Just to reiterate a point I made earlier, Shaq's offense does not slip when he goes up against elite defenses, and he does really well in his early career in this regard.
Magic may have played in an easy western conference, but that's really only relevant for the playoffs. In the regular season, strength of schedule differences are minor.
shutupandjam wrote:For those talking about what Magic's career would have been if he hadn't been forced into retirement, that's simply outside the scope of this project imo. If we start doing this kind of thing then I see no reason why LeBron shouldn't be number 1, Durant shouldn't be top 15, and Anthony Davis shouldn't be discussed soon. This is about how good a player was in his career up to this point, not what he would have or could have done if he had more seasons.
Speaking of, here's my estimation of Magic's career stats without the early retirement:
26,047 points, 9330 rebounds, and 15,078 assists.
90sAllDecade wrote:I think this Magic vs Nash discussion on offense interesting.
Quick question, how do people think no handcheck rules in 04-05 or similar rules put in place 00-01 helped those Nash teams? Magic also played in an era of a higher Ortg, can that be due to higher pace or other factors?
Not picking a side just curious.
The rule changes applied to everyone, not just Nash's teams. Plus he had great results prior to '05 even without taking charge of the team.
GC Pantalones wrote:1. No but Nash's teams put all focus into offense. They never trotted out defensive sets, used guys that couldn't at least hit jumpers at an elite level, etc. That leads to a boosted ORTG and a very good team overall but not a winning team (also this is a criticism I used to hate about Nash but I'm seeing where it works. You need a team that can get stops or you'll fail). If Nash ran with a more balanced team with better defensive capabilities his average ORTG would probably be under Magic's.
2. Notice the numbers are given in a +4.0 form. The opponents have been accounted for already. Without that Magic is first by far.
3. This is a great question and I think he deserves most of the credit. From 83 to 85 his supporting cast got noticeably weaker with Kareem hitting a hard decline, LA losing a starting PG, and Worthy not coming into his own yet but the Lakers stayed just as good as they were before overall and their offense was way better. It happens that 84 and 85 are Magic's first 2 years running point too. You can say the same thing with the late 80s teams compared to the early 90s teams. In 88 and 89 he had a better supporting cast than in 90 and 91 but those teams were around the same in strength anyway. For such a great dynasty Magic's teams had a ton of changes around him but at no time did the team drop in quality and he kept taking a bigger and bigger role.
Well first of all that's false: Kurt Thomas. I wouldn't call him an elite shooter. Or Shaq, among a few others.
They had a few good defensive players like Marion and Raja Bell. It's not that they sacrificed defense, per se, it's more that Amare was a horrible defender, worse than people thought, and it killed their defense. Nash is an okay defender, underrated because he competes and can pick up charges, and don't blame the point guard for a bad defense. Downsizing by leaving out a big man does inflate your offense at the expense of your defense, but don't focus too much on the splits: overall they were a very strong team and Nash was the catalyst. Nash's overall numbers, like plus/minus, are among the best for his period despite his perceived defense (skin color probably comes into play here.)
