq played in the reduced role we've seen him ever since. Wade isn't higher because I'm not quite willing to say "See, Wade was the superstar all along". While Shaq obviously was well past his peak, there wasn't obvous fall off from the previous season until the end. Meanwhile, Wade actually had a negative APM in the regular season this year. This shouldn't be taken too seriously considering how he was in the playoffs (and that the playoffs have proven to be a much better indicator of what he's capable of), but I'm still not going to move him ahead of the guy I thought was better in the regular season and went on to win the title.

Garnett slides in at #5. It takes a season of a high caliber to beat out Garnett even when his team struggles - there weren't 5 of those guys this year.

Honorable Mention:

Ginobili - Oh how I struggled with this one. HM doesn't seem worthy of how good he was. In the end though, it's really hard for a guy who only plays 33 MPG in the playoffs to be considered top 5 in the league. I stand by my concerns about Ginobili vs Duncan, and would totally get someone else picking Ginobili, but I just can't do it.

Billups - Chauncey was dead solid again. Came within a hair's breadth of back-to-back Finals MVPs.

Amar'e - Was damn good. Really looked like he was about to take that next step and be an MVP-type guy after this and before the injury. The way he scored at will against Duncan was impressive as hell - but it would have been a lot more impressive he had been able to do that against a team that wasn't using a successful overall strategy against his team.

McGrady - Still not totally blown away by his regular season, but he was better than Dirk in the series against Dallas. People have recently criticized RealGM Top 100 project for having McGrady so high, which is really interesting, because there were few outside of Dallas that would have rated Dirk higher before the '05-06 season.

Ray Allen - Great player with his showcase year as the alpha of a team. He's one guy who I'd love to have on any team - not something I say often about scorers who aren't so good that they'll always be the #1 option.

[bastillon]

drza vs tsherkin discussion from last year:

I would absolutely agree that Duncan is not as versatile a defender as Garnett, but I think you're the one doing the diminishing here. And you're right, Duncan isn't alone in San Antonio... just as Garnett isn't alone in Boston. I wasn't diminishing the Celtics' defensive achievements, they rank as among the best defenses of all-time... but Duncan did at least as much with less, so I don't see the value in the argument you're trying to make. Young and inexperienced Parker? Manu, who tries to take a charge more often than he plays good man-on defense? Horry was a good defender when he was there and Bowen's excellent, but Brent Barry? Old Michael Finley? C'mon now, they had more defensive holes than Boston's team last year. Not, you know, MANY overall, but more than Boston.

You're not comparing apples-to-apples here. You're looking at Duncan at his absolute peak at age 27 against Garnett at age 32. When Garnett was 27 he was going to war with quite a bit less than Duncan, a common theme of his career until last season. (Edit to add: based on your "young and inexperienced Parker" I initially assumed you were talking about the '03 Spurs, but as I re-read your list you clearly aren't. My fault for that, so ignore the age comments. The rest of the point stands, though, with regard to teammate quality).

Yes, I agree, and I did want to bring up last year, actually, because Garnett's TS% was buoyed considerably by the team on which he was playing and Duncan and Duncan suffered mainly in the series against the Lakers; those 5 games mostly killed his postseason efficiency. Garnett had the advantage of playing with his dominant offensive counterparts but where Garnett had two really strong scorers in the starting lineup aside from himself, Duncan had Parker (who played well) and no one else worth mentioning in the SL... and Manu, who stank except for in Game 3. That kind of offensive imbalance allowed the Lakers to capitalize on the Spurs defensively. You'll notice that the Spurs generally checked the potent L.A. offense pretty well, but lost mostly because they weren't scoring well. The Spurs scored under 90 twice and scored 71 points in one game; the lack of a potent third option really hurt them. As another contrast to the Spurs, the Lakers were able to field Kobe and Gasol along with Odom and that three-headed offensive monster (as well as the conventional bench contributions) really put the pressure on L.A.

You'll notice in the one game of the series where Manu didn't shoot 33% or less, the Spurs won. Manu shot 26.3% in the 4 Spurs losses. Think about what that does; when the 6MOY collapses offensively, do you think that you are likely to look the same?

In fact, it would feel a lot like Kobe's matchups with Phoenix or Garnett's own troubles in various postseasons with the Wolves.

This section is extremely interesting. You basically argue that the reason that Garnett was more efficient than Duncan in last season's playoffs was because Garnett had more support and didn't have to carry the load quite as much. Essentially, this is the same argument that KG supporters have made for why Duncan has traditionally been more efficient than Garnett in the playoffs through the years. Why is it a suitable justification for Duncan (who with a healthy Parker and even a hobbled Ginobili still had more support than even the '04 Cassell/Spree Wolves team in the WCF), but not for KG? I agree that having weaker teammates effects efficiency, but it has to go both ways.

Magic is an interesting example to raise, since he actually counters your point.

Magic DID play in the post quite a bit, especially when he started scoring more because Kareem was fading. He's a guy who made use of his physical attributes appropriately; he happened to be an exceptional ball-handler and passer and he exploited that too... and far be it from me to take that away from Garnett, when he does play up top, he does an excellent job...

But again, you're missing my point. Garnett's most successful seasons have come a) when he's had teammates and b) when he's been playing more frequently in the post.

The facts don't support your argument. As mentioned before, KG didn't move full-time to power forward until 2002 but he played the entirety of his prime at that position. So yes, he's been better in his prime than he was in his first few years. But as far as his team success, there's no correlation between KG's frequency in the post and his team success. This is KG's percentage of inside shots since 2002:

02-03: 23% inside shots, 77% jumpers, team record 51 - 31 w/ vet journeymen role players
03-04: 25% inside shots, 75% jumpers, team record 58 - 28 w/ strong Cassell, aged Spree, and vet journeymen
04-05: 31% inside shots, 69% jumpers, team record 44 - 38 w/ injured mismatched parts
05-06: 30% inside shots, 70% jumpers, team record 33 - 49 w/ toxic journeymen primadonnas
06-07: 23% inside shots, 77% jumpers, team record 32 - 50 w/ toxic journeymen primadonnas and historically inept coach
07-08: 27% inside shots, 73% jumpers, team record 66 - 16 w/ great supporting cast
08-09: 28% inside shots, 72% jumpers, team record 51 - 18 and counting

KG always takes a very similar ratio of jumpers to inside shots. But in fact, the two seasons he spent the most time inside were two of his three WORST team success seasons. As I pointed out before, KG's team success is MUCH more tied to the caliber of his teammates than where he plays on the floor. It's funny how it works out that when KG has teammates of a similar caliber to what Duncan usually enjoys, his team results end up looking similar to Duncan's as well.

Ultimately though, I think you're ignoring that Garnett's success in Boston is heavily dependent on Pierce and Allen, guys who are both individually superior to every non-David Robinson player with whom Duncan has ever played, and Garnett has both of them on the same team.

Extremely debatable. A very strong argument can be made that Ginobili/Parker in '05 and '07 played at a higher level than Pierce/Allen did for the '08 Celtics. Even more-so in the playoffs where Ginobili and Parker have been rock solid but Pierce and especially Allen had quite a few disappearing acts last year.

And again, it is ironic for you to diminish KG's success in Boston because he finally has teammates that might arguably be better than Duncan's. It just doesn't make sense that teammate quality was just an excuse for Garnett, but now that the shoe is even slightly on the other foot it's a legitimate justification for Duncan. Smacks of double standard.

[bastillon]

gonxi (I believe) made a provably incorrect statement about Nash. he argued that Steve wasn't the reason why they improved, because it was health. when Suns were healthy (Barbosa-JJ-Marion-Amare all playing) in the last 31 games of the 2004 season, they were abysmal 10-21.

more on that and on Nash:

Im gonna tackle this question one year at a time and from the standpoint of winning as opposed to individual statistics also note i am a suns fan so i am obviously biased in his favor

2005
To understand why Steve Nash got the MVP this year you have to look at the 2004 Suns and see how the Suns went from a lottery team to a championship contender. The 2004 Suns went 29-53 and were ranked 21st offensively and 29th defensively. Now remember the only major roster change from 2004 to 2005 is replacing Nash with Marbury (this is pre-Knicks marbury).

The Suns go from 29-53 to 62-20 and Nash is the only new player. The offence goes from 21st to 1st in the league and the defence goes from 29th to 17th in the league(Nash is not a good defender but if he were as bad as some say your D would not skyrocket 12 places by making him your starting point guard). Some of this can be accounted for by improvements in other Suns players but much of the improvement in the other players is also accounted for by Nash.

Amare goes from 21ppg on 54% TS to 26ppg on 62% TS. Marion goes from 17ppg on 51% TS to 20ppg on 55% TS. The system had not changed Dantoni was still coach the increase in production is mostly thanks to Nash. Notice how EVERY SINGLE player that joins the Suns sees their efficiency shoot up and every player that leaves the Suns sees their efficiency drop through a hole even post Dantoni.

In short:the Suns improve by 31 wins and Nash is the only new guy in town.

2006
Amare is out for the year. Joe Johnson is gone. The only real contributors from last year left are Nash and Marion. Everyone expects the Suns to do terribly compared to their former selves. This doesnt happen. Despite losing two of their most important players Phoenix still wins 54 games and goes from 1st offense in the league to 2nd and 17th defense in the league to 16th(contrary to popular belief these suns teams were ok at defense). Johnson is replaced by Raja Bell (good player but in no way comparable) and Amare is replaced by Diaw (who went from playing 18 minutes a game as a forward in atlanta to 36 minutes a game as our starting center).

So the question is how are the Suns still a top 2 offensive team without 2 of their top 3 scorers? And who is responsible for all these wins? The answer is pretty clearly Nash. Marion obviously contributes a lot but he is a player who relies completely on the creation of others for scoring since he can only finish and having Nash create for him is his ideal situation. We have seen how Marion's offense dropped radically once he left Phoenix (even within the same year playing in Miami and one year of aging does not explain a decline that radical). Diaw has a career year (which happens to a lot of players who play next to Nash) but career year for Diaw is 13/7. Name one other player who takes Marion+roleplayers and makes them contenders. Im sure you can name a few and I bet they are all MVP canidates.

The Suns manage to make the semi-finals and lose in 6 games. Nash claims the vast majority of the success of a team which was composed of two all-stars and minor pieces other teams didnt see much value in. This team was about as far from stacked as you can get and still go 6 games into the semi-finals.



Saying there was another player that year that had a good argument for MVP isnt wrong at all but saying Nash didnt deserve either of these MVPs at all is ridiculous and based on nothing but a perception that has no grounding in reality. Nash made the Suns into winners both years. In 2005 he improved the efficiency of all the players on the team and added 31 wins. In 2006 he managed to take a team that had only one other serious contributor and make them into a contender. Nash deserved his MVPs and doesnt deserve the blind uninformed criticism he often receives.

[bastillon]

http://www.82games.com/pelton15.htm

I'm writing another post so this article doesn't get overlooked among Jimmy's great post. this really shows the value of Steve Nash. this is a must-read for any basketball fan who considers himself well-informed.

[NO-KG-AI]

Pierce and Allen were better than Manu/Parker in their prime, but I'd take Manu and Parker in 05 and 07 EASILY over Ray/Pierce in the 08 playoffs. Ray was bad to the point of almost being a negative in the first 3 rounds, and Pierce was even more inconsistent than Manu.

Not that it isn't a strong supporting cast, but I shudder when I think about how utterly dominant that team would have been with a 27 year old KG and not a 32 year old one. Arguably the greatest defense of all time gets even better, and the athleticism he brings on both ends pushes them close to 70 games IMO, especially when you consider he'd be playing a lot more than 32 minutes.

I hear what tsherkin was saying, but Bastillon does have a point IMO, it was always an "Excuse" when we said KG lacked the supporting cast, but now it becomes a legit concern when Garnett has an (arguably) better team?

[mysticbb]

http://www.82games.com/pelton15.htm

I'm writing another post so this article doesn't get overlooked among Jimmy's great post. this really shows the value of Steve Nash. this is a must-read for any basketball fan who considers himself well-informed.

I just want to 2nd that, especially for those who consider Amare Stoudemire ahead of Nash just because of boxscore stats. My question to those would be again: Do you consider David Lee a Top5 candidate for 2010? (Even though David Lee is the better rebounder after all).

[bastillon]

Wolves "disappointing" in 2005:

Spurs, Pistons, Heat, Suns, etc. were much better than Wolves, so its hard to imagine any "expert" picking up Wolves, even their fans didnt believed in it.

ESPN is taking time but I found the SI NBA Preview for 2004-2005, and I am browsing through to find the championship predictions

Here is the links for the table of contents: http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/ ... /index.htm

Here is the Twolves link: http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/ ... /index.htm,

Predicted Record 58-24, first in the west, but they did predict them to lose in the conference finals, so at least for SI they may not have been the favorites but they were a major contender and not much worse than the teams you stated
Spurs: 57-25
Pistons: 54-28
Suns: 29-53
Heat: Couldn't find their preview it may behind the wall, but they were predicted to finish with the third best record in the east.

Interesting, even though SI ranked Wolves quite highly, I dont remember seeing this way. Team wasnt good at all, outside KG you had Wally, 34 yrs old Sprewell, and 35 yrs Cassel. Not the worst team, but nothing to write home about

Going into 04-05 I expected the Wolves to challenge for the title. In hindsight, it's easy to see why they didn't.

Much of my expectation was predicated upon having a full speed Sam Cassell back. Despite the "Big 3" hype, it was really Cassell that provided the primary support for KG during '03-04. Having a hobbling Cassell going at 75% in 04-05 is a huge difference. Basically the difference between an All Star and a below average back-up PG. In fact, Troy Hudson played more minutes at PG for the Wolves than Cassell that year on his glass ankle. Then, compound that with the fact that both "PGs" were redundant: injury-hobbled chuckers that had financial motivations to perform counter to the team and physically could not even play the poor defense that they were known for and instead went into something...else. I'll let Dan Rosenbaum describe the starting point guard for the Wolves that season:

"Troy Hudson probably gets the award for the being the worst defender in the league. He is dead last among point guards in both the statistical and adjusted plus/minus ratings and his adjusted plus/minus ratings are consistently horrible. He is playing a game on the defensive end that is not remotely like anyone else’s in the league. "

Outside of the hobbled chuckster/no-defense PGs, a second major factor was that Sprewell at age 35 was done. He wasn't nearly as good as his name would have suggested in '03-04, but at least he had enough in the tank to show up on occasion and play passable defense. In '05 he was cooked, in the midst of his last (and by far worst) season of his career despite theoretically playing to get a new contract.

A third major factor was that with Wally/Olowokandi/Hudson back available to play, the Wolves' coaches decided to give that crew major PT thus relegating the more effective role players (Hassell, Hoiberg, Big Erv, Madsen) of '03-04 to smaller roles.

Cutting short what could be a long rant, the Wolves were essentially KG, 5 offensive-minded injury (or age)-hobbled chuckers that played no defense, and several potentially effective role players that were not given an effective role. It was an ugly, ugly season. And in hindsight, the reasons for it are abundantly clear.

[bastillon]

some more thoughts about Nash:

-he turned the Suns into TOP5 offense of all-time while the team added no other significant player/part of the team.
-Suns were predicted to win 29 games... TWENTY NINE GAMES. wow. they won 60+.
-he led the league in +/-
-30/12/7 series against the Mavs with JJ having eye surgery in the middle of the playoffs ... this is Jordanesque, willing his team to the next round
-Suns went 2-5 without Nash in 2005

also, I second Doctor MJ's post about Ginobili. I think he's one of the most underrated players in the last decade. when you're TOP20 all-time in playoff WS48 it means you're pretty good. after Manu torched the Suns in the last game I went through some numbers and what striked me is how dominant Manu looked in advanced stats. the guy is notoriously overlooked in Spurs success. I believe there was some idiot on this board arguing that Manu isn't all-star caliber player. anyone who believes that, I dare you to watch him play in this year's playoffs and just acknowledge how wrong you are. I think Manu was more essential to Spurs success in 2005 than Tim. there's no way they can get past the Suns without him, much less compete (not even win but compete) with Pistons. Manu dominated against the Pistons with Wade-like style.

[bastillon]

some more thoughts on 2004 Suns so that we can put his 2005 season into context:

if you think 20/9 sophomore who can't pass, is a turnover prone, can't play defense or score very efficiently is somehow on his way to become a great player, then you don't know anything about basketball and rate players by points. I bet you think Allen Iverson deserved his MVP also Amare was NOWHERE near becoming a great player without Nash. yes, he could score, but without Nash his scoring isn't nearly as valuable because his efficiency isn't that impressive. Amare was limited player in terms of 1 on 1 skills and that's the only area where his game is somewhat good. outside of scoring, he's poor rebounder, extremely poor defender, can't pass, turnover prone, foul prone. how is that anything anywhere close great ?

Marion was a guy who couldn't create in 1 on 1 situations, more of a hustle player than star, his scoring efficiency is way below league average without Nash. I mean there's no way you can consider him a great player. if he's a great player, then Millsap is a great player too.

Joe Johnson ? yeah, he was on his way, but it took him several years before he got there. you know, before Atlanta has seen some success, JJ 'led' them to 26W in '06, 30W in '07, 37W in '08. do you really think he was a great player even before that period ?

the fact is that Joe was gradually improving, but before Nash came in to play with him, he was average player. bad scorer, especially in terms of percentages, okay playmaker, very good rebounder - certainly not a great player.

Code: Select all

          PPG   FG%   3p%   TS%   TOV   ORtg
JJ       13.6  41.8  33.1  48.1   1.9     99

so the Suns 2005 consisted of
-good scorer who couldn't do ANYTHING else, Amare
-great hustle player, who couldn't create shots for himself or his teammates and was a bad scorer in terms of efficiency
-average guy who was on his way to become a star player... about 3 or 4 years later...

the same 'big three' was playing in 2004 and they were all healthy throughout the last 31 games(Marion missed 1 game in that stretch). guess what their record was... you'd think 3 great players playing together on the same team... that's most likely a playoff team or even borderline contender. lemme tell you something - these 3 'great' players, as you called them, led the Suns to 11-20 record. that's on pace for 29 wins for the season.

remember... all healthy throughout the last 31 games (with the exception of Marion who missed 1 game)... all great players according to you... despite the numbers say something VERY far from your theory... and led the Suns to 11 wins out of 31 games.

do you wanna reconsider your statement ?

[sp6r=underrated]

2005 is a fun season to discuss, because you can argue for several players. 2004 should be a race for 2nd behind KG.

[bastillon]

2005 is a fun season to discuss, because you can argue for several players. 2004 should be a race for 2nd behind KG.

several ? name 5 players TOP1 worthy.

[sp6r=underrated]

2005 is a fun season to discuss, because you can argue for several players. 2004 should be a race for 2nd behind KG.

several ? name 5 players TOP1 worthy.

You at least have three candidates in KG, TD, and Nash, which is two more than you have in 2004. 2006, was a pretty strange year, in most season 3 players is all you have.

[tclg]

Im not voting but to me this is nash, he was just amazing this year and he really dominated .

[Silver Bullet]

Right off the top - my vote will be for Nash.

It's really the other 4 spots as far as I'm concerned.

[bastillon]

Right off the top - my vote will be for Nash.

It's really the other 4 spots as far as I'm concerned.

my feeling as well. pretty much transformed the Suns the same way Garnett did with the 2008 Celtics. the reason why they lost has nothing to do with him as he was dominating against the Spurs. I'm actually thinking about putting Manu in the TOP3. Wade was injured in the playoffs which is to me damning, Shaq was subpar in the playoffs, Duncan missed games with that injury + got severely outplayed in the finals by Manu and Garnett gets my automatic ejection because his team didn't make the playoffs (and while this is a contradiction to my feeling, because I think he was a contender for TOP1; I just decided before that I'll not consider players who didn't make the playoffs and this goes for all seasons), Kobe didn't make the playoffs etc.

Nash is a legit candidate, but there are no other players without significant flaws by my "formula".

[drza]

My vote:

1. Nash
2. Dirk
3. Duncan
4. Wade
5. Garnett

The one year I have Nash at #1, and it's really a landslide for me. Dirk's #2 and he's clearly not as good as he was the next where I rated him at 4. I feel like everything's already been said, but just to bullet point it:

-Comes to Phoenix, and totally turns around the team.
-When he gets hurt, the team falls apart again.
-Pushes the offense to all-time great levels out from nowhere. In the half decade before Phoenix had Kidd and Marbury at their peak, and the best offensive rating they had managed was 104.6, and with Nash they immediately jump up to 114.5. Completely insane that he was able to surpass them like that.

-He does this as a distributor always looking to get others there shot, but come crunch time he becomes a volume scorer and the #1 option. According to 82games, in the clutch (games within 5, last 5 minutes) he has the highest PER in the whole league with a value of 55.1.

-Then in the playoffs he has answers more questions. Despite a missing Joe Johnson and a choking Shawn Marion, he leads them past an excellent Dallas team going for 30/6/12 on 64 TS%. He continues to perform ridiculously well only losing to the eventual champion Spurs - who it should be noted beat the Suns in both regular season matchups in which Duncan played, so this was by no means an underperformance by the Suns.

Doctor MJ, I've been waiting for this post for awhile because I wanted to spark a discussion with you. To me, the parallels between Nash to Phoenix in '04-05 and KG to Boston in '07-08 are in many ways eerie. In fact, I could re-write your bullet points above almost verbatim if I replaced 'Nash' with 'KG' and 'offense' with 'defense'.

If I try to look at it objectively, this is how the comp between '05 Nash and '08 KG looks to me:

-Situation. The year before Nash, the Suns' "big 3" entering the season were Marbury, Marion and Amare. 2 of those 3 missed a large chunk of Suns games, though, leaving Marion often as the lone soldier on a terrible team. For '05, Nash was added and Amare got healthy next to Marion.

The year before KG, the Celtics "big 3" were Pierce, Jefferson, and nobody. Pierce missed a large part of the year, leaving Jefferson often as the lone soldier on a terrible team. For '05 KG was added, and Ray Allen replaced Jefferson next to Pierce.

In both situations the addition of the MVP candidate and return to health of a previous stalwart triggered one of the biggest turnarounds in NBA history, with the Suns winning 33 more games and the Celtics winning 42 more.

-Impact. Nash led a huge turnaround on offense, forging those Suns into one of the greatest offenses of All-time under the guidance of a talented offensive-minded coach (D'Antoni). KG led a huge turnaround on defense, forging those Celtics into one of the greatest defenses of All-time under the guidance of a talented defensive assistant coach (Thibideau).

-Diverse abilities. For Nash here, I'm going to use your description verbatim: -He (Nash) does this as a distributor always looking to get others there shot, but come crunch time he becomes a volume scorer and the #1 option. According to 82games, in the clutch (games within 5, last 5 minutes) he has the highest PER in the whole league with a value of 55.1.

KG does this as a defender always looking to forge his teammates into the best defensive unit possible, but once the playoffs came around he became a volume scorer and the #1 option. Outside of the obvious leading his own team in scoring, 4th quarter scoring, crunch-time shots made (82games.com), and hitting the only postseason game-winner for the Celts he also has the most win shares in the whole league for the postseason.

-Team without MVP: The '05 Suns went 2 - 5 without Nash. They were 1 - 0 against the lottery team they played (the 37 - 45 Clips), and 1 - 5 against playoff teams.

The '08 Celtics went 9 - 2 without KG. They were 7 - 0 against lottery teams (average record 25 - 57, none better than 36 wins), and 2 - 2 against playoff teams.

-Stats. Both had great stats and played a similar number of minutes, but KG measured out better in PER, Win Shares, and APM in the regular season. Nash edged him in postseason PER, but KG again measures better in win shares and throttles him in on-court/off-court +/- (+17.8 vs +6.2, 82games.com, in the absence of postseason APM).

-Competition: I think '05 Duncan, KG, Shaq, Dirk are similar in caliber to '08 Kobe, LeBron, Paul, etc.

Thus far, in almost every way it seems that '05 Nash and '08 KG had a lot of similarities, though on the whole '08 KG tended to measure out slightly better as an individual and the '08 Celtics achieved slightly better success than the '05 Suns. The only place where I can see Nash having any advantage is how the team performed when the MVPs were out, but in that somewhat small sample size the biggest difference to me seems to be the quality of the opponent.

I'm sure you've figured out now where I'm going with this, but primarily I'm interested in your response. You voted Nash #1 "in a landslide", but you voted KG #4 against, as I pointed out, relatively similar caliber competition. Is that difference in your voting tied entirely into the Nash-less Suns playing 6/7 playoff teams while the KG-less Celtics played 7 super-scrubs? Is it just a case where your impressions are deeply enough seated that you really can't be convinced otherwise? Or would you disagree with my comparison above between the two, and if so, where? This obviously won't change anyone's vote, and the '08 thread is over anyway, I'm more curious as to your thought process, and whether the info/discussion found in these threads have any power to sway you or whether you're pretty set already based upon your previous thoughts.

[bastillon]

this has probably something to do with the fact that Suns were just terrible outside of Nash which was visibly seen to anyone watching Suns games. they were 10-21 with Amare-Marion-JJ-Barbosa-D'Antoni core the year before. I don't have to tell you how much this differs from 65W pace that Nash's team had while he was playing. this assumption that Suns were any competitive team without Nash is just provably wrong. you're better than that drza.

though it IS confusing if you look at Dr MJ's line of thought so I get where you're coming from... just slightly wrong approach IMO.

[Gongxi]

gonxi (I believe) made a provably incorrect statement about Nash. he argued that Steve wasn't the reason why they improved, because it was health. when Suns were healthy (Barbosa-JJ-Marion-Amare all playing) in the last 31 games of the 2004 season, they were abysmal 10-21.

I wonder if there was a midseason trade that totally changed the chemistry of the team, too?

If you're going to say something 'provably incorrect', you should probably, ya know, prove it incorrect.

[drza]

this has probably something to do with the fact that Suns were just terrible outside of Nash which was visibly seen to anyone watching Suns games. they were 10-21 with Amare-Marion-JJ-Barbosa-D'Antoni core the year before. I don't have to tell you how much this differs from 65W pace that Nash's team had while he was playing. this assumption that Suns were any competitive team without Nash is just provably wrong. you're better than that drza.

though it IS confusing if you look at Dr MJ's line of thought so I get where you're coming from... just slightly wrong approach IMO.

Same situation. The Celtics before KG were visibly terrible as well, with a terrible record even with the Pierce/Rondo/Perk/Doc core the year before. I don't have to tell you how much this differs from the 66 wins that KG's team had while he was playing. This assumption that the Celtics were any good without KG is just provably wrong. You're better than to misread my post like that, Bastillion.

As for your second paragraph...I agree. And that was the point I was trying to make. To me there were an awful lost of similarities between Nash to Phoenix and KG to Boston, and clearly he didn't agree. I'm not even trying to derail this into a KG '08 vs Nash '05 tangent, as most of the things that I put up were essentially to support my notion that the two players/situations were similar. I was simply trying to spark a conversation with Doctor MJ about where he saw the difference in something that seemed so similar to me. It wasn't worth you calling me out like that IMO.

[Silver Bullet]

Can someone remind me if the know off the top of thier head -

what changes did the Suns make, other than Nash ?