Nash vs Rose: Worst MVP in NBA history?

[baseline33]

Nash vs Rose: Worst MVP in NBA history?

They are not really guys you put up their with Isiah, Magic, Jordan, Bird, Shaq, Hakeem, or Duncan, so which of the two is the worst MVP in NBA history?

[hayguise]

Easily Rose. Nash IS a guy I'd put up there with Isiah, if not the others. Don't underestimate his impact outside of the box score.

[JordansBulls]

Between the two it is Nash. At least Rose led his team in Win Shares and PER and was the only allstar on his team. Overall probably Wes Unseld.

[orlandomanic]

Easily Rose, he is more of a #2 like Westbrook or Monta.

i see Nash and Amare and a guy like Chandler or Ben Wallace being a championship team. Nash would have given a guy like Lebron match up problems like how Jason Terry gave Lebron match up problems.

[Doctor MJ]

Nash vs Rose: Worst MVP in NBA history?

They are not really guys you put up their with Isiah, Magic, Jordan, Bird, Shaq, Hakeem, or Duncan, so which of the two is the worst MVP in NBA history?

The fact that you mentioned Isiah in with the MVPs kinda says everything. I take it you don't realize that Isiah was never close to being an MVP?

To answer your question:

1. Neither is the worst MVP in history, that would probably be Unseld.

2. Rose is indeed one of the weaker MVPs in history. It'd be like, ahem, Isiah won an MVP.

3. Nash, well, I wouldn't call him strong by MVP standards, but over time it's become clear that that mega-turnaround Phoenix experienced when he arrived, really was about him far more than anything else. When a team improves by 30 wins to end up with the best record in the league despite falling apart whenever their star is off the court, that star is indisputably adding massive amounts of value to his team.

[NO-KG-AI]

Eh, Nash was substantially better offensively, and neither was a difference maker defensively.

[_Game7_]

Rose, but its close. Nash winning back to back MVP's is worse though.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

No love (hate, actually!) for Iverson?

[orlandomanic]

No love (hate, actually!) for Iverson?

Iverson is not up their with MJ, Magic, or Bird, but that one year he had was truly amazing. his ability to drop 50 on any night or back to back nights was defiantly something beautiful to see, alot better than was Rose or Nash did.

Rose is probably the worst MVP, he wasn't the best player in the NBA, he wasn't the most important player in the NBA, and he wasn't the most valuable player in the NBA.

it really should have gone to either Dwight, Durant, Wade, or even Dirk. last year's MVP was more about hype than substance.

[ThaRegul8r]

Neither is the worst MVP in history, that would probably be Unseld.

Unseld was Rookie of the Year and MVP, and never made an All-NBA Team after that.

Think about that for a minute.

A guy wins MVP, and then proceeds to never make an All-NBA Team in any other season of his career.

[BlackMamba81]

Rose, but its close. Nash winning back to back MVP's is worse though.

this

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Iverson is not up their with MJ, Magic, or Bird, but that one year he had was truly amazing. his ability to drop 50 on any night or back to back nights was defiantly something beautiful to see, alot better than was Rose or Nash did.

really?
the guy scored some really unefficient 30 points leading his team to be very average on offence. Then he could explode for 50 (any night, but actually he did it twice) or shoot your team out of the game like here, here or here (any night, but way more often then the previous).

On top of that, the same year there were (at least, because you might as well add Kobe to the list) TWO players way better, way more dominant, and playing in teams with a record at least just as good.

[Rerisen]

Rose could score uber points like Iverson by chucking up a lot of shots if he wanted, thankfully he plays team ball.

[colts18]

Iverson is not up their with MJ, Magic, or Bird, but that one year he had was truly amazing. his ability to drop 50 on any night or back to back nights was defiantly something beautiful to see, alot better than was Rose or Nash did.

really?
the guy scored some really unefficient 30 points leading his team to be very average on offence. Then he could explode for 50 (any night, but actually he did it twice) or shoot your team out of the game like here, here or here (any night, but way more often then the previous).

On top of that, the same year there were (at least, because you might as well add Kobe to the list) TWO players way better, way more dominant, and playing in teams with a record at least just as good.

There were 2 players that year who were just as dominant with the same record as AI, the only problem is that they PLAYED FOR THE SAME TEAM.

[Aeternus]

There were 2 players that year who were just as dominant with the same record as AI, the only problem is that they PLAYED FOR THE SAME TEAM.

I think he meant two players with similar or better team success in Duncan and Shaq, plus Kobe if you wish to consider him despite playing with Shaq.

On topic: neither was the worst MVP in NBA history, at least AI was worse than both, there might be pre-'00 players I might be unaware of.
Nash's MVP seasons were both better than Rose's.

[hasslinghoff]

1. w.unseld
2. b.cousy
3. a.iverson

nash and rose have at least legit arguments.

[asindc]

Where is the "Neither" option?

[Laimbeer]

Nash was awful, but who was so obviously more deserving than Rose? The Bulls wouldn't have been nearly the same team without him.

[bastillon]

Iverson won MVP when Shaq, Duncan, KG, Kobe and Vince were substantially better players. ex post I don't think you can make a case Iverson was a better player than those guys at the time. especially with Shaq and Duncan playing at their absolute best, it's as if Dantley won over prime Bird... the difference was massive.

the worst MVPs in history:
Wes Unseld
Willis Reed
Dave Cowens
Charles Barkley
Allen Iverson
Derrick Rose

to me it'd be really hard to defend those picks against their competition. Wes Unseld was a rookie and that should pretty much disqualify him from being in those discussions. rookies tend to have moderate impact on their team as it is apparent looking at the best players in comparison to their prime. in Unseld's case, Bullets made a huge leap forward but that had a lot to do with Gus Johnson staying healthy. it was obvious the team wouldn't be anywhere as good without him. but on the other hand competition in the league was extremely poor for MVP caliber award. either way Russell was clearly the best player in the league at that point. Jerry West could've won that award if not for the fact he missed so many games. but Russell led his team 5.35 SRS and expected W-L of 55 but they underachieved and thus ended up at 48. playoffs verified RS results and Celtics were clearly much better than their record. also, Russell retired the next season and Celtics dropped by 7 SRS and missed the playoffs. Bill Russell was the best player in basketball in 69.

Willis Reed got his award thanks to team dominance and Unseld being a bust MVP, which made the voters reluctant to pick another rookie. this time though, Kareem deserved it over Reed. with the way Reed was dominated in their h2h PS series, with Bucks improving even more than Bullets the year before, with Kareem outproducing Reed across the board, I don't think you can make a reasonable case for Reed. Kareem was simply a better player and that was just a bad pick. Reed was an all-NBA caliber guy, but pretty far from MVP level.

Cowens was a great player and led his team to great results anchoring one of the all-time greatest defense (40 DWS, about as good as Riley's Knicks, Pop's Spurs or KG's Cs). but Celtics had inflated team stats due to playing in extremely poor division with several teams having a terrible record. when you play against an all-time low 9-win team (Philly 73) on a consistent basis, your record is a bit misleading. on the other hand Oscar missed 9 games that year and Bucks struggled hard in his absence. if not for his injury, Bucks could've overcome the seperation between them and Celtics and Kareem would've won another MVP. it should be said though, that Oscar might've been the MVP of Bucks. when Kareem missed 6 games in '73, Bucks won all of those games. it might have been an important factor and the reason why Cowens got that MVP ahead of KAJ.

as for Charles Barkley, there's no rationale that could defend this pick vs Hakeem. Suns were a stacked team that posted 5+ SRS prior to Barkley's arrival ON A CONSISTENT BASIS:
89 - 6.8
90 - 7.1
91 - 6.5
92 - 5.7
93 - 6.3

in 93 Barkley got his award, but that had a lot to do with the way Suns underperformed in 92 (expected wins 56; posted 53) and overachieved in 93 (expected wins 57; posted 62). the truth is, Suns didn't improve a lot when Barkley joined them and you can make a strong case it wasn't even their best team in that stretch.

Barkley's supporting cast included:
KJ
Chambers
Ceballos
Thunder Dan
Dumas

that's a stacked team regardless of Barkley's presence and they would've likely topped 50 wins either way (even with KJ playing 50 games). conversely, Rockets had no chance whatsoever even getting close to 40 wins without Olajuwon and they posted 55 wins that year (53 expected wins). supporting cast included Thorpe (good player but cmon), Kenny Smith, Maxwell and rookie Horry. Hakeem was at his absolute peak posting 26/13/3.5 which is one of the best offensive statline for bigs in league's history. Barkley posted 26/12/5 that year so he might have been even more dominant offensively... but that comparison fails to acknowledge massive gap on the defensive end between those players. while Barkley played halfway decent D that year, Hakeem posted one of the most dominant defensive seasons ever with 4.2 bpg and 1.8 spg, leading poor defensive unit to 3rd best DRTG in the league. that was peak Olajuwon and Barkley had no business being compared to him. bottomline, I don't know how you would have to praise Barkley's offensive impact to think he makes up for undisputed gigantic gap on defense.

as for AI 01, much has been said already but with eastern conference being that bad Sixers record shouldn't be treated equally to Spurs/Lakers records. Shaq coasted in the RS and didn't give a crap about defense (Lakers 22 DRTG), but that's still peak Shaq we're talking about, so you really have to be pretty blind to pick Iverson over this guy. but I guess this is still somehow defendable because you can argue Shaq coasted in the RS, Lakers didn't dominate like they did in the PS and MVP is a RS award. on top of that, Shaq had Kobe Bryant so there's that. but how could you defend Iverson vs Duncan ?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/SAS/2001.html

that lineup was really solid (D-Rob, Anderson, Elliot, Porter, Rose), but Duncan led them to amazing 7.9 SRS (29th all-time). if you looked at wins, you would think 2 win seperation between Spurs and Sixers is a pretty negligible difference. but then you realize eastern conference was piss-poor and after adjusting for conference strength and dominance over their peers, Spurs DOUBLED Sixers SRS. unless you give Iverson massive credit for being lucky enough to play in vastly inferior conference, you can't make a case his team impact was nearly as impressive as Duncan just willing his team to almost 8 SRS. to me Duncan 01-03 is on par with Bird's amazing 3-year run (if not better, actually) and Iverson really has no business being in this discussion. you put Duncan on that 01 Sixers they dominate over those inferior eastern teams in a manner unparalleled during that era. conversely putting Iverson instead of Duncan on 01 Spurs would've likely caused them to miss the playoffs because even if they were as good as Sixers they might've missed the playoffs because of the insane competition in western conference.

as for last year's Rose, that debate is too fresh to re-vitalize it, but to me there were couple players that were just WAY better than Rose. I would give MVP to Dwight, Dirk or LeBron; Rose was clearly inferior to all three anyway. Dirk should be the strongest candidate, given how Mavs did without him (2-7) but you could make a case that Magic would've done equally poorly without Dwight and then of course he played more games than Dirk so that would be a valid argument in terms of MVP contention. LeBron is of course the most talented player in the league but with the way Heat struggled to win against top teams and massive gap in talent of "supporting cast" I wouldn't give LeBron that award by any means. I'd expect Dwight or Dirk to do much better next to Wade. but what's the argument for Rose over Dirk or Dwight ? because I really can't see it. especially now, when we see how Bulls "struggle" without Rose. it's clear to me they're just deep and talented, unlike Magic for example, who would be heavy contenders for deep lottery without Howard.

[CellarDoor]

Are we talking worst in terms of production, or worst in terms of whether or not they deserved it?


Neither is the worst, but semantics change the answer.