theSUNalsoRISES wrote:Marion ahead of Stoudemire? I'd probably swap that around. In the SSOL era, Stoudemire was always second on the list with marion being behind him. I believe Marion was a guy who owed he's whole offensive game to Steve Nash. Stoudemire, first 1.5 years in N.Y. shown he could thrive by himself. Marion never got to form he shown at PHX. (I could be wrong, but I remember he being more or less a bust for Miami)
And I know he did very little in his time here but for a list that has Joe Johnson and Raja Bell, Not to have SHAQ seems a little crazy to me.
In '03-'04 (with D'Antoni coaching the Suns for most of the season), Stoudemire averaged 20.6 points while shooting .477 on two-point field goal attempts, while Marion averaged 19.0 points while shooting .465 on two-point field goal attempts—not much of a difference. To be sure, Nash made Marion a far more efficient field goal shooter and a far more efficient scorer (as measured by True Shooting Percentage), but Nash did the same for Stoudemire. Although Stoudemire's shot selection and jump shot both improved dramatically after '03-'04, his field goal percentage still plummeted whenever Nash was out and after he went to New York (while he was still playing a major role, in his first two seasons as a Knick). His percentages in those times were good, overall, but there was a vast decline, and due to his deficiencies in other areas of the game (especially defense), Stoudemire needed those extremely efficient rates in order to overwhelm his "zero-sum" tendencies (meaning the tendency for his deficiencies, especially on defense, to negate most of his scoring value; the "zero-sum" quotation comes courtesy from a certain poster that bwgood and I used to interact with).
Remember that Marion garnered an All-Star selection in 2003, before Nash arrived, and he averaged at least 19.0 points (peaking at 21.2 in '02-'03) in each of the three seasons before Nash rejoined the Suns. So the notion that he "owed his whole offensive game to Steve Nash" does not really hold up. And for some reason (purely coincidental, most likely), Marion actually shot threes better before Nash arrived, including a combined .389 in 3.0 attempts per game over 162 regular season contests in '01-'02 and -'02-'03. Again, Nash certainly made Marion more efficient as an overall field goal shooter and scorer, but the same was true with Stoudemire.
Marion was one of the few players of his era who could virtually create shots without the ball, meaning that he excelled at moving into open spaces in order to create assist opportunities that otherwise would never exist. When we talk about "stretching the defense," we normally refer to perimeter shooters distant from the basket, but Marion would "stretch the defense" toward the basket in fast break situations. He actually got behind (beyond) the defense constantly on the break, creating opportunities for over-the-defense passes and long assists. In '07-'08, I started referring to Marion as the Randy Moss to Steve Nash's Tom Brady. Marion also excelled at cutting along the baseline to create passing angles, which in turn produced easy scores. And Marion proved so dynamic in this regard while still constituting a major contributor on the defensive glass, and he also moved the ball much more efficiently and briskly than Stoudemire.
To be sure, Stoudemire proved far more functional and dangerous in half-court offensive sets, primarily in screen-setting situations yet even with the basketball in his hands in occasional "isos." But truth be told, Stoudemire was quite erratic and unreliable in isolation situations, thus the reason why his field goal percentage declined dramatically without Nash. Neither Stoudemire nor Marion constituted an offensive conduit—if you threw either of them the ball and tried to play through their creation or moves too often, your team would not be very good, hence the '03-'04 Suns winning 29 games (that factor represented part of the reason for the low win total, anyway).
Indeed, much of the reason why Phoenix tended to fall apart without Nash was the unusual situation where Stoudemire and Marion were—more or less—the best above-the-rim finishers in the game yet possessed very little offensive skill beyond catching and finishing (sometimes finishing in the form of an open catch-and-shoot jumper). Conversely, when Nash left Dallas, the Mavericks in some ways became better—their win total increased in each of the next three seasons, and within two years, the franchise had defeated San Antonio in the playoffs and reached the NBA Finals, two feats that Dallas had failed to achieve with Nash. Perhaps Nash's continued presence would have made them even better, but the point is that in Dirk Nowitzki, the Mavericks featured an offensive conduit who rendered the point guard less critical. Marion certainly was not that guy with Phoenix, but neither was Stoudemire. The big difference is that Marion excelled defensively—his help defense and versatility were both elite —whereas Stoudemire amounted to a liability on that end of the floor.
