RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #27 (Steve Nash)

[70sFan]

I'd be interested to know which guys that are still around do you think peaked higher than Kawhi.

Bill Walton
Steve Nash
Patrick Ewing
Dwight Howard
Artis Gilmore
James Harden
Willis Reed
Rick Barry
Bob McAdoo
Walt Frazier
Anthony Davis
Elgin Baylor
Paul Arizin

all could be argued over Kawhi peak-wise. I wouldn't take all of them of course, but I'd take a few of them. Only Walton has worse longevity by the way.

[Dutchball97]

I'd be interested to know which guys that are still around do you think peaked higher than Kawhi.

Bill Walton
Steve Nash
Patrick Ewing
Dwight Howard
Artis Gilmore
James Harden
Willis Reed
Rick Barry
Bob McAdoo
Walt Frazier
Anthony Davis
Elgin Baylor
Paul Arizin

all could be argued over Kawhi peak-wise. I wouldn't take all of them of course, but I'd take a few of them. Only Walton has worse longevity by the way.

Looking at that list, I guess we have a very different valuation of Kawhi's peak. Dwight Howard? Paul Arizin? Willis Reed? I'm not seeing how they have peaks that were all that close to Kawhi.

[ccameron]

Tried to reply in the previous thread but the formatting of the previous thread is unreadable for some reason

I understand your feelings and I'm going to try to back off now, but I'll emphasize again:

I'm not talking about this stuff every time a vote doesn't go my way. I'm talking about what happened with a particular player that the PC Board has gone from apparently high-to-low on without realizing it. This is a phenomena worth studying.

Why do you think this? Curry went from #29 in the 2017 project to #24 in this project. Wade on the other hand, went from #22 in the 2017 project, and we're at #27 and he still hasn't been voted in.

Given what has happened with Curry and Wade in the last 3 years, which is the stranger phenomenon here?

[Odinn21]

Willis Reed? Just because he's a player from an older era gets to be isolated among that lot?
I'd suggest you to look up how well Reed performed against Russell, Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar and Unseld in '69 and '70 playoffs.

Also, in the latest peaks project which finished several months after Leonard's historic 2019 playoff run, Leonard was ranked at #27, Howard at #33 and Reed at #36. Not entirely world beating gap when the hype for him was at its peak, is it?

[colts18]

Kawhi has a track record of taking games relying on the rest of the roster to pick up the slack for him. For the most part, his teams do well without him playing too.


2013:
24 games missed
15-9 record

2014:
16 games missed (13 of them road games)
8-8 record

2015:
18 games missed
9-9 record

2016:
10 games missed (8 road games)
7-3 record

2017:
8 games missed
7-1 record

2018:
73 games missed
42-31 record

2019:
22 games missed (15 road games)
17-5 record

2020:
15 games missed (5 homes games, 8 road games, 2 bubble)
8-7 record

That's 186 games missed over the past 8 years, 23 per season. A disproportionate amount of those games being road games and back to back's. That's a lot of slack for his teammates to pick up especially considering he has never played more than 34 MPG in a season. As a result, Kawhi's career high in Minutes played in 2,474 minutes in a season. He has never played 2,500+ minutes in a season. To put that into perspective, the following players have 10 seasons with over 2,500 minutes. 10

Player Count
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 16
Karl Malone 16
Elvin Hayes 14
Wilt Chamberlain 13
John Havlicek 13
LeBron James 13
Jason Kidd 13
Moses Malone 13
Reggie Miller 13
Dirk Nowitzki 13
Gary Payton 13
Ray Allen 12
Kobe Bryant 12
Michael Jordan 12
Oscar Robertson 12
Bill Russell 12
Walt Bellamy 11
Hal Greer 11
Joe Johnson 11
Magic Johnson 11
Andre Miller 11
Hakeem Olajuwon 11
Paul Pierce 11
John Stockton 11
Reggie Theus 11
Lenny Wilkens 11
Dominique Wilkins 11
Buck Williams 11
Carmelo Anthony 10
Larry Bird 10
Dave DeBusschere 10
Tim Duncan 10
Alex English 10
Patrick Ewing 10
Kevin Garnett 10
Hersey Hawkins 10
Allen Iverson 10
Dennis Johnson 10
Dikembe Mutombo 10
Clifford Robinson 10
Jack Sikma 10
Latrell Sprewell 10
Isiah Thomas 10
Wes Unseld 10


44 players accomplished that feat 10+ times while Kawhi is at 0 for his career.

[Hal14]

1. Elgin Baylor
3. John Havlicek
3. Isiah Thomas

Pettit just got voted in, but I'm voting for Baylor here. IMO Baylor is slightly better than Pettit because Baylor was faster, better passer and better ball handler. And in terms of impact, Baylor was Dr. J before Dr. J. Baylor was Connie Hawkins before Connie Hawkins. Jordan modeled his game after Dr. J, as did Dominique Wilkins. Kobe and LeBron modeled their game after Jordan. Baylor was a pioneer. He paved the way for all of the explosive, big, strong, athletic wings to come later.

And speaking of impact, you could also make the argument that Baylor is the one who invented the euro-step:

Watch on YouTube

Also, Pettit's crowning achievement was his 50 point, 19 rebound game to led the Hawks to the win in game 6 over the Celtics to clinch the 1958 NBA championship. However, Russell only played 20 minutes that game because he had a severely sprained ankle suffered in game 3 of that series. Baylor meanwhile, scored 61 points and pulled down 22 rebounds to lead the Lakers to a win over the Celtics in game 5 of the 1962 NBA finals, so Baylor put up better numbers and did it against a healthy Russell who played all 48 minutes of that game. Baylor also played all 48 minutes that game. Jerry West? He had 26 points, 4 rebounds and 0 assists.

Baylor is the best all-around player left on the board IMO when you take into account his scoring, rebounding, passing, defense, ball handling and ability to score/defend both inside and outside.

Baylor and Pettit are both very close and it's definitely debatable which was the greater player. I think both have a case to be top 20 of all time. Scary to think how good they would have been if they played in the modern era with the advantage of 50 years of advances in basketball skills, more favorable rule changes, less days off between games, better equipment, better facilities, better weight training, better nutrition, better sports science, etc.

Baylor's teammate Jerry West is the no. 13 player on this list. And while I do have West ranked ahead of Baylor all-time, it is very close, so if West is no. 13 then Baylor could definitely be the no. 27 guy, considering that when they were teammates, Baylor was often times the better player. Lakers broadcaster Chick Hearn was quoted saying that Baylor was the best player he covered - not West. West is quoted saying that Baylor was better than him. Both Baylor and West made first team all NBA 10 times. Baylor was a better rebounder than Wes, a bigger, stronger more powerful player who could score and defend just as well inside as he could outside.

Hondo is in my no. 2 spot here. 8 titles (8-0 in the NBA finals), Celtics all time leading scorer, outstanding defensive player, strong clutch player, 1 NBA finals MVP.

And yes, I do have Isiah ranked slightly ahead of Stockton and Nash. Isiah, Stockton and Nash - all 3 of them had good careers, and had good supporting casts. But of the 3, Nash is the only 1 who could never make it to the NBA finals and he's also the only one who couldn't play a lick of defense. Plus he struggled his first few years when the game was more physical, had less spacing and more geared towards big men/post play (a.k.a. the environment that Isiah played his whole career in and Stockton played his entire prime in) and wasn't until rule changes, no more hand checking, no more hard fouls, more spacing, the rise of the 3-point shot, D'Antoni's system - defense got much weaker in 05, etc. it wasn't until then that Nash dominated.

In this video at the 14:45 mark, Bill Simmons says, "And then David Stern changed the rules so you could succeed"

Watch on YouTube

At the 49:35 mark of this video, Isiah says, "the game today, it favors the point guards and the small players. The era that I won in, the rules were geared towards the bigger players."

Watch on YouTube

Stockton made it to the finals twice, but a) that was after Isiah retied and b) Stockton's Jazz team lost to Jordan's Bulls both times. Meanwhile, during the time when Stockton and Isiah were both in their prime, Isiah made it to 3 NBA finals, won 2 championships and would have been 3 if not for the phantom foul call on Laimbeer in 88, which even Pat Riley admits was a BS call:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2103545-pat-riley-admits-84-lakers-benefited-from-phantom-foul-vs-detroit-pistons

And while Stockton's team lost to Jordan's Bulls twice in the finals, Isiah's Pistons beat Jordan's Bulls 3 times in the playoffs, and beat Magic's Lakers in 89, would have beat Magic Lakers in 88 if not for Phantom Foul and beat Bird's Celtics in 88..

Yes, it's a team game and Isiah had a strong supporting cast, but Isiah was the Piston's best player his entire career except for the very end of his career when he had injuries and the Pistons were a joke before they drafted him.

[colts18]

Why is Kawhi being considered but Elvin Hayes isn't even considered.Hayes played 3x more minutes than Kawhi. I'll compare their careers

Minutes Played:
Hayes 50,000
Kawhi 16,252
+33K advantage


All-star games:
Hayes 12
Kawhi 4

Top 10 MVP finishes;
Hayes 6
Kawhi 5

All-NBA teams:
Hayes 6- 3 1st, 3 2nd
Kawhi 4- 2 1st, 2 2nd

Titles:
Hayes 1
Kawhi 2

Finals Appearances:
Hayes 3
Kawhi 3

Hayes is 12th all-time in Points, 6th all-time in Rebounds. Peaked very high. Insane longevity for his era. Played on good teams.

[70sFan]

I'd be interested to know which guys that are still around do you think peaked higher than Kawhi.

Bill Walton
Steve Nash
Patrick Ewing
Dwight Howard
Artis Gilmore
James Harden
Willis Reed
Rick Barry
Bob McAdoo
Walt Frazier
Anthony Davis
Elgin Baylor
Paul Arizin

all could be argued over Kawhi peak-wise. I wouldn't take all of them of course, but I'd take a few of them. Only Walton has worse longevity by the way.

Looking at that list, I guess we have a very different valuation of Kawhi's peak. Dwight Howard? Paul Arizin? Willis Reed? I'm not seeing how they have peaks that were all that close to Kawhi.

I suggest you to re-look at Willis 1969 and 1970 seasons. He led absolutely dominant team to the title, he outplayed three of the greatest centers ever in 1970 playoffs and he was a two-way monster who didn't have any notable weaknesses outside of playmaking (same as Kawhi by the way).

[Jordan Syndrome]

I do wonder why my "feeling out posts" about players garner such hostile responses. My personal annoyance with this is that I explicitly didn't take personality into account for other players I have a dislike for for different reasons (LeBron, KG, Karl Malone the most significant examples) but reading some of these responses I can't help but feel this doesn't happen across the board.

Maybe you should start encompassing how a player carries themselves into consideration. This has a direct affect on a teams play and morale which is a direct affect on Championship odds and winning.

[Jordan Syndrome]

Why is Kawhi being considered but Elvin Hayes isn't even considered.Hayes played 3x more minutes than Kawhi. I'll compare their careers

Minutes Played:
Hayes 50,000
Kawhi 16,252
+33K advantage


All-star games:
Hayes 12
Kawhi 4

Top 10 MVP finishes;
Hayes 6
Kawhi 5

All-NBA teams:
Hayes 6- 3 1st, 3 2nd
Kawhi 4- 2 1st, 2 2nd

Titles:
Hayes 1
Kawhi 2

Finals Appearances:
Hayes 3
Kawhi 3

Hayes is 12th all-time in Points, 6th all-time in Rebounds. Peaked very high. Insane longevity for his era. Played on good teams.

Elvin Hayes did not peak "very high" and he was an inefficient volume scorer who varied between poor to great defensively.

There are one or two people considering Kawhi--and those people value current players highly.

[Dutchball97]

I do wonder why my "feeling out posts" about players garner such hostile responses. My personal annoyance with this is that I explicitly didn't take personality into account for other players I have a dislike for for different reasons (LeBron, KG, Karl Malone the most significant examples) but reading some of these responses I can't help but feel this doesn't happen across the board.

Maybe you should start encompassing how a player carries themselves into consideration. This has a direct affect on a teams play and morale which is a direct affect on Championship odds and winning.

Outside of maybe 2020 I don't see how this applies to Kawhi and like I said I doubt even LeBron or MJ would've been able to fix the mess that was the Clippers last year.

[Doctor MJ]

Tried to reply in the previous thread but the formatting of the previous thread is unreadable for some reason

I understand your feelings and I'm going to try to back off now, but I'll emphasize again:

I'm not talking about this stuff every time a vote doesn't go my way. I'm talking about what happened with a particular player that the PC Board has gone from apparently high-to-low on without realizing it. This is a phenomena worth studying.

Why do you think this? Curry went from #29 in the 2017 project to #24 in this project. Wade on the other hand, went from #22 in the 2017 project, and we're at #27 and he still hasn't been voted in.

Given what has happened with Curry and Wade in the last 3 years, which is the stranger phenomenon here?

Well I think I laid it out pretty plainly based on the POY. It's weird that the PC Board went from being the place that called Curry a Top 5 player while the mainstream didn't even see him as an all-star to a place where we put his GOAT list ranking way below the mainstream. I'm not saying that mere fact makes any particular vote right or wrong, but it's nothing obvious.

Re: 29 to 24. Right, but in the meantime Curry won another championship and then the next year after everyone else got injured Curry took over and did all the volume scoring stuff that people holding 2016 against him say he can't do. This last 3 years stretch (2017 to 2020) wasn't as strong as the previous (2014 to 2017), but keep in mind that from 2014 to 2017 he want from outside of the Top 100 to Top 30 and at that time Curry was already in a debate with Paul.

Meanwhile, what's Paul done these past 3 years? Left his long-time team with a bunch of ill-will, forced his way to the Rockets, been so annoying on the Rockets that he got sent to irrelevance (OKC), and now he's going to another lottery team - granted one with hope for the next year. It has not been a good epoch for him, particularly if you're someone like me who prior to this point basically gave Paul the benefit of the doubt about his tendency to make those around him unhappy, and no there is no more doubt.

Re: Wade 22 to 27 or worse. Having done this a long time I don't find there to be anything strange about a guy dropping 5 spots when he's not doing anything, particularly when that has a lot to do with him being surpassed by guys who are still playing.

But I can be more specific here. I see 2 trends aside from current guys just playing more:

1. Old-timers are getting championed harder this time, for whatever reason. Mikan & Pettit surpassed Wade. This probably wasn't about Wade so much as folks who thought the old-timers deserved more respect, and I wouldn't be surprised if this difference is a bit more about who are population of voters happens to be than anything else.

2. The fact that Wade is now someone from the past while his draftmate is still the best player in the world is really hammering in how poor Wade's longevity was. In a sport where we're now expecting 15 year plus years of relevance, Wade stands out as someone whose game just could not do this. If you go look at this list to this point and just look at the more modern guys, they're basically all guys whose games aged like wine. Wade's aged more like milk. This is bound to hurt him.

Yes, people are trying to defend his longevity, point out other players didn't have that many more great years and all that, and certainly for some that perspective is the one that resonates with them, but I don't think there's any doubt that Wade's losing some stature over time when we're realizing how unusual Wade's age limitations are compared to most other top-tier guys.

Now as I've said: There are clear reasons for this. It's not a personality flaw on Wade's part. The issues is simply 1) his game was more dependent on youthful explosion than basically any other top-tier guys, 2) his shot always sucked and we're now in an era where that's a much bigger deal than ever before - give Wade good shooting and he's still playing, and 3) he didn't have an off-the-charts BBIQ which at this level is almost par for the course for guards.

Beyond that for me and some others, the fact that Wade really never showed an ability to lead elite offenses is concerning. I tend to see him more as a floor raiser than a ceiling raiser, and this is not something I used to think about. At one point I would have argued that Wade was arguably better than Kobe prime vs prime and just give Kobe the longevity edge. Now? Not so much.

[eminence]

I think of '15-'20 Kawhi as 'high-level' with fairly serious injury/durability issues, and '13/'14 as good enough to add to his case, but overall still lacking pretty significantly in longevity. I will agree he's one of the higher peak/prime guys remaining, though I don't think he's miles above a guy like Ewing in that regard either.

Kawhi and leadership don't belong in the same sentence. He's not a bad one, he simply isn't one and doesn't seem to try to be one either.

I don't see a serious case for he/AD sorts over a guy like Harden from the same era, who emerged prior to them, has been notably healthier, doesn't have some huge performance gap between them, and none of them are exemplars of culture building.

I expect my ballot to be Nash/Wade/Harden in that order, but I need to look more at Ewing in particular.

[Cavsfansince84]

Outside of maybe 2020 I don't see how this applies to Kawhi and like I said I doubt even LeBron or MJ would've been able to fix the mess that was the Clippers last year.

I think by saying that you are highly discounting the role which Kawhi played in creating that mess. I don't think there would have been much of a mess at all if either of those two were on that team and what did exist would have gotten hashed out pretty fast.

[Jordan Syndrome]

I'd be interested to know which guys that are still around do you think peaked higher than Kawhi.

Bill Walton
Steve Nash
Patrick Ewing
Dwight Howard
Artis Gilmore
James Harden
Willis Reed
Rick Barry
Bob McAdoo
Walt Frazier
Anthony Davis
Elgin Baylor
Paul Arizin

all could be argued over Kawhi peak-wise. I wouldn't take all of them of course, but I'd take a few of them. Only Walton has worse longevity by the way.

Another thing to look at is context of peaks/prime. There is considerably more value in a player who has consecutive years at a sustained peak/prime versus a player who doesn't. This consistency helps for theoretical team building thus increasing championship odds/winning.

[Jordan Syndrome]

I think of '15-'20 Kawhi as 'high-level' with fairly serious injury/durability issues, and '13/'14 as good enough to add to his case, but overall still lacking pretty significantly in longevity. I will agree he's one of the higher peak/prime guys remaining, though I don't think he's miles above a guy like Ewing in that regard either.

Kawhi and leadership don't belong in the same sentence. He's not a bad one, he simply isn't one and doesn't seem to try to be one either.

I don't see a serious case for he/AD sorts over a guy like Harden from the same era, who emerged prior to them, has been notably healthier, doesn't have some huge performance gap between them, and none of them are exemplars of culture building.

I expect my ballot to be Nash/Wade/Harden in that order, but I need to look more at Ewing in particular.

I'm also curious about Ewing as well and I have a difficulties identifying the Ewing Effect and how much stock to put into it.

[Dutchball97]

Willis Reed? Just because he's a player from an older era gets to be isolated among that lot?
I'd suggest you to look up how well Reed performed against Russell, Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar and Unseld in '69 and '70 playoffs.

Also, in the latest peaks project which finished several months after Leonard's historic 2019 playoff run, Leonard was ranked at #27, Howard at #33 and Reed at #36. Not entirely world beating gap when the hype for him was at its peak, is it?

I suggest you take a step back. You do realize I have Elgin Baylor on my ballot, right? Now this suddenly turned into a thing that I value current players over older players. No, I value high peaks and primes over regular season longevity, which is why I have voted for some current players that lack longevity in the eyes of many here earlier than they would. Kawhi's 2019 run being only 27th in the peaks project only seems possible with a high emphasis on the regular season where Kawhi missed games. Looking strictly at his play-off performance he's top 15 and on the edge of the top 10 for me in terms of peak. Similar posters who dismiss Kawhi's performance now voting him much lower than I would doesn't prove or disprove the gap between the peaks of Kawhi and someone like Howard either.

[70sFan]

I'd be interested to know which guys that are still around do you think peaked higher than Kawhi.

Bill Walton
Steve Nash
Patrick Ewing
Dwight Howard
Artis Gilmore
James Harden
Willis Reed
Rick Barry
Bob McAdoo
Walt Frazier
Anthony Davis
Elgin Baylor
Paul Arizin

all could be argued over Kawhi peak-wise. I wouldn't take all of them of course, but I'd take a few of them. Only Walton has worse longevity by the way.

Another thing to look at is context of peaks/prime. There is considerably more value in a player who has consecutive years at a sustained peak/prime versus a player who doesn't. This consistency helps for theoretical team building thus increasing championship odds/winning.

You're right and when you consider the length and consistency of prime, then most of the names I mentioned clearly overdone what Kawhi did so far.

[eminence]

Also appears to be a very wide range on how to rate '19 Kawhi. Personally I'd have it as his 3rd best season (behind '16 and '20, would be behind '17 if not for season ending injury) and voted for him 4th in the POY vote (I may be growing higher on him than that rating), while others have it borderline top 10 overall.

[70sFan]

Willis Reed? Just because he's a player from an older era gets to be isolated among that lot?
I'd suggest you to look up how well Reed performed against Russell, Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar and Unseld in '69 and '70 playoffs.

Also, in the latest peaks project which finished several months after Leonard's historic 2019 playoff run, Leonard was ranked at #27, Howard at #33 and Reed at #36. Not entirely world beating gap when the hype for him was at its peak, is it?

I suggest you take a step back. You do realize I have Elgin Baylor on my ballot, right? Now this suddenly turned into a thing that I value current players over older players. No, I value high peaks and primes over regular season longevity, which is why I have voted for some current players that lack longevity in the eyes of many here earlier than they would. Kawhi's 2019 run being only 27th in the peaks project only seems possible with a high emphasis on the regular season where Kawhi missed games. Looking strictly at his play-off performance he's top 15 and on the edge of the top 10 for me in terms of peak. Similar posters who dismiss Kawhi's performance now voting him much lower than I would doesn't prove or disprove the gap between the peaks of Kawhi and someone like Howard either.

I agree that we shouldn't act like we know the reasoning of each voter and I don't agree that Dutchball is biased against older players at all.

The thing is that Willis didn't lack anything in terms of postseason performance. You're acting like Reed didn't have any notable moments. In 7 series in a row Willis faced:

1967 Celtics with Bill Russell: 28/14/2 on 60 TS%
1968 Sixers with MVP Wilt: 21/10/2 on 58 TS%
1969 Bullets with MVP Unseld: 28/15/1 on 56 TS%
1969 Celtics with Russell: 24/14/2 on 56 TS%
1970 Bullets with Unseld: 21/18/3 on 47 TS%
1970 Bucks with Jabbar: 28/12/3 56 TS%
1970 Lakers with Wilt: 23/11/3 on 50 TS% (32/15/4 on 51 TS% before injury)

He faced absolutely brutal competition in these years and he played brilliantly in all-but one series. On top of that, he was elite defender - among the most underrated ever. He was excellent post defender (even if undersized), decent shotblocker and elite P&R defender - one of the best in the league.