Retro POY '04-05 (Voting Complete)

[mysticbb]

Nash's Suns won 62 games, in the season before a very similar team won 29 games.

Oh, good you remind me that. Nash supporters often talk about that but it’s not true. First, many injuries. Second, 2004 Suns were without PG. They had Marbury for some time, but then their starting “point guard” was Barbosa who isn’t point guard at all… I mean, take away your starting PG from any team and all PG from the bench, let some undersized SG to be your playmaker and what you think results will be?

Marbury? The team was 12-22 with Marbury in 2003/04, was 44-37 in 2002/03, etc. You want to tell me that the 2005 Suns would have won 62 games with Marbury? Really? Do you believe that.

Look up how the Suns in 2004/05 performed with Nash and without Nash on the court. Seriously, just do it and explain me that Stephon Marbury could have done the same.

And what is odd about a player improving in his age? I already pointed out that Nash didn't play that many minutes before, I explained that he changed his offseason routine, I said that NAsh gained more confidence in making shots in the clutch. That is all to become a MVP candidate, if a player is already a All-NBA caliber player.

I still don't get what you find odd, if a player gets the MVP award in the season he deserved it instead of giving it to a player who doesn't deserve it, but was closer in a season before. Is the MVP award not for the specific regular season? Is that a lifetime achievement award? What is your freaking point?

[lorak]

Nash's Suns won 62 games, in the season before a very similar team won 29 games.

Oh, good you remind me that. Nash supporters often talk about that but it’s not true. First, many injuries. Second, 2004 Suns were without PG. They had Marbury for some time, but then their starting “point guard” was Barbosa who isn’t point guard at all… I mean, take away your starting PG from any team and all PG from the bench, let some undersized SG to be your playmaker and what you think results will be?

Marbury? The team was 12-22 with Marbury in 2003/04, was 44-37 in 2002/03, etc. You want to tell me that the 2005 Suns would have won 62 games with Marbury? Really? Do you believe that.

Look up how the Suns in 2004/05 performed with Nash and without Nash on the court. Seriously, just do it and explain me that Stephon Marbury could have done the same.

Umm, where I said that?

And what is odd about a player improving in his age? I already pointed out that Nash didn't play that many minutes before, I explained that he changed his offseason routine,

I can’t verify that routine thing, but minutes could be easily check. And in 2004 he played 33.5 MPG and 34.3 MPG in 2005, not much difference. Besides, not only his raw stats go up, but also advanced and shooting efficiency. And you know why that happened? Interesting article about Nash: http://www.82games.com/pelton15.htm
virtually every high scorer in the league was better in 2004-05 than 2003-04 because of the NBA's new interpretation of rules prohibiting handchecking. I recently wrote about this for SI.com,

[TrueLAfan]

First—everyone has got to be polite and respectful on here. Those of you reporting posts and users—please continue to do so. We’re at the no tolerance point now. Next person who gets out of line and gets reported is off RealGM for at least a week or two.

Steve Nash does have a peculiar career arc. I can’t think of many players who made the jump from being a top 10-15 player to a top 5 player at such a late age. But I think mysticbb's point is a sound one--it's not as though he came from nowhere. And I don’t think there’s some kind of “conspiracy theory!” about it or anything like that. If Nash was able to take advantage of the system he was placed in; hey, good for him. Magic Johnson did. John Stockton did. In this case, I think what Nash did was pretty obvious. That’s my opinion, that’s the opinion of people who watched at the time. I will say this; people are talking about Stoudemire; I think Amare would still be a really good player without Nash. But I think Nash helped. He helped Marion maintain his scoring while playing more low post and taking fewer shots. Joe Johnson’s efficiency went through the roof in 2005. The Suns were second in the league in FG% and first in eFG%; they started a second year C/PF who had never shot over 47%, a 4th year swingman who had never shot over 43%, a SF turned PF who ended with career highs in FG% and TS%, and a SG that was a career 42% FG shooter. Yes, some of the improvement was natural/gradual. But I think most people who watched felt that the guy that got those players to the levels they reached was Steve Nash. And I’m one of those people.

[mysticbb]

virtually every high scorer in the league was better in 2004-05 than 2003-04 because of the NBA's new interpretation of rules prohibiting handchecking. I recently wrote about this for SI.com,

And? What does that matter in a voting for the POY 04/05? Obviously that applied to every player. Thus even if you assume that Nash didn't do anything different, he was still better than other players, he still led his team to 62 wins that season, the Suns still played awful without him on the court. All what matters is the result in 2005. We are not comparing player x from 2004 with player y from 2005, we are comparing player x from 2005 with player y from 2005. Easy to understand.

In your opinion Nash's value increased because of the rule change. Well then, in that case there will be no problem in voting Nash not in the Top5 in prior seasons. I think I don't need to point out again that I disagree that the rule change was the only reason.

Btw, I said that he changed the routine to be better prepared for the playoffs. He couldn't keep up his level in the playoffs when he had to play more minutes. Since 2005 he can.

[Sedale Threatt]

Steve Nash does have a peculiar career arc. I can’t think of many players who made the jump from being a top 10-15 player to a top 5 player at such a late age.

I think Hollinger did a pretty expansive piece on this a few years back. Paraphrasing, no mid-sized guard in history has ever enjoyed the type of late-career blossoming he has.

Dallas let him go basically because they didn't want to commit a long-term contract to a guy they figured was on his last legs. To go from that to perennial MVP candidate, playing that position, is pretty much unheard of.

Phoenix's style of play obviously has a lot to do with that. But, as TLAF just point out, good for him. If it was THAT easy to do what he does, by simply implementing a system, then everyone would do it.

He's a phenomenally skilled player who deserves a ton of credit for what he's done. He's the one out there making the decisions, he's the one out there drilling shots at ridiculous rates, he's the one out there pulling everything together.

[sp6r=underrated]

A lot of Nash critics fault him for not being as good of a player in the Dallas system, and attack him for being a "system player."

There is a difference between a system player and a player who is not very versatile. A system player is someone who puts up numbers in a specific system that greatly overstates their value and could be replaced with someone else who would put up similar numbers. A player who is not very versatile, is someone who is dominate when they are allowed to play a certain way, but do not maintain the same level of impact in a different system. Nash is the later not the former.

Now if you think the style of play Nash has in Phoenix can't result in championships it is reasonable to knock him. But I see little evidence for that view.

[lorak]

virtually every high scorer in the league was better in 2004-05 than 2003-04 because of the NBA's new interpretation of rules prohibiting handchecking. I recently wrote about this for SI.com,

And? What does that matter in a voting for the POY 04/05? Obviously that applied to every player.

But Nash, Suns or in general players/teams offensive oriented gained the most. And o ne of the reasons people think Nash was so great in 2005 is that his shooting efficiency was so good and that Suns were so great offensive team.

I can’t think of many players who made the jump from being a top 10-15 player to a top 5 player at such a late age. .

In fact Nash was outside of top 15 in 2004 (MVP and All NBA Teams voting) or even outside of top 25-50 (advanced metrics).

[sp6r=underrated]

But Nash, Suns or in general players/teams offensive oriented gained the most. And o ne of the reasons people think Nash was so great in 2005 is that his shooting efficiency was so good and that Suns were so great offensive team.

I don't know if this point has been made because I haven't read through the entire thread.

I also don't understand why people care so much about the rule changes. I got news for you. The NBA rule book has never been static. Even during periods when the rule book hasn't been changed, how the game is called always changes over time. One example, there was a lot more contact allowed in the perimeter during the 90s than in the 80s.

Everyone is playing under the same rule book in a given season.

I see no reason to regard the current rules as so illegitimate that we have to evaluate how players would have performed under "Bad Boy-Riley Era Officiating," and take away from the effectiveness of the players who wouldn't perform as well in the "Riley Era." I'm going to pull a Warspite and engage in a little hyperbole Hey, let's evaluate players in 2005 in part by trying to figure out how they would have performed without a 24 second shot clock.

[Doctor MJ]

So you're saying you need to have a good point guard to run that system?

And please, if a 'system' can hold a guy back...yeah, he's probably not a transcendent superstar, and probably not the best player in the game for any given year (that's what we're voting on, right?). You guys seem to want to have your cake and eat it too with regards to Nash. I mean, we want him to be worth 30+ wins from one season to another, but...we don't want to look at the Mavs record after he left though, right? Somehow one is telling where the other is not.

My point is when his whole claim in this thing is the turnaround he worked with the Suns, things like prior seasons, the Mavs without him, team health, etc etc all get called into play. But it seems people only want to look to those things that favor him and ignore those that do not.

For me he's clearly an All-NBA player and probably the best PG of these mid 2000 years. But the best player in the game? No, not for me.

Ooh, okay some things.

Will you see Top 5 votings for Nash from me after this year? No. When I rank players in things like this, I go by the impact they actually had, not by what could have been.

Re: "The System". It's unfortunate that the term that gets used here is the same that gets used for "system quarterback". A "system" player is someone who is not as good as their stats indicate because they system inflates stats for anyone in that role. While the player's stats indicate one relative standing relative to an average player, he's actually far easier to replace.

Nash is not a system player. He didn't attention based primarily on gaudy box score numbers. He got attention because of how much better he made the team, and how obvious it was that he couldn't be replaced.

Re: "if a system can hold a guy back". As I said before, EVERY player in history can get held back by a coach. This isn't baseball (and it can even happen in baseball to a lesser degree), there's one ball that has to be shared among 5 guys, and building the team to maximize the impact of 1 player will hurt the other 4 to differing degrees. Now, if you're a superathletic, superpowerful 7-footer like Shaq, every coach who ever gets him is going to do something to maximize his impact. It's just so damn obvious how special a guy is. If you're a short, white guy with unreal talent between the ears, not so much.

Let's also remember that Nash wasn't playing 2nd fiddle to just any one. It was Dirk, someone who has been competing quite well here against the Kobes and LeBrons. So it's not like you can say that there was no major talent on the team and Nash still couldn't emerge at the top. Dirk was pegged as the future star of the franchise before Nash even arrived on the scene, and then proceeded to prove he was even better than that. Awfully hard to top that.

Okay last, re: "we don't want to look at the Mavs record after he left though, right?". Not really understanding how you don't understand this right now. I mean your entitled to your own opinion, that's fine, but you're coming back as if Nash supporters are refusing to look at stuff after these things have been talked about multiple times.

To answer the question in the terms of what I've already mentioned: Mavs, not built around Nash, he didn't have an MVP impact there, so no one should expect that they'd fall apart without him. They never relied on him enough for that to happen.

Now, say you accept that part but still don't understand how they actually improved without him. Understandable point. First, go look at Dirk and the Mavs over the previous two years before Nash left. Note that Dirk's scoring and the team's record went down in '03-04. Dallas in '04-05 still wasn't nearly as good as '02-03 (By SRS '02-03 was the best Dallas team of the decade), despite the fact that Dirk was clearly still improving significantly at that time, and they ditched Walker, and brought in some good fits (Terry, Dampier), so this wasn't the same old team minus Nash. You factor those things in, and it really doesn't make sense to say "I guess Nash was making the team worse". He was a help to the team, just not nearly MVP help.

[mysticbb]

But Nash, Suns or in general players/teams offensive oriented gained the most. And o ne of the reasons people think Nash was so great in 2005 is that his shooting efficiency was so good and that Suns were so great offensive team.

And that made him more valuable, in your opinion. Fine, in that case it is even more consistent to not put Nash into the Top5 in 2004 or before.

[sp6r=underrated]

You guys are overlooking a major factor that we have to determine in your votes for 2005 POY. How would these players have done if goal tending was legal, there was no three second rule, and the shot clock didn't exist?

[mysticbb]

Dallas in '04-05 still wasn't nearly as good as '02-03 (By SRS '02-03 was the best Dallas team of the decade), despite the fact that Dirk was clearly still improving significantly at that time, and they ditched Walker, and brought in some good fits (Terry, Dampier), so this wasn't the same old team minus Nash.

First: Great post!

Second: Ditching Walker was huge, he was the main reason for the bad defense of the Mavericks in 2003/04 and he hold their offense back by a lot. Adding Dampier was necessary to play Nowitzki back at the PF spot again.

[mysticbb]

You guys are overlooking a major factor that we have to determine in your votes for 2005 POY. How would these players have done if goal tending was legal, there was no three second rule, and the shot clock didn't exist?

Yeah, we really should put that into our thought process. Maybe we should also add an interesting discussion about how the players would perform in smaller shorts. Who knows, maybe the shorts helped someone more than another one.

[lorak]

Fine, lets go that way. On „Trades and Transactin Games” board we had 1995 NBA season done from the beginning, you know – all players from 1995 were drafted. So I wonder how that kind of draft would look if we do it for 2005 season. You guys would really pick Nash over Duncan, Garnett, Dirk or Shaq? Really, you think that team built around 2005 Nash would be better than built around 2005 KG? How it’s possible?

[Silver Bullet]

So are we gonna discuss ranks 2 to 5, or do you guys need more time -

[sp6r=underrated]

Really, you think that team built around 2005 Nash would be better than built around 2005 KG? How it’s possible?

We know it is possible, because it happened.

[Doctor MJ]

Fine, lets go that way. On „Trades and Transactin Games” board we had 1995 NBA season done from the beginning, you know – all players from 1995 were drafted. So I wonder how that kind of draft would look if we do it for 2005 season. You guys would really pick Nash over Duncan, Garnett, Dirk or Shaq? Really, you think that team built around 2005 Nash would be better than built around 2005 KG? How it’s possible?

I'm assuming you mean drafting 2005 players to play the 2005 season only? If so, then yeah, I'd pick Nash.

vs Duncan? Well I would have picked Duncan, but he gets hurt and then doesn't come back the same. This is why Duncan's not my #1. I mean, I had Duncan as my #1 in the MVP race during the season right up until that injury.

vs Dirk? I don't know how you watch the Suns vs Mavs series and conclude that Dirk is clearly the superior player. Nash went the Suns, raised them above the Mavs, and when they finally went head to head, he ran circles around his best bud.

vs Shaq? Shaq's not even in the conversation. By the time the playoffs came around he was significantly worse than season's start and could only played 33 MPG. Say what you want about the Suns resting Nash whenever possible, but come playoff time, the dude had no problem playing 40 minutes at incredibly high levels.

vs Garnett? Well, I'm not sure how to make my point here. It's become quite clear I don't think as highly of Garnett as a lot of people here do (I'm still in shock that Garnett was #1 in '09 and that Kobe's never going to be #1). With that said, Garnett really didn't play as well this year as in years previous. Yeah you can put some blame on Spree and Cassell, but Garnett was a +/- monster from '01-02 to '03-04 and this year he fell to just good. The vibe on the T-wolves this year was just nothing like what it was previously, or like Garnett's Celtics were like.

Now you might say based on the concept you're talking about: Well, yeah, but put some decent players with good attitudes with Garnett and that totally changes. And here's where I have to reject a little bit the premise - I mean, Kobe didn't fall off this year because he sucked all of a sudden, so am I supposed to rank him high on the POY because of how he might have played if no bad things happened? Well, it's a little unfair to even ask that since I came up with this project, and that's not how I want people to play it because MVP voters don't do it that way.

[lorak]

Really, you think that team built around 2005 Nash would be better than built around 2005 KG? How it’s possible?

We know it is possible, because it happened.

No, it didn’t. Doing 2005 season from the beginning with drafting 2005 players would create more balanced teams – and that’s the point. In real 2005 season KG had much worse supporting cast than Nash, but that doesn't mean KG was worse player.

[Silver Bullet]

Really, you think that team built around 2005 Nash would be better than built around 2005 KG? How it’s possible?

We know it is possible, because it happened.

No, it didn’t. Doing 2005 season from the beginning with drafting 2005 players would create more balanced teams – and that’s the point. In real 2005 season KG had much worse supporting cast than Nash.

How many all star point guards were at or near their peak in 2005 ?

[lorak]

How many all star point guards were at or near their peak in 2005 ?

Two - Nash and Billups. Maybe also Arenas? Iverson?