Isiah Thomas 1990 or Steve Nash 2006, who was better?

[Doctor MJ]

I don't think anyone is arguing that he's in the MJ-Bird-Magic-Kobe-Shaq tier of star talent. The fact that he did win twice, is pretty much the reason he's ahead of guys like Billups, Wilkens, Kevin Johnson, etc.

When people say Isiah is overrated, they aren't complaining about him being rated over the Billups of the world. They're talking about him being rated light years ahead of the Nashes and Dirks who got way more MVP-type love than Isiah.

Im constantly reading aboput how Isiah Thomas wasnt a star because he played on stacked teams. Theres more posters on RealGM who believe Dumars was a better player when the distance between them is as big as MJ and Pippen.

Im also constantly reading how the Bad Boys werent a very good title team because they didnt have any stars in there supporting cast.


Whats worse is that Bastllion will make the same 2 posts in the same thread. He will say that Isiah wasnt a star because he had such great teammates and that the team wasnt great because it had no great players in its supporting cast.

Im ok with either conclusion you want to draw

1. Isiah in a Hakeem type run took a collection of players and won a title without any allstar teammates.
2. The Bad Boys are one of the GOAT teams because they didnt have a superstar player and won anyway.

If you want to knock Isiah then knock him for losing to Birds Celtics in 87, getting injured in 88 and 91.If Isiah doesnt make that stupid pass the Pistons win the title in 87 and if hes not injured the Pistons win in 88 and 91 and have 5 titles. Its those 3 plays that seperate him from Magic, Bird and MJ. What would the detracters say then when Isiah has 5 rings Bird 3 Magic 3 and MJ 5??? The biggest differance between Isiah and Magic was that one could beat Bird and the other lost to him.

Either give Isiah his due or give credit to the Bad Boys as being one of the greatest teams of alltime.

Well, I think the confusion here is the lack of distinction between the Pistons as a whole, and the non-Isiah Pistons as a supporting cast. One can believe this was one of the great supporting casts of all time, and still not believe that the team was one of the all-time greats because of their lack of star.

If you're asking me what I think about how Detroit stacks up against the Lakers, Celtics, etc. Well the Pistons' best SRS was 6.24. By comparison, this would have been the 7th best SRS of the Showtime Lakers, the 7th best SRS of the Bird Celtics, and the 6th best SRS of the Jordan Bulls. Detroit did have a tendency to overachieve in the playoffs which is good and important, but acting as if it's pure luck why Boston, LA, and Chicago won more titles and made more finals is not right. No, I don't consider them to be a strong GOAT candidate team.

[bastillon]

and still every single one of them is better than Diaw and way better than Marion as any sort of offensive threat off the dribble. yeah I'd kill to see Isiah getting top-10 offense with Diaw as his low post scorer and Marion as his 2nd option. you know, Diaw, the same guy who was considered the worst starting PF in the league about a year ago (there was a long debate on rGM) and Marion, the guy who is a bench player and might just as well abandon his team during the playoffs because that's what his doing on the court, too.

[Doctor MJ]

Why does Isiah get though of that way when someone like Billups doesn't? 3 reasons come to mind:

1) He had some really big games. Reggie Miller has a similar phenomenon going.

2) His team didn't just win, they were a mini-dynasty beating some of the great teams in history just before or after their peak.

3) He was the established star, and something closer to a superstar-like dominator of the team earlier in his career.

Those are all legitimate reasons for putting Isiah over Billups. In regard to point three, I believe part of the reason for the perceived decline in Isiah's performance in the championship years was simply him taking a different role as the team developed around him. He didn't have to be THAT Isiah, nor should he have been. Dare I say it was more of a Nash-like role because the teams in his earlt years were a bit more like the teams Nash has played on. There was a strategic change in his role, not simply a matter of his skills declining. He was still fairly young in the title years.

I'll agree they aren't totally illegitimate, and I want to be clear I do consider Isiah ahead of Dumars.

Re: He didn't have to be THAT Isiah any more? Honestly, Isiah's role change isn't that clear to me, and I'd welcome more analysis on that. Typically when people refer to a guy taking on a less star-ish role because of increased talent around them, they're talking about about a large drop in shots attempted along with an increased efficiency. The player is basically not shooting the tough shots any more. Ray Allen dropped by 7.5 FGA for example when he went to Boston. Isiah had one year at 19 FGA, other than that his peak was 17.7. In '89-90 his FGA was 16.3. 1.4 FGA gap there. Very slight. His scoring drop off is more about him being MORE likely to take tough shots than before, i.e. lower efficiency.

[Jimmy76]

Who do you think is so special offensively among those Bad Boys? Laimbeer was a jump shooter, Vinnie a streak shooter that ran off screens, Dumars had a solid offensive game but didn't scare anybody with the ball in his hands. Aguirre is often overlooked but probably had the best offensive skill set of the bunch.

Its better than a pf who can shoot and finish but nothing else and an undersized center that can pass

It's laughably homerisitic or ignorant to think these casts are similar

Considering you said you'd take Dumars over Vince Carter I'm not sure how you justify it you can't overrated all these pistons players in one thread and talk them down in the next

Even if you buy similar offensive casts Nash got a much much better offense out of it

[Chicago76]

I would fundamentally disagree about the supporting cast on the Pistons. When you compare the supporting casts of Jordan, Bird, and Magic to Isiah's, Isiah's are fourth. It's fine to say they had a lot of "good players" but the best of those guys may have been in the top half dozen at their position. There was no Pippen, McHale, Parish, Worthy or Kareem type of guy. Whoever you think was second, compare them to other second bananas on title teams - they won't stack up that well.

From a raw ability standpoint, some of Nash's teams with Dirk has just as much talent. Nobody that played with Isiah had Dirk's ability. They didn't seem as good or deep as the Pistons simply because they folded in the playoffs. I'm reminded of the Seattle, Portland, and Sacramento teams we hear about being so talented but not winning it all. The difference between those teams and the Pistons was Isiah.

You need to look further than a two-star model that often wins championships, because again, that's not how the Pistons were built. Compare second (and first) bananas, and the Pistons don't stack up to those title teams. Compare players 3 through 9 and they're better than anyone but the 86 Celtics. But they didn't win their titles over the 86 Celtics. They beat them past their expiration date when they had a thin bench. You need to compare the Pistons not to the Bulls, Lakers, Celtics dynasties, but the teams the Pistons finally beat.

87/88 - they got by the Celtics after a near miss the year before. The Celtics still had their Bird-McHale-Chief-DJ core, but they were all over 30 and past it as a unit when they finally succumbed to the Pistons. They lost the next round to the Lakers, who had two legit stars in Magic + Worthy plus a 40 year old Kareem. Comparing both teams, the Pistons had the advantage in most spots on the court. Dantley = Worthy. Pistons interior > Lakers interior. Dumars a bit better than Scott. Cooper and Vinnie were effective in completely different ways. Magic obviously greater than Zeke.

88/89 - Beat Chicago in the ECF. Chicago had three great young pieces in Jordan, Pippen, and Grant, but the latter two were a year removed from their first season in the league. The rest of their roster was garbage with the possible exception of Cartwright. Beat LA, who was essentially the same team as the year before but a year older.

89/90 - Got past Chicago in 7. The Bulls trio needed one more year to mature. Remember, Pippen and Grant were only 24 and Jordan was 26. The prior year was their first deep playoff run.

All three of these teams were not the dynasties they once were/would become when Detroit plowed through them.

Since you brought up Portland, Sacramento, and Seattle: First, I know these teams are considered stacked, but remember how I could identify how the Pistons were in the top 25% of the league position-by-position during their runs? You can't necessarily say the same thing about these teams. That shows you how stacked Detroit was. Still, all three did have the tools to win it all, so why didn't they?

These teams usually ran into teams that were better than anyone Detroit beat en route to their titles. 2000-2002 Lakers, 2003 San Antonio, 1996 Bulls took away 5 chances between these three teams. Seattle had some other chances they inexplicably could not capitalize on, but their teams were not nearly as deep as Detroit, despite their solid talent level. Indiana is another example. 98-lose to Bulls in 7. 99-don't have their legs at the end of the year due to the compressed season 00-run into Shaq and Bryant. Any intangibles Zeke could bring wouldn't have made the difference on these teams. They were victims of bad timing.

[easiestplayfts]

If you understand intangibles, it's Isiah. The two championships were a crowning achievement of a career spent leading a team. .

Isiah wasn't leader of these championship teams.
And in terms of intangibles Nash > Isiah. Everybody wants to play with Nash, everybody is better playing with Nash.

You know Nash has NEVER been to an NBA finals? He's good in the regular season....but not when it counts the post season.

[Doctor MJ]

If you understand intangibles, it's Isiah. The two championships were a crowning achievement of a career spent leading a team. .

Isiah wasn't leader of these championship teams.
And in terms of intangibles Nash > Isiah. Everybody wants to play with Nash, everybody is better playing with Nash.

You know Nash has NEVER been to an NBA finals? He's good in the regular season....but not when it counts the post season.

You know there's actually no evidence of Nash doing worse in the post season.

[lorak]

Unfortunately there's such evidence:

Code: Select all

Nash
   PER   WS/48
RS   20.2   0.169
PS   19.9   0.135

Isiah
   PER   WS/48
RS   18.1   0.109
PS   19.8   0.143

[easiestplayfts]

Isiah wasn't leader of these championship teams.
And in terms of intangibles Nash > Isiah. Everybody wants to play with Nash, everybody is better playing with Nash.

You know Nash has NEVER been to an NBA finals? He's good in the regular season....but not when it counts the post season.

You know there's actually no evidence of Nash doing worse in the post season.

Ok let me ask you this ( and I value your opinion)....why hasn't Nash ever played in a championship game? Every other season MVP in the last 40 years has lead their team to the Finals at some point in their career (I posted this in another thread too).
http://www.nba.com/history/awards_mvp.html
Edit: Nash maybe the only MVP in NBA history not to play in a championship game.


Isiah has been to and won 2 NBA championships and a finals MVP thats what I'm using as evidence. He played a pivitol role in the Pistons winning it all as the piston's team captain... Individual stats are great but basketball is still a team sport.

[easiestplayfts]

Trivia

And when it comes to athleticism.
Isiah>>>>>>>>>>>Steve.

[Chicago76]

Unfortunately there's such evidence:

Code: Select all

Nash
   PER   WS/48
RS   20.2   0.169
PS   19.9   0.135

Isiah
   PER   WS/48
RS   18.1   0.109
PS   19.8   0.143

Not that it really changes what you've shown, but to be fair, Thomas' regular season stats are deflated as they include years at the front and back end of his career when Detroit didn't make the playoffs. An apples to apples comparison limiting this only to years when the Pistons made the playoffs closes the gap some. For even comparison, I eliminated Nash's first two years (years Thomas didn't make the post season), and limited his regular season only for years his team was in the playoffs from year 3 on. This shows Thomas not exceeding regular season as much and Nash's gap between ps and rs increasing:

Nash ps 20.1/0.137
Nash rs 21.7/.189

Thomas ps 19.8/0.143
Thomas rs 18.9/0.127

Not that you can perfectly compare Nash's ps numbers vs. Thomas' as they are in different years and league strength varies, but it is worth noting that the post season performance of both is essentially equal--maybe a slight Thomas advantage as his WS/48 advantage is a bit bigger relative to Nash's PER advantage. It's also worth noting that on average, everyone's stats decline in the regular season as playoff PER is still normalized to regular season rates of production. Better competition equals lower rates of production for everyone across the board. This makes Thomas' post season production relative to his regular season more impressive, but it also means that Nash didn't necessarily perform worse in the playoffs, relatively speaking. Taking to other guards who played between Thomas and Nash who most agree elevated their games in the post season: Jordan and Miller.

Jordan ps 28.7/0.257
Jordan rs 29.4/0.279

Miller ps 19.5/0.180
Miller rs 18.6/0.180

I think Jordan's numbers show everyone that even most "overperformers" in the playoffs will have lower numbers than their post season totals for the reasons I mentioned above. Nash's decline actually tracks the league average post season decline, so it's safe to say that relatively speaking, he has shown no post season decline. Miller's ps numbers kind of highlight the fact that although Thomas' postseason improvement was exceptional, his absolute production very good, but not necessarily great. Miller had some legendary moments in the playoffs, but his average production wasn't legendary. Nash/Thomas/Miller in the postseason are all pretty similar.

[hasslinghoff]

which reminds me of billups, who is constantly missing on all-time pg-lists...despite rocking most metrics and having great team success ( pretty much the same fate as ginobili ).

Code: Select all

ws/48 rs/po - since they have similar career-arcs...

nash    = 0.169
billups = 0.180

nash    = 0.135
billups = 0.194

roland rs(06-10)/po(06-09) - po10 still missing on 82games.com :/

nash    ~ 8.4
billups ~ 7.5

nash    ~ 8.9 (36gp)
billups ~ 9.7 (65gp)

[bastillon]

WS is dependant upon team results so if Suns were losing to Spurs Nash's results were worse. it's better to use +/- in this case and WS is probably worse than PER in this case. if you look at Nash's raw stats in the postseason there's really no way you can tell he declined so badly.

[Doctor MJ]

You know there's actually no evidence of Nash doing worse in the post season.

Ok let me ask you this ( and I value your opinion)....why hasn't Nash ever played in a championship game? Every other season MVP in the last 40 years has lead their team to the Finals at some point in their career (I posted this in another thread too).
http://www.nba.com/history/awards_mvp.html


Isiah has been to and won 2 NBA championships and a finals MVP thats what I'm using as evidence. He played a pivtol role in the Pistons winning it all as the piston's team captain... Individual stats are great but basketball is still a team sport.

Why hasn't Nash ever played a championship game when he has won the MVP? Well how about I paraphrase you: Individual impact is great but basketball is a team sport.

(I know, not a very helpful answer, but the idea that Nash has his reputation because of individual stats is just obviously wrong. He won those MVPs because of his perceived team impact.)

So here's the deal, Nash had been the star of 2 teams that had what it took to really challenge for the title: '05 Suns and '07 Suns. (His '06 year for example, no voter thought his team was going to win the title) In both of those seasons they lost to a team 1) led by a greater player than either Nash or Isiah, and 2) that had won the regular season matchup against the Suns. Add to that that in both those series the Suns weren't at their best (first time Johnson's injured and Marion goes walkabout, second time the suspension).

So basically, the case for the Suns being a playoff disappointment is based on two series where no one really considered the opponent to be an underdog. The case for Nash being a disappointment is based on even less. He actually played quite well in both of those series, and has played quite well in the playoffs generally - hence why stats like PER show him being comparable to Isiah despite taking on less of a scoring role (PER likes scorers).

[bastillon]

So here's the deal, Nash had been the star of 2 teams that had what it took to really challenge for the title: '05 Suns and '07 Suns. (His '06 year for example, no voter thought his team was going to win the title) In both of those seasons they lost to a team 1) led by a greater player than either Nash or Isiah, and 2) that had won the regular season matchup against the Suns. Add to that that in both those series the Suns weren't at their best (first time Johnson's injured and Marion goes walkabout, second time the suspension).

Marion sucks in the playoffs - check out his numbers w/o Nash in the PS.

[Doctor MJ]

Code: Select all

roland rs(06-10)/po(06-09) - po10 still missing on 82games.com :/

nash    ~ 8.4
billups ~ 7.5

nash    ~ 8.9 (36gp)
billups ~ 9.7 (65gp)

Hmm, not sure if you're using 82games' +/- or their Roland Rating. The former is definitely better, but still I'd prefer to use adjusted +/-.

Here's stats from Ilardi and basketballvalue.com:

From '03-04 to '08-09 regular & post-season combined (Ilardi did the combining):

Nash +6.52
Billups +4.42

'09-10 regular & post-season combined (not straight forward to combine with previous seasons):

Nash +15.62
Billups -6.67 (yes, that's a negative).

So we don't have RS vs PS data here, but just generally, Nash has a pretty major lead.

[Doctor MJ]

So here's the deal, Nash had been the star of 2 teams that had what it took to really challenge for the title: '05 Suns and '07 Suns. (His '06 year for example, no voter thought his team was going to win the title) In both of those seasons they lost to a team 1) led by a greater player than either Nash or Isiah, and 2) that had won the regular season matchup against the Suns. Add to that that in both those series the Suns weren't at their best (first time Johnson's injured and Marion goes walkabout, second time the suspension).

Marion sucks in the playoffs - check out his numbers w/o Nash in the PS.

Well, Marion kinda sucks without Nash period, but in that series against the Spur with Nash, he disappeared to a degree that was abnormal even for him.

[Chicago76]

which reminds me of billups, who is constantly missing on all-time pg-lists...despite rocking most metrics and having great team success ( pretty much the same fate as ginobili ).

Billups is definitely overlooked. Looking only at three point era playoff guards, 2000+ minutes, during their estimated peaks (24 to 32--so Bryant and Wade aren't eligible yet), these are the best 15 (weighting PER and WS/48 evenly):

1-Jordan 29.0 PER / 0.263 WS per 48
2-Magic 23.6 / 0.216
3-Miller 20.5 / 0.195
4-Ginobili 20.5 / 0.183
5-Billups 19.5 / 0.196
6t-Allen 20.0 / 0.182
6t-Drexler 20.9 / 0.155
8-Stockton 20.4 / 0.157
9-Porter 18.5 / 0.169
10-Thomas 19.5 / 0.141
11-Nash 19.8 / 0.133
12-Hornacek 17.7 / 0.162
13-Iverson 21.1 / 0.105
14t-Payton 18.3 / 0.128
14t-Cheeks 16.9 / 0.140

[JordansBulls]

which reminds me of billups, who is constantly missing on all-time pg-lists...despite rocking most metrics and having great team success ( pretty much the same fate as ginobili ).

Billups is definitely overlooked. Looking only at three point era playoff guards, 2000+ minutes, during their estimated peaks (24 to 32--so Bryant and Wade aren't eligible yet), these are the best 15 (weighting PER and WS/48 evenly):

1-Jordan 29.0 PER / 0.263 WS per 48
2-Magic 23.6 / 0.216
3-Miller 20.5 / 0.195
4-Ginobili 20.5 / 0.183
5-Billups 19.5 / 0.196
6t-Allen 20.0 / 0.182
6t-Drexler 20.9 / 0.155
8-Stockton 20.4 / 0.157
9-Porter 18.5 / 0.169
10-Thomas 19.5 / 0.141
11-Nash 19.8 / 0.133
12-Hornacek 17.7 / 0.162
13-Iverson 21.1 / 0.105
14t-Payton 18.3 / 0.128
14t-Cheeks 16.9 / 0.140

Where you get the order from?

[Chicago76]

The order came from each players rank among 46 eligible guards. For example,Thomas ranked 10th in PER and 11th in WS/48 for 21 pts. This was better than Nash, who was 9th in PER and 13th in WS/48, for 22 pts. Not exactly scientific, but it balances both, and by limiting the ages to 24 to 32, you don't penalize guys who might have had long playoff runs in their late 30s at lower production levels.