Retro POY '04-05 (Voting Complete)

[bastillon]

They didn't even know each other! 26 different starting lineups. Their best player traded midseason. Amare is an injured rookie.

uhmm they played with basically the same starting line-up in that 31-game span and Amare was healthy throughout. playing against slightly above average teams isn't much of an excuse when you're just being raped by the other team. it would mean something if Suns played slightly worse but they were just awful when Nash wasn't playing. this is no surprise to anyone actually paying attention to Suns games so I'm just assuming that you never did. I mean... you actually compared Nash to Luol Deng which is nothing short of idiotic statement.

So you're saying these stats saying Nash being on the court helped the Suns' defense are relevant? Do you think Nash helped the Suns' defense?

if you actually forced yourself to think, you'd notice that these stats show Suns defense being worse with Nash, but it's the offense where he had monstrous impact. I guess your capacity is below that so next time I'll interpret stats for you so you don't have to think at all.

so I wonder what excuse you're gonna come up with this time.

Look, apparently I stumbled into somehow insulting your sacred cow and for that I'm sorry. But just because you want something to be so doesn't make it so.

I doesn't have anything to do with Nash being one of my favorite players. I'm simply pointing out abundantly clear flaws in your reasoning. if you at least gave a good argument for those players ahead of Nash, I'm fine with that. after all, being TOP5 player is no small feat to achieve. what makes me angry is when I read that factually false crap about injuries and stuff.

I mean... you made an attempt to diminish Nash's impact based on the assertion that Marbury significantly helped Suns' chemistry... it doesn't go any dumber than that, seriously.

[bastillon]

Good posts on Nash as well. This is going to be a tougher decision than I thought.

A question: How do some of you reconcile Nash's defense in the whole equation? Bastillon basically disregarded Kobe as a viable option during the 06 thread, I believe, based on his lackluster defense. Shouldn't that same standard apply to Steve, then?

Perhaps he was THAT good on offense, and made that much of a difference. It just seems like a bit of a double standard to me.

Kobe's defense was really bad though, he managed to be -6 in defensive +/-, an overwhelming number that I've never seen before. Nash was at least -2 which isn't really that bad considering his reputation. Kobe's team was just WAY better defensively without him which striked me at first.

but well, that wasn't the reason Kobe was lower, it was because of his mediocre postseason. I didn't feel like he was doing enough.

[Jimmy76]

know im not part of this but spare me this one comment to help Nash (as I am prone to do)

24/11/5 playing 41 minutes a game shooting 60.5 TS% (52/39/92) in the playoffs (15 games) was probably the best statistical period he ever had so unless you just consider him a mediocre PG despite all the accolades, stats, and obvious contributions to team wins this is where you credit Nash

this is the absolute peak of an MVP player

[bastillon]

know im not part of this but spare me this one comment to help Nash (as I am prone to do)

24/11/5 playing 41 minutes a game shooting 60.5 TS% (52/39/92) in the playoffs (15 games) was probably the best statistical period he ever had so unless you just consider him a mediocre PG despite all the accolades, stats, and obvious contributions to team wins this is where you credit Nash

this is the absolute peak of an MVP player

and it's still misrepresented because he coasted during Grizzlies sweep. he went on a tear vs Mavs and Spurs.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... s_playoffs

Code: Select all

                         PPG   TS%   APG   TOV   RPG   BPG   SPG
vs Spurs/Mavs combined  27.1  0.61  11.4   4.9   5.3   0.3   1.1

[Silver Bullet]

Where's the legendary Jimmy 76 post on Nash 05 and 06 -

[ElGee]

They didn't even know each other! 26 different starting lineups. Their best player traded midseason. Amare is an injured rookie.

uhmm they played with basically the same starting line-up in that 31-game span and Amare was healthy throughout. playing against slightly above average teams isn't much of an excuse when you're just being raped by the other team. it would mean something if Suns played slightly worse but they were just awful when Nash wasn't playing. this is no surprise to anyone actually paying attention to Suns games so I'm just assuming that you never did. I mean... you actually compared Nash to Luol Deng which is nothing short of idiotic statement.

So you're saying these stats saying Nash being on the court helped the Suns' defense are relevant? Do you think Nash helped the Suns' defense?

if you actually forced yourself to think, you'd notice that these stats show Suns defense being worse with Nash, but it's the offense where he had monstrous impact. I guess your capacity is below that so next time I'll interpret stats for you so you don't have to think at all.

so I wonder what excuse you're gonna come up with this time.

Look, apparently I stumbled into somehow insulting your sacred cow and for that I'm sorry. But just because you want something to be so doesn't make it so.

I doesn't have anything to do with Nash being one of my favorite players. I'm simply pointing out abundantly clear flaws in your reasoning. if you at least gave a good argument for those players ahead of Nash, I'm fine with that. after all, being TOP5 player is no small feat to achieve. what makes me angry is when I read that factually false crap about injuries and stuff.

I mean... you made an attempt to diminish Nash's impact based on the assertion that Marbury significantly helped Suns' chemistry... it doesn't go any dumber than that, seriously.

You have a language barrier. I'm fairly certain gongxi did not say any of what you think he said.

[Doctor MJ]

Another huge change between 03-04 Suns and 04-05: NBA hand-check rules.

How would you say that affects this discussion?

[bastillon]

Where's the legendary Jimmy 76 post on Nash 05 and 06 -

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.

DONT BOTHER RESPONDING IF YOU DONT READ THE POST

and those who do read it please tell me your thoughts

didn't I post it earlier ?

[Doctor MJ]

Glancing at people's lists so far.....Tracy McGrady is getting a little underrated imo.


I don't understand how Duncan vs. Ginobili is a legit debate.

I remember watching those finals. I hated the Pistons at the time and wanted SA to win badly. Throughout most of the series, I thought Manu should have been finals MVP. However, I wasn't a Duncan fan at the time.

Then gm 7 happened, and I had to recognize that Tim Duncan was a truly remarkable player with an effect on the game that few in history have. I admitted that as I disliked Duncan then, I feel that more strongly about it now as I admire Duncan's play. IIRC, his play in the 3rd qt of that game brought his team back into it, because DET was starting to pull away. In the 4th quarter, it was his passing that that allowed the perimeter guys to hit crucial threes. His D was integral as well.

Duncan took an uncharacteristic 27 shots that night, making ten of them. It was a game seven in the finals. Against the nasty defensive frontcourt of Ben and Rasheed, in a slow-paced, defensive series, Duncan took it upon himself to get his team the win. He knew it was on him. He had the balls to say "give me the **** ball."

TMACFORMVP and I were discussing Duncan's gm 7. He said something to the effect of "Manu had a more efficient gm 7 with his scoring, but DET scored 74 points and shot 42%. Manu is a good defender, but DET sure as hell didn't struggle that much because of him." No, no they didn't.

I respect Manu's game alot and think he is generally underrated. But...there is no question who the man on that 05 team was. No question.

So first off, Duncan won the Finals MVP 6 votes to 4 over Ginobili, and those votes are way predisposed to select the established star. I'm not making up the debate, it existed. Also remember that in '04-05 Ginobili was just coming off leading Argentina to the Gold medal (not saying you should factor that in to the accomplishments, just want to make people remember how much more highly Ginobili was thought of in '05 than he is now).

As someone else mentioned, I don't know how you can look at 27 shots from Duncan as a good thing when he only scored 25 points. Meanwhile Ginobili scored 23 points on half the shots. Saying "Give me the ball" is only a good thing when you can score and the other guy can't. Otherwise it's foolish hubris.

[bastillon]

Elgee, I'm trying to behave nicely in this project but at some point I will go off, like everyone.

he said that Nash doesn't deserve TOP5 status and it's no shame because Luol Deng doesn't either. he strongly implied that their situations are in any way, shape or form comparable... and this is ridiculous.

he also said the reason Suns were so bad was that lack of Marbury ruined their chemistry. basketball demands an apology.

[Doctor MJ]

Oh yeah, and Dr. MJ, full disclosure: I don't plan to vote Nash first in '05 either. Some of that is my impressions/beliefs on the better players, some of it is that I do value the advanced stats, and I'm sure there are other factors as well. Again, I don't expect that either of us will completely change our thought processes with this side conversation. I'm merely interested in finding out where it is that we do diverge, from your POV. And I will admit that at this very moment, after following your post and then relating Nash's 05 to KG's '08, I am seeing '05 Nash in a more positive light than I ever have before and am considering moving him up my rankings. Not to first, but considering he was battling for 5th on my sheet when we began this year I see that as a significant change based primarily on the discussions here.

Full disclosure appreciated but not needed. Like you, I've thought enough about this stuff I don't change my mind that often. I certainly hope that people don't consider it a waste of time discussing with me if they don't manage to swing my vote.

[Gongxi]

I mean... you made an attempt to diminish Nash's impact based on the assertion that Marbury significantly helped Suns' chemistry... it doesn't go any dumber than that, seriously.

LOL Where did I say that? Where did I compare him to Deng? Jesus, all these 'provably incorrect' statements.

Your argument for Nash is piss poor, dude. He's a great player and he was a great player then. But he's not a clear cut top 5 player unless you're conflating individual production with team success. Apparently, you just want to be a Nash cheerleader- your outrageously emotional response exhibits this well- and that's fine, but don't pretend to be anything else.

[ElGee]

Good posts on Nash as well. This is going to be a tougher decision than I thought.

A question: How do some of you reconcile Nash's defense in the whole equation? Bastillon basically disregarded Kobe as a viable option during the 06 thread, I believe, based on his lackluster defense. Shouldn't that same standard apply to Steve, then?

Perhaps he was THAT good on offense, and made that much of a difference. It just seems like a bit of a double standard to me.

Sedale - I'll give my take.

Bigs are involved in guarding significantly more shots than wings. They also are around the basket and grab more rebounds (the end of a defensive sequence). Their defensive impact is large, either positive or negative.

WIngs typically have a medium defensive impact, negative or positive. They close out on open shooters, but with the exception of a few I've never really seen this make a huge difference (open NBA shooters are used to having 6-5 guys running toward them while they shoot). They rebound better than point guards, and especially in recent years, often matchup with volume perimeter scorers, many of whom are one-on-one oriented. Having a defender to minimize the effect of those players has value, but none of them are remotely good enough to "shut down" the one-on-one volume scorers anyway.

Point guards have the smallest defensive impact, negative or positive. Especially in today's league, the job of a point guard is not to get blown by off the dribble. Blow-by's force defensive help which lead to open shots for teammates, and are in general extremely destructive defensive breakdowns (offensive efficiency spikes league-wide when someone is blown-by, which is like creating a 5-4 on powerplay). It's also worth noting a tremendous number of point guards run heavy pick and roll action, and there aren't really many defensive points who disrupt this action. Thus, in the majority of their defensive responsibilities, most points are similarly neutralized.

(Now, there's a lot of noise in on/off so I've never run the numbers on the whole league to see if the swings are smaller across these 3 positions. I certainly see it among the star players we look at in on/off data though...)

The point here is Nash's defense doesn't have much of an effect either way, and he is actually fairly good at staying in front of his man. He generates possessions by constantly being atop the league in charges taken. He's somewhat of a liability in a series where super-quick guards (Parker) or strong guards (Miller, Billups) can take advantage of him, but most point guards are subject to this anyway. A small argument could be made that Nash's constant pressure on the defense has a negative impact on the opponent's offense from unnaturally speeding them up; Players are worried about getting back on D, might be more fatigued than normal, etc.

Kobe's defense in the post-Shaq years has a slightly larger impact. First, he usually guards the weakest opposing wing, so his opportunity to provide positive value is limited. Second, he fell in love with "matador" defense in these years -- reaching around for a steal and being blown-by. He's been great at jumping passing lanes while he roams/cheats, but sometimes he buries himself in really bad places resulting in wide open scores for the opponent. We could give him a small boost for occasionally entering lockdown mode and providing some of that value that a good perimeter defender can.

I don't see these on/off numbers as surprising or varying much from observation, noting that there is probably a decent amount of noise/circumstance in the cited -6 for Kobe.

[ElGee]

Another huge change between 03-04 Suns and 04-05: NBA hand-check rules.

Excellent point -- to me this gave value to some perimeter players post 2004 that wasn't there before. I feel my like lists have been cluttered with them and I imagine there will be fewer pre-2004.

[Gongxi]

Another huge change between 03-04 Suns and 04-05: NBA hand-check rules.

How would you say that affects this discussion?

I think it makes both Nash and D'Antoni's system both much more effective than they were the previous year, which is yet another reason why the Suns record improved so much. It's not 99.999% Nash or anything of the like.

[Doctor MJ]

Good posts on Nash as well. This is going to be a tougher decision than I thought.

A question: How do some of you reconcile Nash's defense in the whole equation? Bastillon basically disregarded Kobe as a viable option during the 06 thread, I believe, based on his lackluster defense. Shouldn't that same standard apply to Steve, then?

Perhaps he was THAT good on offense, and made that much of a difference. It just seems like a bit of a double standard to me.

Well, first keep in mind I never wrote off Kobe due to bad defense. Someone else would have to address that part.

For me the clincher of Nash's status factoring in both offense and defense is the scoreboard. Obvious huge impact on Phoenix W-L, and consistent elite +/-. What thrust Nash into the MVP candidate spotlight really was that overall impact rather than people just being impressed by highlights and volume numbers. However bad he is on defense, his offense is evidently good enough to make up for it.

Beyond that, I think that people have a tendency to latch on to anecdotes to support their pre-existing opinion where there aren't good statistics. Does Nash sometimes get beat by his man? Yup. Does his man sometimes light up the score board? Yup. Important, and not good, but it's actually not that consistent. Ex: Many will tell you that the Spurs beat the Suns because Parker goes off on Nash, but that's really not the case.

I did an analysis a while back along these lines: People don't accept Nash's opponent-PER as a good metric because he guards the weaker guard. Okay, so one would think, that if guards really are going off on the Suns cause of Nash, we'd see a big number of guards going for big numbers, right? Well we don't (at least not '09-10, this was the year I ran it), among the elite dozen or so teams, Phoenix gave up less 25+ PPG guard scoring games than most. So how dramatic can Nash's negative effect on defense be?

And just to bring it back to the eyeball, when I watch Nash play D, I'm always amazed at how many smart plays he makes for "the worse defensive player ever". I've seen him clinch multiple games with smart charges and steals.

[Doctor MJ]

By the same token, Phoenix sans Nash won a game on the road against the 58-win Mavs, a better team than any that the Celtics beat even at home. In fact, the best team that Boston beat on the road was the 36-win Bobcats. And the Suns didn't even play anyone with fewer than 37 wins, teams against whom the Celtics went 7 - 0. :Shrugs: When taken in conjunction with all of the other factors (yes, including the big advantages Garnett had in both APM and postseason net +/-) I just don't buy that you can ignore the strength of schedule and sample size in concluding that Nash was more crucial to the team.

Point taken.

Other responses:

-True, Allen should not be minimized. Then again, Nash was added for nothing while KG came at the cost of Al Jefferson. It the context of player addition/subtractions, I think the loss of Jefferson shouldn't be minimzied either.

-I see your tanking argument. But again, the '08 Celtics improved by 9 more games than the '05 Suns. Even if you chalk up a handful of games to potential tank and another handful for if you believe Allen to be better than Jefferson, that still leaves about equivalent improvement to be attributed primarily to Nash and Garnett.

-I'm not sure that the Celtics' defensive improvement can't be tracked more closely to Garnett, but that ties into the difficulty in evaluating defense vs offense. I'll give you that. At the same time, I don't think you can ignore vice-versa that Garnett made a much bigger offensive impact for the Celtics than Nash did defensively for the Suns. Even if you believe Nash's offensive impact was larger than Garnett's defensive impact (debatable IMO, but I'll stipulate for now), Garnett was also the leading postseason scorer at every point in the game as well as a key frontcourt distributor on offense in addition to his runaway win as Defensive Player of the Year. Again, once factoring in the advanced stats (which admittedly I seem to value more than you do) I don't see the argument for Nash's individual impact overall being larger than Garnett's.

-We hashed out the postseason stuff in the '08 thread, so I guess that's just an 'agree-to-disagree' thing. If Garnett wasn't playing at an impact level as good as any in the NBA (including Kobe) in the postseason the Celtics never even make it to game 7 of the second round (since Pierce and Allen combined to average 13 points on 35% shooting in the first 6 games of that series). But again, I'll back away and just tip my hat to a difference in opinion.

-Re: competition, I do think Nash lucked out in the MVP voting because of perceived flaws in what (to me) should have been his competition. But the way I'm evaluating the POY contests, I certainly think there is quality here that competes well. I think '05 Duncan has a great case against '08 Kobe, that '05 Garnett has a great case against '08 LeBron, etc.

Thanks for your responses.

-Re: Gave up nothing for Nash. Well, they traded Marbury so they could acquire somebody big in the off-season. That somebody ended being Nash. It was effectively a trade between two of the top 5 point guards in the NBA, which just happened to result in the offense moving up from the lower 3rd of the NBA to one of the greatest ever. I don't think Garnett + Allen for essentially Al Jefferson & Jeff Green can be considered anywhere near as much of a talent-for-talent trade.

-Re: Tanking & equivalent lift. They didn't just add Allen, they got twice as much time from Pierce. As I said, a couple years before Pierce led his team to 45 wins with Ricky Davis as the second option. A re-energized Pierce & Allen probably do better than that.

-Re: Garnett on O > Nash on D. Point taken. My only response would be what I just posted about Nash's defense.

-Re: 05 vs 08 competition. Well, maybe agreed to disagree here too. You've probably seen my thoughts on '05 Duncan, and I rate 05 Garnett lower. To me, '08 Garnett was him at his most impressive in the years that followed his awesome '04.

[Doctor MJ]

Another huge change between 03-04 Suns and 04-05: NBA hand-check rules.

How would you say that affects this discussion?

I think it makes both Nash and D'Antoni's system both much more effective than they were the previous year, which is yet another reason why the Suns record improved so much. It's not 99.999% Nash or anything of the like.

Okay, I think I'm seeing at least part of what happened here. Someone said that the D'Antoni system was in place before Nash so Nash deserves the credit for it improving when he arrived.

My understanding is that's not accurate. The "7 seconds or less" system came out of D'Antoni seeing how Nash ran the offense in scrimmage. So I don't think you can say that the hand-check rule is relevant in judging how that offense works pre- and post- rule changes.

As far as the whole Nash vs D'Antoni thing, it's pretty clear how this should be judged. A zero-sum allocation of credit only makes sense when contributions occur simultaneously, which is not what happens here. The "System" isn't about a genius coach developing game by game strategies and unstoppable plays out of time outs. D'Antoni's genius was in recognizing what he had to begin with. Let me clear, I'm not diminishing D'Antoni's role - he recognized he had MVP level talent in a short white guy, no one else before him recognized that. Fantastic - but it doesn't diminish what Nash or other players do while playing for them because, as we've seen, D'Antoni can go coach another team, and Nash keeps leading all-time great level offenses.

Meanwhile of course, D'Antoni really hasn't been able to do anything in New York. If D'Antoni is able to lift one team up to 60+ wins, and not do anything with another team, it's obvious that it's all about the players.

[ElGee]

Doc - not to start a tangent, but I don't know how Marbury could be a top-5 point guard. He had a poor concept of basketball and I don't remember him orchestrating great offensives. I think he's what most call a ball-dominant "shoot-first" point guard.

Hasn't every point guard looked better after replacing Marbury? It's just not fair to act like Nash was replacing a top-5 PG.

[Gongxi]

Okay, I think I'm seeing at least part of what happened here. Someone said that the D'Antoni system was in place before Nash so Nash deserves the credit for it improving when he arrived.

My understanding is that's not accurate. The "7 seconds or less" system came out of D'Antoni seeing how Nash ran the offense in scrimmage. So I don't think you can say that the hand-check rule is relevant in judging how that offense works pre- and post- rule changes.

As far as the whole Nash vs D'Antoni thing, it's pretty clear how this should be judged. A zero-sum allocation of credit only makes sense when contributions occur simultaneously, which is not what happens here. The "System" isn't about a genius coach developing game by game strategies and unstoppable plays out of time outs. D'Antoni's genius was in recognizing what he had to begin with. Let me clear, I'm not diminishing D'Antoni's role - he recognized he had MVP level talent in a short white guy, no one else before him recognized that. Fantastic - but it doesn't diminish what Nash or other players do while playing for them because, as we've seen, D'Antoni can go coach another team, and Nash keeps leading all-time great level offenses.

Meanwhile of course, D'Antoni really hasn't been able to do anything in New York. If D'Antoni is able to lift one team up to 60+ wins, and not do anything with another team, it's obvious that it's all about the players.

If it's all about the players, it's "nothing" about the coach or the system and we both know that's false. What 'diminishes' Nash's role is the fact that he wasn't doing what he did in 04-05 the year before, when he wasn't in D'Antoni's system and when the new hand check rules weren't in effect. Or the overall health of the team. I mean, I actually don't think it diminishes his role at all, it just explains that he's not individually worth 33 wins in the same manner that the Bulls record from 93 to 94 doesn't mean Michael Jordan is only worth 2 wins. There's other factors there and to pretend there aren't is just silly.

ElGee- I don't know if you meant that Marbury question in a vague way or not, but for those observers who aren't aware, we're going to be talking about Jason Kidd a lot when it comes to the 2000-2001 season. Here's a PG that goes from one team to another. The new team sucks, and this PG leads it to a huge turnaround. Sound familiar? Who was the PG for the 'new' team the year before, when it sucked? Stephon Marbury. Coincidence? Or is losing Marbury addition by subtraction before you even get into who you're replacing him with?

And, in the case of the 04-05 Suns, before you get into new hand check rules, team health, the previous season's ROY's development, etc.