Iverson vs Nash

[DirtyDez]

Nash by two tiers. It’s not all on him but too much team mediocrity during AI’s prime.

[Ron Swanson]

Modern analytics has caused people to underrate Iverson and overrate Nash to the point that you'd think we were comparing Kawhi and Jamal Mashburn. That being said, if we're talking an "all-time" sense then this is clearly Nash. I'd only see an argument for AI if we could somehow bottle up '00-03 Iverson and extrapolate that over a decade long career. But obviously he didn't have anywhere near the longevity or sustained peak/prime that Nash did.

[Rapcity_11]

Modern analytics has caused people to underrate Iverson and overrate Nash to the point that you'd think we were comparing Kawhi and Jamal Mashburn. That being said, if we're talking an "all-time" sense then this is clearly Nash. I'd only see an argument for AI if we could somehow bottle up '00-03 Iverson and extrapolate that over a decade long career. But obviously he didn't have anywhere near the longevity or sustained peak/prime that Nash did.

Is a 50.1% TS with such high usage even valuable? That's from 00-03.

I mean, sure his specific team's replacement level TS% would likely have been lower. And I get that the strategy of going all defense around AI....But on a league-wide level, would it really be hard to replace that offense? How valuable is monster scoring if it's at such middling efficiency?

[Doctor MJ]

Modern analytics has caused people to underrate Iverson and overrate Nash

It's certainly pushed AI down and Nash up. Do you believe it should not have, or just that it's gone too far? In either case, can you be more specific? What is it you believe is being factored in and taken too far?

So as not to be coy here, I have to be honest that when I see a statement like this my experience is that I'm talking with someone who thinks that analytics folks are looking at one or two things in isolation without factoring everything in, and my take afterward is generally that the opposite is true.

[Doctor MJ]

Modern analytics has caused people to underrate Iverson and overrate Nash to the point that you'd think we were comparing Kawhi and Jamal Mashburn. That being said, if we're talking an "all-time" sense then this is clearly Nash. I'd only see an argument for AI if we could somehow bottle up '00-03 Iverson and extrapolate that over a decade long career. But obviously he didn't have anywhere near the longevity or sustained peak/prime that Nash did.

Is a 50.1% TS with such high usage even valuable? That's from 00-03.

I mean, sure his specific team's replacement level TS% would likely have been lower. And I get that the strategy of going all defense around AI....But on a league-wide level, would it really be hard to replace that offense? How valuable is monster scoring if it's at such middling efficiency?

And it's really not even about the efficiency in the end, that's just the baseline problem. There's also the matter that there's really no evidence of massive impact in the +/-, elite team offense, and the difference between individualist vs team mindset.

[Ron Swanson]

Modern analytics has caused people to underrate Iverson and overrate Nash

It's certainly pushed AI down and Nash up. Do you believe it should not have, or just that it's gone too far? In either case, can you be more specific? What is it you believe is being factored in and taken too far?

So as not to be coy here, I have to be honest that when I see a statement like this my experience is that I'm talking with someone who thinks that analytics folks are looking at one or two things in isolation without factoring everything in, and my take afterward is generally that the opposite is true.

There's a gap but it's certainly not as massive as people claim it to be. See: literally every AI thread ever on the PC board. "TS%" is the end-all-be-all more than any other past player I can recall (maybe Baylor?), usually followed by "casuals love him". It's a tired and over-used trope at this point.

Yes, he was a cultural icon for a lot of inner city kids and that caused his perception as a basketball player to be inflated, but he's a bit like Westbrook in the fact that people just immediately write him off as a chucker who you couldn't "win with". Which is objectively false based on actual results (I guess Nash was a "loser" as well) and lacks any real context around the different roles that AI and Nash had for their respective teams. As well as the understanding that there are things with AI's game and other score-first guards that you can't really quantify by staring at their Basketball-Reference page. Even then, Iverson rates pretty well in his prime with the basic on/off data that we have available (take out his rookie season and he's a significantly net positive impact guy per-100 in 5 of his first 7 seasons). I also find it pretty ironic that Nash actually admitted his style of play might not have been the most optimal for his team's success'

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/steve-nash-expresses-regret-over-style-of-play-i-probably-should-have-shot-the-ball-20-times-a-game/

Nelson firmly believed that Nash's hesitancy was costing the Mavs wins. Finally, the coach decided that it would cost Nash money if it didn't change.

"Nellie [launched] my career in pushing me to be aggressive and score the ball. But I never took it to the heights that the numbers validate in today's day and age, where I probably should have shot the ball 20 times a game. It probably would have made a lot more sense."

Maybe if Nash had a little bit more Iverson in him, I'd probably believe that the gap is indeed as massive as people are trying to convince me it is.

[Doctor MJ]

Modern analytics has caused people to underrate Iverson and overrate Nash

It's certainly pushed AI down and Nash up. Do you believe it should not have, or just that it's gone too far? In either case, can you be more specific? What is it you believe is being factored in and taken too far?

So as not to be coy here, I have to be honest that when I see a statement like this my experience is that I'm talking with someone who thinks that analytics folks are looking at one or two things in isolation without factoring everything in, and my take afterward is generally that the opposite is true.

There's a gap but it's certainly not as massive as people claim it to be. See: literally every AI thread ever on the PC board. "TS%" is the end-all-be-all more than any other past player I can recall (maybe Baylor?), usually followed by "casuals love him". It's a tired and over-used trope at this point.

Yes, he was a cultural icon for a lot of inner city kids and that caused his perception as a basketball player to be inflated, but he's a bit like Westbrook in the fact that people just immediately write him off as a chucker who you couldn't "win with". Which is objectively false based on actual results (I guess Nash was a "loser" as well) and lacks any real context around the different roles that AI and Nash had for their respective teams. As well as the understanding that there are things with AI's game and other score-first guards that you can't really quantify by staring at their Basketball-Reference page. Even then, Iverson rates pretty well in his prime with the basic on/off data that we have available (take out his rookie season and he's a significantly net positive impact guy per-100 in 5 of his first 7 seasons). I also find it pretty ironic that Nash actually admitted his style of play might not have been the most optimal for his team's success'

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/steve-nash-expresses-regret-over-style-of-play-i-probably-should-have-shot-the-ball-20-times-a-game/

Nelson firmly believed that Nash's hesitancy was costing the Mavs wins. Finally, the coach decided that it would cost Nash money if it didn't change.

"Nellie [launched] my career in pushing me to be aggressive and score the ball. But I never took it to the heights that the numbers validate in today's day and age, where I probably should have shot the ball 20 times a game. It probably would have made a lot more sense."

Maybe if Nash had a little bit more Iverson in him, I'd probably believe that the gap is indeed as massive as people are trying to convince me it is.

I completely understand the thought that TS% can get overblown particularly when you're talking about a guy with higher TS% but lower volume.

But the real arguments for Nash are based on team data. Simply put, for 7 straight years, when Nash was on the court the team offense ran better than with anyone else in the league with a massive dropoff without him. His ORtg on the court in '14-15 is so huge above everyone else in prior years that it qualifies as Ruthian in my book, and his runs in the playoffs have basically only been matched by late '10s performances involving Curry & LeBron.

And all of that, frankly, makes the notion that Nash was doing something wrong a bit absurd. It is possible that if he shot more the team offense would be even better, but Nash is, bar none, the most effective offensive player of the '00s based on any data along these lines, and the style of play he and his team pioneered is now essentially the only way to play competent basketball.

Now as I say all of that, I totally understand you thinking "See, you're one of these people who is taking analytics too seriously if you think all that."...but the fact you're not even talking about this stuff when trying to explain why you think Nash is overrated to me makes it likely you just lost the thread and have been insisting that the stuff you don't understand isn't real ever since.

And as I say all of that: I know I sound incredibly arrogant. I'm sorry and I know that I don't know your specific knowledge. My statement is based on years and years of hearing people knock Nash beginning in '04-05. I've just found again and again, people can't imagine Nash could possibly be that effective and find reasons to reassure themselves that that what they always thought they knew about basketball is still right.

On the other side of things, no serious analytics people would be knocking AI for his efficiency if his +/- numbers made him look amazing, but they really never did. As I've said before, I'm a guy who had AI as my favorite player and a deserving MVP and saw Nash as an afterthought. My analysis has flipped me. That analysis certainly includes what people call "analytics", but I'm no follower here. I'm one of the people who was pointing to what the data was actually saying, and what that implied about the future long before the 2010s completely transformed the sport.

Back to Iverson one more time:

I think the real rule here is not that AI couldn't possibly be a true MVP-level player necessarily, but that he never had a good sense for team basketball. He didn't have a sense for when he shouldn't take a certain shot, he didn't have a sense for how to elevate teammates by making moves that would get his teammates the perfect shot, he didn't understand how his attitude toward team practice limited the extent of team synergy. He was ultra-individualistic in his mindset, and while it was incredibly sexy to fans (including myself), the reality is that basketball has always been a team game and Iverson represents a delusion that came in the wake of Jordan. The idea that one guy can truly do it all by himself is something that people still swallow today, but it's not classical basketball in the slightest.

For Iverson to have been a true superstar type of impactor, he needed not to have swallowed this. He needed to understand that if he was going to dominate the ball and decision making, he had to get exceptional at feeding his teammates optimally above all else. Like Nash.

Anyway, thanks for the response and apologies for my arrogance which is not meant to be a personal attack on you. Cheers.

[TK Smart]

I'm taking Iverson, just a superior talent and played in the wrong era. Zone defense, no shooters, still can hand check a little bit, of course his efficiency wouldn't be there, but in today's pace and space era? He's averaging 40 a game on above average efficiency and giving you 7 dimes a game. Talking pure hoops, today's era is tailor made for him to come and thrive in. It's almost like the league took notice of his popularity and made consistent tweaks to the rules to maximize a player like his talents. Nash to me, there is absolutely no era you can plug him in and say this is a player that's leading your team to a championship as the #1. Iverson? I think he could lead a team in this era to a championship with the pace and space today's era has.

[therealbig3]

I can buy the argument that Iverson is actually underrated historically nowadays, after being overrated during his prime. Much like Westbrook, there was a lot of good that Iverson generated just based on his aggression and offensive creation (or as ElGee would describe it, offensive opportunities created). So he does deserve credit for those things that his TS% will underrate him for.

However, there's no way I would take him over Nash. Pretty much any objective comparison between the two gives Nash a big advantage. Nash's value really comes from the fact that he had such a dangerous combination of shooting and passing, but was also quick enough and crafty enough and skilled enough as a ball handler during his prime to create a lot of scoring opportunities for himself and his teammates with relentless dribble penetration, which was aided by the fact that defenses couldn't give him the open shot, since he's one of the best shooters of all time.

I think people think Curry is what Nash would have been if he was "unleashed", but I actually think Nash was a more effective player than Curry. He ramped up his scoring, especially in the playoffs, when he felt the need to, and he's just a significantly better decision maker and passer under pressure than Curry is. Curry is better as an off the dribble deep threat, but I actually think the gap between the two in that sense is exaggerated, as I pointed out before that Nash DID have plenty of moments when he ramped up the volume scoring with excellent results. As a result, I think that's why Nash-led offenses were so much harder to stop than Curry-led offenses in the playoffs, and that's evident in their respective team offensive performances. Don't think there was ever an effective defense against Nash, because you can't rattle him with traps and double teams the way you could with Curry. In fact, he would eat you alive if you did that consistently.

So anyway, since that's how highly I think of Nash, clearly I would take him over Iverson without thinking twice.

[Rapcity_11]

The more efficient offense has won every game in basketball history.

Do you know how hard it is to have the more efficient offense when one of your players is using ~35% of possessions at 1-3% below average efficiency?

[Kobe187]

Nash is exactly what I would want in a PG, Iverson is the last thing I’d want from a PG. Easy answer is Nash, however AI was a heck of a scorer.

[XTC]

In the public's perception, Iverson was a Kobe-like superstar. Even a cursory glance at the statistics show that his play did not line up with his reputation. I also think that players put a much higher value on 1-on-1 skills than what the other things that help win games, and Iverson had exceptional 1-on-1 skills, and was a lot flashier, although Nash was a very exciting player as well.

This is true but of course the public overrates Kobe much like they AI, and for the exact same reasons. Meanwhile they drastically underrate Nash.

The public has fallen in love with basketball from an individualistic perspective, which is another way of saying that they fundamentally miss much of team basketball's actual skillset. It's honestly funny to me that there's never been a serious TV spectacle based around one-on-one tournaments. If the NBA at some point ends up dying, I could see a one-on-one or two-on-two social media-based league really taking over.

I don't think we can so easily dismiss that former/active players are on the other side, to be honest.

Read on Twitter

Honestly.... in a redraft I might not even take AI #3. I think I would take Ray Allen #3 who had superior longevity and was an all star caliber two guard in his prime.

I love AI, but his play was not conductive to winning.

[Doctor MJ]

Honestly.... in a redraft I might not even take AI #3. I think I would take Ray Allen #3 who had superior longevity and was an all star caliber two guard in his prime.

I love AI, but his play was not conductive to winning.

Yup. The real question is whether you take AI 4th because the top 3 is so clear. And there I'd say a lot of factors are in play.

Milwaukee drafted 4th and their weakness from that moment all the way through until the end of their early '00s peak was defense. Ben Wallace was eligible in this draft, as was Marcus Camby. Probably it would be for the best if AI dropped to Minnesota at 5 and they got to pair AI with KG.

[frica]

Honestly.... in a redraft I might not even take AI #3. I think I would take Ray Allen #3 who had superior longevity and was an all star caliber two guard in his prime.

I love AI, but his play was not conductive to winning.

Yup. The real question is whether you take AI 4th because the top 3 is so clear. And there I'd say a lot of factors are in play.

Milwaukee drafted 4th and their weakness from that moment all the way through until the end of their early '00s peak was defense. Ben Wallace was eligible in this draft, as was Marcus Camby. Probably it would be for the best if AI dropped to Minnesota at 5 and they got to pair AI with KG.

Garnett - Iverson is some bizarro combination I could see working...

[jdzimme3]

I think people under rate the luxury provided by being able to count on a single guy on one end of the floor. He wasn’t the most efficient but iverson alone was enough to produce a middle of the road offense. That allowed the team to build a terrific defense by focusing all other playerS on that end. Deke, Lynch, snow, mckie.... all the players around AI are there to build a terrific defense. No way you can build that defense without a guy who can carry the load night in and night out on the other end.

We should acknowledge that iversons efficiency was low in part because of what his role was and went up when he went to Denver and there was less reliance on him. Iverson is horribly underrated by realgm because of a failure to understand the situation and a propensity to believe that advanced metrics tell the whole story.

[Doctor MJ]

I think people under rate the luxury provided by being able to count on a single guy on one end of the floor. He wasn’t the most efficient but iverson alone was enough to produce a middle of the road offense. That allowed the team to build a terrific defense by focusing all other playerS on that end. Deke, Lynch, snow, mckie.... all the players around AI are there to build a terrific defense. No way you can build that defense without a guy who can carry the load night in and night out on the other end.

We should acknowledge that iversons efficiency was low in part because of what his role was and went up when he went to Denver and there was less reliance on him. Iverson is horribly underrated by realgm because of a failure to understand the situation and a propensity to believe that advanced metrics tell the whole story.

I notice you're not talking about floor vs ceiling raising, portability, scalability, or regression data while you accuse people here of failing to understand something much more basic.

What I find again and again is that people desperately want to believe that all this stuff they don't understand somehow leads to wrong conclusions that casual observers intuitively get right. It's frustrating because all of us were those casual observers before we started taking this stuff seriously.

I hate that the divergence is so great that I probably just come off as an arrogant close-minded nerd, but y'know, 20 years ago I was making all sorts of similar arguments for Iverson that you are now, and I can tell you that while back then I absolutely knew more than pretty much everyone I came into contact with, I knew very little compared to what I know now, in part because nobody knew then what is known now.

There's been an arms race of knowledge that's grown so fast that it's leaving people who didn't happen to jump on board behind, even if they are passionate and intelligent.

[jdzimme3]

I think people under rate the luxury provided by being able to count on a single guy on one end of the floor. He wasn’t the most efficient but iverson alone was enough to produce a middle of the road offense. That allowed the team to build a terrific defense by focusing all other playerS on that end. Deke, Lynch, snow, mckie.... all the players around AI are there to build a terrific defense. No way you can build that defense without a guy who can carry the load night in and night out on the other end.

We should acknowledge that iversons efficiency was low in part because of what his role was and went up when he went to Denver and there was less reliance on him. Iverson is horribly underrated by realgm because of a failure to understand the situation and a propensity to believe that advanced metrics tell the whole story.

I notice you're not talking about floor vs ceiling raising, portability, scalability, or regression data while you accuse people here of failing to understand something much more basic.

What I find again and again is that people desperately want to believe that all this stuff they don't understand somehow leads to wrong conclusions that casual observers intuitively get right. It's frustrating because all of us were those casual observers before we started taking this stuff seriously.

I hate that the divergence is so great that I probably just come off as an arrogant close-minded nerd, but y'know, 20 years ago I was making all sorts of similar arguments for Iverson that you are now, and I can tell you that while back then I absolutely knew more than pretty much everyone I came into contact with, I knew very little compared to what I know now, in part because nobody knew then what is known now.

There's been an arms race of knowledge that's grown so fast that it's leaving people who didn't happen to jump on board behind, even if they are passionate and intelligent.

A lot of assumptions in your post and no response to my point that situations matter and provide critical perspective to the numbers. Just so you don’t have to keep assuming everyone that disagrees with you doesn’t understand data analytics I will let you know that my career (15 years) is actually in data analytics and the most common mistake I see, from smart people, is over reliance on the numbers because it is easier to take them at face value than it is to analyze the situation.

[prophet_of_rage]

Modern analytics has caused people to underrate Iverson and overrate Nash to the point that you'd think we were comparing Kawhi and Jamal Mashburn. That being said, if we're talking an "all-time" sense then this is clearly Nash. I'd only see an argument for AI if we could somehow bottle up '00-03 Iverson and extrapolate that over a decade long career. But obviously he didn't have anywhere near the longevity or sustained peak/prime that Nash did.

Is a 50.1% TS with such high usage even valuable? That's from 00-03.

I mean, sure his specific team's replacement level TS% would likely have been lower. And I get that the strategy of going all defense around AI....But on a league-wide level, would it really be hard to replace that offense? How valuable is monster scoring if it's at such middling efficiency?

Who could have replaced him and produced 30 points a game for wins night after night? Iverson wasn't efficient because there was no one else to distract the D. No scorer in his peer group could have even produced his numbers.

Sent from my SM-N970W using Tapatalk

[prophet_of_rage]

It's certainly pushed AI down and Nash up. Do you believe it should not have, or just that it's gone too far? In either case, can you be more specific? What is it you believe is being factored in and taken too far?

So as not to be coy here, I have to be honest that when I see a statement like this my experience is that I'm talking with someone who thinks that analytics folks are looking at one or two things in isolation without factoring everything in, and my take afterward is generally that the opposite is true.

There's a gap but it's certainly not as massive as people claim it to be. See: literally every AI thread ever on the PC board. "TS%" is the end-all-be-all more than any other past player I can recall (maybe Baylor?), usually followed by "casuals love him". It's a tired and over-used trope at this point.

Yes, he was a cultural icon for a lot of inner city kids and that caused his perception as a basketball player to be inflated, but he's a bit like Westbrook in the fact that people just immediately write him off as a chucker who you couldn't "win with". Which is objectively false based on actual results (I guess Nash was a "loser" as well) and lacks any real context around the different roles that AI and Nash had for their respective teams. As well as the understanding that there are things with AI's game and other score-first guards that you can't really quantify by staring at their Basketball-Reference page. Even then, Iverson rates pretty well in his prime with the basic on/off data that we have available (take out his rookie season and he's a significantly net positive impact guy per-100 in 5 of his first 7 seasons). I also find it pretty ironic that Nash actually admitted his style of play might not have been the most optimal for his team's success'

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/steve-nash-expresses-regret-over-style-of-play-i-probably-should-have-shot-the-ball-20-times-a-game/

Nelson firmly believed that Nash's hesitancy was costing the Mavs wins. Finally, the coach decided that it would cost Nash money if it didn't change.

"Nellie [launched] my career in pushing me to be aggressive and score the ball. But I never took it to the heights that the numbers validate in today's day and age, where I probably should have shot the ball 20 times a game. It probably would have made a lot more sense."

Maybe if Nash had a little bit more Iverson in him, I'd probably believe that the gap is indeed as massive as people are trying to convince me it is.

I completely understand the thought that TS% can get overblown particularly when you're talking about a guy with higher TS% but lower volume.

But the real arguments for Nash are based on team data. Simply put, for 7 straight years, when Nash was on the court the team offense ran better than with anyone else in the league with a massive dropoff without him. His ORtg on the court in '14-15 is so huge above everyone else in prior years that it qualifies as Ruthian in my book, and his runs in the playoffs have basically only been matched by late '10s performances involving Curry & LeBron.

And all of that, frankly, makes the notion that Nash was doing something wrong a bit absurd. It is possible that if he shot more the team offense would be even better, but Nash is, bar none, the most effective offensive player of the '00s based on any data along these lines, and the style of play he and his team pioneered is now essentially the only way to play competent basketball.

Now as I say all of that, I totally understand you thinking "See, you're one of these people who is taking analytics too seriously if you think all that."...but the fact you're not even talking about this stuff when trying to explain why you think Nash is overrated to me makes it likely you just lost the thread and have been insisting that the stuff you don't understand isn't real ever since.

And as I say all of that: I know I sound incredibly arrogant. I'm sorry and I know that I don't know your specific knowledge. My statement is based on years and years of hearing people knock Nash beginning in '04-05. I've just found again and again, people can't imagine Nash could possibly be that effective and find reasons to reassure themselves that that what they always thought they knew about basketball is still right.

On the other side of things, no serious analytics people would be knocking AI for his efficiency if his +/- numbers made him look amazing, but they really never did. As I've said before, I'm a guy who had AI as my favorite player and a deserving MVP and saw Nash as an afterthought. My analysis has flipped me. That analysis certainly includes what people call "analytics", but I'm no follower here. I'm one of the people who was pointing to what the data was actually saying, and what that implied about the future long before the 2010s completely transformed the sport.

Back to Iverson one more time:

I think the real rule here is not that AI couldn't possibly be a true MVP-level player necessarily, but that he never had a good sense for team basketball. He didn't have a sense for when he shouldn't take a certain shot, he didn't have a sense for how to elevate teammates by making moves that would get his teammates the perfect shot, he didn't understand how his attitude toward team practice limited the extent of team synergy. He was ultra-individualistic in his mindset, and while it was incredibly sexy to fans (including myself), the reality is that basketball has always been a team game and Iverson represents a delusion that came in the wake of Jordan. The idea that one guy can truly do it all by himself is something that people still swallow today, but it's not classical basketball in the slightest.

For Iverson to have been a true superstar type of impactor, he needed not to have swallowed this. He needed to understand that if he was going to dominate the ball and decision making, he had to get exceptional at feeding his teammates optimally above all else. Like Nash.

Anyway, thanks for the response and apologies for my arrogance which is not meant to be a personal attack on you. Cheers.

I think the problem is when people say Nash's stats make him so great (and he is a great) but actual results the guy never even won his conference with a great team. He wasn't a one man show like Iverson and Iverson went to the Finals.

That's the dissonance. Some people will look at the analytics and wonder who cares when the guy doesn't win. And winning is the point.

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[prophet_of_rage]

Nash is exactly what I would want in a PG, Iverson is the last thing I’d want from a PG. Easy answer is Nash, however AI was a heck of a scorer.

And an SG

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