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

[Doctor MJ]

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.

Curry's best years were from 2014-2017, his huge jump made sense, but of course you aren't going to make anymore massive leaps once you get inside the top 30. By the time of the 2017 project, his 2017 title was already in the books. Since then, he had:

1. 2018: He played well, but played 51 games in the regular season. As a side note, Wade's 2007 season (in which he was arguably playing some of the best basketball of his career) is often completely discounted because he played 51 games. He came back in time for the playoffs, but whereas Curry had the luxury of an all-time cast and could get a title even while missing some more time in the playoffs, Wade had no such luck, so that season just dissapears into the ether for most people when talking about Wade's career. Not saying Curry;s situation was exactly the same, or that 2018 wasn't a positive for him, but it wasn't a great year for him despite the title.
2. 2019: This is a quality season. Although not at the level of 2016 or 2017, he at least showed for me that he didn't crumble after his teamate's injuries, and put up a good fight -- some brilliant moments and some not so brilliant moments, but definetely another prime year
3. 2020: Completely lost season.

So one solid prime year, one prime-ish year with a title but significant playing time lost, and 1 no-show.

Have you looked in depth at the spreadsheet I compiled on the subject which includes a sheet completely devoted to player trajectory? You're essentially telling me what I should expect and quite frankly, you've almost certainly spent a small fraction of the time I have thinking on this very stuff.

Now, I'm saying I'm surprised so I certainly can't claim that I can always predict the minds of others. But when I say something is a discrepant event here, I think folks would be wise to listen.

To add to your commentary for the years in question:

2018: Durant comes back from the first title unhappy and touchy. He plays less in the Warriors system, holding the ball more for himself. Curry and the rest of the team allow him to take on an even higher primacy as they work to keep him happy. Curry also misses time to injury. Despite this, Curry leads the league in all-season +/- with a sizable edge over Durant who played roughly 1000 minutes more. The team is succeeding by all standard team estimates, winning yet another title, and Curry is displaying an all-time level humility for a 2-time MVP who also happens to be clearly the most impactful player on the roster yet has to tolerate another player's splintering ego.

2019: The same trends continue with Durant's behavior moving from "touchy" to abusive. He insults and yells at teammates, coaches, and beat reporters with a repeating pattern of accusing others of favoring Curry. Through it all, Curry never seems to do anything to fire back. He's nice and polite, goes out there in his beta role so that Durant can play alpha. Then when Durant goes down, Curry rips off 8 30 point games in the final 11 of the playoffs to lead the team past Houston & Portland and give Toronto an awful scare. He leaves absolutely zero doubt that even a top tier defense like Toronto can't stymy him the way they did Giannis, as well as making clear that his move to beta next to Durant really had nothing to do with him having diminished capabilities.

2020 is a wash, obviously, and theoretically shouldn't matter, though I'd venture that Curry would have ranked higher a year ago.

The more important thing is holistic.

The skepticism around Curry focuses on the fact that he didn't play great against Cleveland in 2016, but his numbers really weren't that bad in the first place, and if he later shows himself able to put up big numbers against a top defense like the Raptors getting zero in exclusively on him, what exactly are we still skeptical about? and how much should it really be messing with us?

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.

Paul had 3 quality allstar level seasons. He played more games than Curry. People I think really started to wake up to how valuable a player he was during his time on a true contender in the Rockets. He had his injury problems, too, and I value Curry's higher peak during these three years (despite a completely lost year and significantly fewer games played), so it makes sense Curry catches up to him a little.

As for his personality, How much of him being "sent to irrelevance" was on him and how much was on Harden? Neither seems to have a great track record, but in CP3s case it's possible that his desire to win at all costs is what irks his less competitive teamates. We've seen what happened to Jimmy Butler when he started playing for a quality franchise. Not sure CP3 doesn't have some blame here, but I don't know how you can just dismiss him like that when, in my opinion, he has played for some pretty dysfunctional teams to begin with.

Both Paul and Harden need to be damned to some degree for their personalities at this point. It's not a question of either/or, it's a question of why their relationship blew up.

And that's not actually a question, because we know the answer. Paul decided he wanted to go play with Harden, Paul then wouldn't shut up about how he thought Harden should play until Harden got fed up and got him shipped out. I've been pretty open about how I'm criticizing Harden for his attitude, but that doesn't excuse Paul because it was Paul's job to make his new boss happy, and he didn't do it.

I've got a relative. Incredibly smart. Reading from the age of 3. Can hear a song on the radio and instantly set down and perform it on the piano, both music and lyrics. He instantly recognizes and remembers all the music and lyrics, and generally has this command with anything. But his career really didn't go that well and everyone in the family has a sense of why: Because he wasn't the boss, and he didn't ingratiate himself to his bosses, he just told them what they should be doing repeatedly, insistently, and condescendingly.

When you're not the 600 lb gorilla in the room and you act like you are, bad things happen to you.

Some people suffer this simply because circumstances happen to them, but that's not what happened with Paul. He chose this specifically and chose it after creating an uptight, uncomfortable, fragile-in-the-playoffs environment on his previous team. He did this to himself, and while Harden deserves play, Paul has no one to blame but himself.

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.

Almost every draftmate of Wade is long gone, and only a few are playing bench roles on the vet minimum. In fact I can only think of Carmelo Anthony at the moment (and Udonis Haslem who went undrafted, and has long been more of a coach than a player). Who else is still in the league? The fact that Lebron is still the best player in the league shows what a freak he is, and nothing else. Wade's longevity is not the best, but if you hold anybody to Lebron's standard, nearly everyone not Kareem or Malone pales.

I would suggest you actually go and look to compare Wade to other contemporary superstars' longevities if you're skeptical. I don't think it's actually a debate as to whether Wade's longevity is hurting him here.

On the 2003 draft class specifically, I'll note a few players:

1. Carmelo Anthony has now had a considerably longer career than Wade despite before a far lower BBIQ player with a far worse prime, and Wade not really having injury as an excuse for his falloff. I frankly wouldn't even call Melo's longevity an outlier at this point, it's just what we expect from guys who don't get hurt.

2. Draftmate and Teammate Chris Bosh had clearly been anointed the team's new focus after LeBron left rather than Wade, and while Bosh was younger than Wade, I really think it was clear to everyone at the time that Bosh's game was aging better than Wade's.

3. Kyle Korver has been more in demand than Wade for a while now. Why? Because great shooters age well.

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.

We won't agree on a lot of this, and we've probably stated out positions on a lot of this already with regard to his longevity. He was capable of superstar play for 10 years (although frequently interrupted by injuries), and all star play for another 3 or so years, and then decided to be of marginal positive value as a bench player rather than detrimental value as an aging starter (not of any significance to me except to illustrate his personality and team-first mentality, since you have brought this up as a significant point with regard to stars). As for his BBIQ, while not at the level of Lebron/CP3/Nash, he has been universally praised for being an extremely intelligent player by teammates and coaching staff (Spoelstra has made it a very frequent point), as a scorer, playmaker, and defender, so I don't know what else to say about that. If by "his shot sucked" you mean he wasn't a good 3 point shooter, fine, but "his shot" included a pretty reliable midrange. In today's era, no doubt coaching staff would not tell him to not bother with 3s, and no question the proportion of end-of-shotclock bailout plays goes down, but whatever. You can knock him for not being a good 3pt shooter, but not that his shot "sucked."

I totally disagree that Wade couldn't lead elite offenses. If we ever saw him on an offensive minded team built around him, like we have with Curry, Lebron, Harden, Nash, etc., then you could make that statement. But we never did. I would like to see Curry or Harden or Nash produce their elite offenses on those late 2000s Heat teams.

Wade had 5 superstar years. His last one came at age 29. Look around at guys other modern guys who we'd even consider comparing to Wade, they probably had superstar years after that.

Re: BBIQ. I'm not looking to call him dumb, but this stuff matters when people keep saying that he'd magically lead elite offenses if he just had better shooters around him. You cannot simply assume that he'd have been able to run an offense like them.

Re: shot sucked. For comparison here, here's Wade's career shot percentages at various non-3 point ranges:

0-3: .655
3-10: .457
10-16: .384
16-3P: .386

Here's KG:
0-3: .674
3-10: .459
10-16: .451
16-3P: .454

You see the difference?

Now if you want to come back to me with more comparisons along these lines and slot people into a greyscale that's fine. Maybe I'll end up concluding that Wade needs to be given a label other than "sucks", but I think it's pretty obvious that Wade's bread and butter came 10 feet and in, and that's not the sort of thing that ages well when you're an explosion-based guard.

Re: Can't speak to what we didn't see. I'd argue that the only way to get anywhere with this is if you try your best and accept that your knowledge will always be incomplete.

[DQuinn1575]

The next one will be in 2023.

Now that I'm aware of this poll, is there anything stopping me from starting my own poll next year?

OF course not, but the stress of getting it out there every other day for 200 days, making sure to keep tallies, and trying to get everyone to play nice is pretty extreme. Trex is doing a great job but it wears on you.

Second that on the great job!

[Doctor MJ]

I'm voting for D Wade here. I think he has the most impressive peak left, and he has also the best run left. 2006 was special, that ECF and NBA finals were out of this world. Basically, even with a bit less longevity than Nash, Wade did what Nash failed to do with such run. He absolutely killed it in 06.

I do understand that perspective, but I think it's important to remember that Wade was not leading an unstoppable offense when he did this. The team won with defense.

Wade's legend truly got established with those 2006 finals against Dallas.

In those finals, Miami had an ORtg of 101.0.

To use simple estimates, given that Dallas had a regular season DRtg of 105.0. That means Miami's performance in that series was a -4.0 rORtg, which means they underperformed by 6.5 points per 100 possessions against Dallas.

By contrast, the Suns in the previous round had an ORtg of 111.5, which gives them a +6.5 rORtg which was BETTER than what you'd expect from the regular season, despite the fact that the Suns were not playing at full strength in the playoffs due to injuries.

And of course, that doesn't factor in that the Suns were missing Amar'e that year.

So no, Wade was not succeeding in any way that could be seen as succeeding where Nash failed unless you're just doing RINGZ.

I'll further add that people tend to really lionize Wade's performance in the 2010 playoffs against Boston where he personally put up big numbers while his team put up a putrid ORtg. This is the trend of Wade. He puts up numbers, his team's offenses are meh.

To be clear, I do think Wade is a better floor raiser than Nash. I think Wade's at his best when you just tell him to go score and you try to use the rest of the lineup to win with defense, which is of course how they won the 2006 title.

Dallas in the '06 finals had an ORtg of 99.9. which was 11.9 below their regular season average. Anyone who wants to understand how Miami beat Dallas should be focused on Miami's defense not their offense. And the fact that the team had the ability at all times to have either Shaq or Zo on the floor is really a freakish thing.

But yeah, if I'm looking to build a team that will have an elite offense, Wade's pretty low on my list.

While team stats are useful, they provide a team context. The Heat did not have a fantastic team.

They had Posey and Williams as good 3 point shooters that year. Walker wasn't exactly that, he played how many modern PFs do but he was baaad.

The Heat struggled mightly on offense in games 1 and 2 in the finals. However, Wade by himself, gave them a boost on offense to be arround 100 points instead of 80 in those last 4 games. And it was by his will.

This is something Nash as a scorer never showed us, and it is an important aspect in a basketball game.

I just can't say I ever saw Nash do what Wade did. Fine, the Heat were not super great on offense, but a Wade made a big difference with his play. In the last 4 games of the series he always scored above 35 and he only had one game with less than 60ts%, two above 66.

While scoring isn't the only aspect of the game, a player scoring like that is for sure a force to be recognized.

And having that ultimate punch in his scoring arsenal and getting his team enough offense to win a ring is something Nash didn't do.

The only game Nash had against Dallas that comes within the same type of performances Wade had in the finals was G1.

Not that Nash played bad for most of the series, even tough he was subpar here and there. But he definitely didn't rise his game to the heights of D. Wade.

We're going in circles now.

I can certainly concede that team play cannot be used exclusively to judge and individual player, but I object strongly to the notion that in the end we should settle on who can do the most when they can't rely on teammates, because basketball is a team game.

I think in general it's more useful to talk in terms of floor-raising vs ceiling-raising, and what you're saying is that Wade is a better floor-raiser. Granted. I would suggest that ceiling-raising is the more important aspect of things.

Where I think people tend to get stuck is with the fact that Wade did win that '06 championship and Nash won no championships. It's hard for people to reconcile the fact that Nash was in general leading superior teams than Wade with the fact that Wade got that chip, and it's frankly why it will never shock me when Wade gets placed ahead of Nash on lists like this.

Re: didn't raise his game. I object to this phrasing specifically because he was leading a more successful offense than Wade was. I understand that this alone is not proof that Nash > Wade, but you're contexting things in a way where you think that Nash & Wade were trying to do the same thing one failed while the other succeeded based on scoring, despite the fact that Nash's teams were scoring just fine.

I think you'd clearly see things differently if Nash's teams performed precisely the same but Nash scored twice as much, and I'd suggest that perhaps you really shouldn't because Nash was literally playing smarter this way.

I'd also note that it's not like Nash didn't have bursts of volume scoring. Against Dallas in '04-05, his last 3 games yielded 48, 34, and 39 points, and I'd say this really shaped how teams approached Nash going forward.

Now you might say "Well yeah, but team's knew Wade's scoring was coming and still couldn't stop it!", but as we've talked about, the story of Wade's playoff success was not one where defenses against him were performing badly. It's not the other team's job to stop one guy from getting numbers, it's their job to stop the other team from getting numbers, and by and large, Wade's opponents did that better than most realize.

[trex_8063]

I'm voting for D Wade here. I think he has the most impressive peak left, and he has also the best run left. 2006 was special, that ECF and NBA finals were out of this world. Basically, even with a bit less longevity than Nash, Wade did what Nash failed to do with such run. He absolutely killed it in 06.

I do understand that perspective, but I think it's important to remember that Wade was not leading an unstoppable offense when he did this. The team won with defense.

Wade's legend truly got established with those 2006 finals against Dallas.

In those finals, Miami had an ORtg of 101.0.

To use simple estimates, given that Dallas had a regular season DRtg of 105.0. That means Miami's performance in that series was a -4.0 rORtg, which means they underperformed by 6.5 points per 100 possessions against Dallas.

By contrast, the Suns in the previous round had an ORtg of 111.5, which gives them a +6.5 rORtg which was BETTER than what you'd expect from the regular season, despite the fact that the Suns were not playing at full strength in the playoffs due to injuries.

And of course, that doesn't factor in that the Suns were missing Amar'e that year.

So no, Wade was not succeeding in any way that could be seen as succeeding where Nash failed unless you're just doing RINGZ.

I'll further add that people tend to really lionize Wade's performance in the 2010 playoffs against Boston where he personally put up big numbers while his team put up a putrid ORtg. This is the trend of Wade. He puts up numbers, his team's offenses are meh.

To be clear, I do think Wade is a better floor raiser than Nash. I think Wade's at his best when you just tell him to go score and you try to use the rest of the lineup to win with defense, which is of course how they won the 2006 title.

Dallas in the '06 finals had an ORtg of 99.9. which was 11.9 below their regular season average. Anyone who wants to understand how Miami beat Dallas should be focused on Miami's defense not their offense. And the fact that the team had the ability at all times to have either Shaq or Zo on the floor is really a freakish thing.

But yeah, if I'm looking to build a team that will have an elite offense, Wade's pretty low on my list.

Couple flaws I see with the above as a major criticism of Wade.

1st....
I feel like this is overly-fixated on a single series of a title run. There can be A LOT of fluctuation from series to series [in terms of offensive or defensive performance], and what you've outlined doesn't give at all a fair picture of how the Heat came to win the title that year.
In getting TO the finals, they'd been riding the strength of their offense more often than not:
*In the first round they had a 107.9 ORtg against the 7th-rated 103.4 DRtg (+4.5), while allowing the 23rd-rated [104.0 ORtg] offense to rack up a 104.7 ORtg against them [+0.7 rDRTG].

**In the semis they destroyed a 4th-rated 102.5 DRtg to the tune of a 112.9 ORtg (+10.5). Meanwhile they allowed this 25th-rated [103.9 ORtg] offense to perform as a 105.8 ORtg against them [+1.9 rDRTG].

***In the CF it was finally the defense that takes the lion's share of credit, though their offense still performed well: they managed a 107.3 ORtg against the 5th-rated [103.1 DRtg] defense (+4.2 rORTG). Defensively they held the 4th-rated [110.8 ORtg] offense to just a 101.1 ORtg [-9.7 rDRTG].

So thru the first THREE rounds of the playoffs, they were [on average] a +6.2 rORTG and a -2.6 rDRTG. And the finals played out as you indicated. Though overall (even with that finals series included) they'd been a +3.5 rORTG in the playoffs, and a -5.0 rDRTG.

Sure, it's a bit more defense than offense, but not NEARLY the defense-dependent narrative you've pushed. They were actually a pretty balanced team in the playoffs (which is more consistent with what they were in the rs: 7th-rated offense and 9th-rated defense).



Additionally, where we might laud their defense, it's worth noting that Wade was partly responsible for that, being an awfully solid defensive SG.



Re: "Trying to turn an apples-to-oranges comparison into apples-to-apples comp" [trying to parse out individual offensive impact/contribution in a totally different circumstance]......I know it's imperfect, but I'll just note that '06 Wade's ORAPM was +4.6 (Nash's was +4.5).

Please don't take this to be me saying Wade >/= Nash on offense; this is just me saying he was a hella-legit offensive engine that year (playoffs included).

[Doctor MJ]

I'm voting for D Wade here. I think he has the most impressive peak left, and he has also the best run left. 2006 was special, that ECF and NBA finals were out of this world. Basically, even with a bit less longevity than Nash, Wade did what Nash failed to do with such run. He absolutely killed it in 06.

I do understand that perspective, but I think it's important to remember that Wade was not leading an unstoppable offense when he did this. The team won with defense.

Wade's legend truly got established with those 2006 finals against Dallas.

In those finals, Miami had an ORtg of 101.0.

To use simple estimates, given that Dallas had a regular season DRtg of 105.0. That means Miami's performance in that series was a -4.0 rORtg, which means they underperformed by 6.5 points per 100 possessions against Dallas.

By contrast, the Suns in the previous round had an ORtg of 111.5, which gives them a +6.5 rORtg which was BETTER than what you'd expect from the regular season, despite the fact that the Suns were not playing at full strength in the playoffs due to injuries.

And of course, that doesn't factor in that the Suns were missing Amar'e that year.

So no, Wade was not succeeding in any way that could be seen as succeeding where Nash failed unless you're just doing RINGZ.

I'll further add that people tend to really lionize Wade's performance in the 2010 playoffs against Boston where he personally put up big numbers while his team put up a putrid ORtg. This is the trend of Wade. He puts up numbers, his team's offenses are meh.

To be clear, I do think Wade is a better floor raiser than Nash. I think Wade's at his best when you just tell him to go score and you try to use the rest of the lineup to win with defense, which is of course how they won the 2006 title.

Dallas in the '06 finals had an ORtg of 99.9. which was 11.9 below their regular season average. Anyone who wants to understand how Miami beat Dallas should be focused on Miami's defense not their offense. And the fact that the team had the ability at all times to have either Shaq or Zo on the floor is really a freakish thing.

But yeah, if I'm looking to build a team that will have an elite offense, Wade's pretty low on my list.

Couple flaws I see with the above as a major criticism of Wade.

1st....
I feel like this is overly-fixated on a single series of a title run. There can be A LOT of fluctuation from series to series [in terms of offensive or defensive performance], and what you've outlined doesn't give at all a fair picture of how the Heat came to win the title that year.
In getting TO the finals, they'd been riding the strength of their offense more often than not:
*In the first round they had a 107.9 ORtg against the 7th-rated 103.4 DRtg (+4.5), while allowing the 23rd-rated [104.0 ORtg] offense to rack up a 104.7 ORtg against them [+0.7 rDRTG].

**In the semis they destroyed a 4th-rated 102.5 DRtg to the tune of a 112.9 ORtg (+10.5). Meanwhile they allowed this 25th-rated [103.9 ORtg] offense to perform as a 105.8 ORtg against them [+1.9 rDRTG].

***In the CF it was finally the defense that takes the lion's share of credit, though their offense still performed well: they managed a 107.3 ORtg against the 5th-rated [103.1 DRtg] defense (+4.2 rORTG). Defensively they held the 4th-rated [110.8 ORtg] offense to just a 101.1 ORtg [-9.7 rDRTG].

So thru the first THREE rounds of the playoffs, they were [on average] a +6.2 rORTG and a -2.6 rDRTG. And the finals played out as you indicated. Though overall (even with that finals series included) they'd been a +3.5 rORTG in the playoffs, and a -5.0 rDRTG.

Sure, it's a bit more defense than offense, but not NEARLY the defense-dependent narrative you've pushed. They were actually a pretty balanced team in the playoffs (which is more consistent with what they were in the rs: 7th-rated offense and 9th-rated defense).



Additionally, where we might laud their defense, it's worth noting that Wade was partly responsible for that, being an awfully solid defensive SG.



Re: "Trying to turn an apples-to-oranges comparison into apples-to-apples comp" [trying to parse out individual offensive impact/contribution in a totally different circumstance]......I know it's imperfect, but I'll just note that '06 Wade's ORAPM was +4.6 (Nash's was +4.5).

Please don't take this to be me saying Wade >/= Nash on offense; this is just me saying he was a hella-legit offensive engine that year (playoffs included).

I'm glad you're bringing up more context. I'm focused on the Finals because that's what made his legacy.

I think it's worth noting Wade's scoring in these playoffs:
1st Round: 24.7 PPG
2nd Round: 27.6 PPG
Conf. Finals: 26.7 PPG
Championship: 34.7 PPG

I've mentioned before how drastically I think Curry & Durant's estimation in people's minds are based on particular finals series. Quite honestly, Wade's popular conception is shaped considerably more dramatically than even that.

For some comparison here, let's look at Wade & Curry in the series they played without their respective team-up (LeBron & KD).

Wade averaged more than 30 PPG 3 times in 12 series (pre but not post LeBron).
Curry averaged more than 30 PPG 5 times in 13 series.

I think most would be shocked to realize this because of their respective reputations, and those reputations have everything to do with the outsized place the grand finale has on our schema-building.

I know I'm coming off sanctimonious as hell with all this stuff, but I just think even smart folks like y'all don't tend to realize how much we peg our understanding of these players based on particular flavors of memory, and then we tend to branch out from there without considering how things would appear if we started from a different approach.

[No-more-rings]

I don't think Nash is a better Wade than Wade and I don't think Wade is a better Nash than Nash.

I will say that I think that the '05-06 Heat are probably the weakest championship team I've ever seen and thus it's largely a fluke that we look at them as "NBA champions" and look at, say, the '06-07 Suns as a team who came up short.

So i don't think we should ignore that a player was able to capitalize with the cards they were dealt. The 07 Suns came up short and that's unfortunate but you don't become the champion by beating bad teams. Wade's Heat dismantled the Pistons who the Spurs struggled to beat the year prior and also the Mavericks who actually did beat the Spurs. Why does none of that matter? The Heat came up short in 05 because of Wade's injury. Call them weak if you want, but in a playoff series they went toe to toe with the best and beat them. Why shouldn't that carry high value?

I'll also note that while the '05-06 playoff Suns were a crippled team that I don't see as championship-worthy, it's really not crazy at all to think they might have beaten those Heat had they played as the best version of the '05-06 team - that is, even without Amar'e.

I seriously doubt that, considering they needed 7 to beat the Lakers(45 wins) and Clippers(47 wins). The Suns defense ranked 16th, you weren't going to contain Wade with that defense. But believe what you want i guess.

He played with LeBron and produced weaker offenses than LeBron produced with Mo Williams.

This doesn't tell me anything other than Lebron was a much better player in 09, and that the 2011 Heat had the worst 4-15 rotation in the league by far.

If you want to make the argument for Wade as a DPOY-level defensive player, go right ahead. Dive into specifics. How did Wade limit Howard, Stackhouse, and Harris all under 50 TS%?

Where did i ever argue Wade as a DPOY type guy? No one on that squad was, aside from maybe Mourning but he wasn't giving them a lot of minutes. That's my only point.

Eh, again. If Wade was primarily impact offense and the team defense is what stood out, then obviously you need to give credit to the defense for a lot more than just Wade.

If you actually want to make the case that Wade was a better defensive player than offensive player though, you go right ahead.

I'm not saying that at all, and that the fact you're accusing me of that sort of shows that you're missing the point.

You and apparently a few others here prefer Nash because he is a better raiser of team offensive ratings, i don't think Wade has a leg to stand on in that. Where his case comes in and this is important, you don't win championships when your team is rated 15th or 16th in the league on defense. You just don't. While i don't blame Nash for that, the fact remains Wade can contribute to an elite defense or even just a really good one in a way Nash isn't going to. You can only hope he's not going to hurt you too much and maybe he won't but you'd have to be giving up some of that offense in order to achieve a great defense, i don't see how that's really arguable unless you just give him a big who's great on both ends in which case Wade never had that himself.

Anyway, i don't really expect these arguments to sway either side, but i don't think the argument that Nash leads better offenses therefore he's a better player is going to stick with many. If that were how things work Nash would've been ranked up there with Magic and he's not.

[FrogBros4Life]

NY’s defensive RTG ranks from 92-99:

92 - 2nd
93 - 1st
94 - 1st
95 - 1st
96 - 4th
97 - 2nd
98 - 4th
99 - 4th

Top 5 defense for 8 straight seasons and best in the league for 3 straight? That’s damn impressive any way you slice it. 92 was riley’s first year as head coach, and he found a way to manage all these strong personalities (mason, oakley, mcdaniel, starks, harper, etc.) and help them channel that towards performance on the court. Ewing had an impressive peak in 89-90 putting up 28.6 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 2.2 APG, 1 SPG, 4 BPG on 59.9% TS and 115 ORtg. He rounded out his career with solid longevity (15 productive seasons) and 9 straight seasons of 20+ PPG, 10+ RPG and 2+ BPG.

My biggest reservation on Ewing is that 4th in '98. Ewing essentially missed that season. The teams record still took a dive (seems to have been clutch play based, so not sure how much luck and how much real), so it's not all bad news for Ewing. You're a New York fan (I think?), so I'm sure know it better than I, how do you feel they managed such a strong D/squad without him that year? Ward/Mills of all people seem to dominate their defensive on/off for the season.

I don't have the numbers right in front of me at the moment, but if you prorate the games where only Ewing played that season the Knicks DRTG goes from 4th to 1st, and IIRC, was somewhere in the [-6,-7] range. Ewing was having another fine season that year before he got injured. Even at 35 years old, he was the difference in the team having a good defense and a great one. Also of note: The Knicks still finished 4th in 96 despite the horrible Don Nelson experiment failing about as badly as possible. IIRC the DRTG under just Van Gundy toward the end of the year would have put them at 2nd on the year, which would have given them 8 straight years as a top 2 defense (in theory), with a full year of Van Gundy in 96, and no injury to Ewing in 98.

I'd point to that being his 13th season at 35 years old, and his impact just wasn't as high as it was in his prime. As I mentioned, they did have solid defensive players around him including a great scheme for the time. By then he was more the face of the team and had taken a back seat in role. I do think them missing the playoffs that season is still notable. Also, in 99 he was an integral part in upsetting miami in the first round despite later advancing past indiana without him en route to the finals. His body had really taken a beating at that point. It's hard to believe he ended up making it back for one more ECF run as he tore his achilles in 99.

With regard to the underlined: I'm not sure who "they" are in this instance, but the Knicks made the playoffs in 98.

With regard to the bolded: It is absolutely correct he was vital in their playoff wins agains MIA & ATL that year, but he did play the first 2 games of the IND series, which the Knicks split 1-1 in Indiana, stealing home court. Ewing was probably the best player for NY in game 1. He was tied for team high in +/-, contributed a double double, and with NY trailing by 1 with under a minute left (on the road), he makes 4 free throws on 2 separate offensive possessions to give the Knicks a lead they would not relenquish. He wasn't as effective in Game 2, but he was already playing with an injured achilles at that point, and would fully tear it during said game, causing him to miss the remainder of the playoffs. Despite that, it was Ewing that made 2 free throws, again with less than a minute left, to put his team up 2 on the road. If not for Allan Houston throwing the ball away with the shot clock turned off, it's possible (probable, even) they would have gone up 2-0. I'm not sure NY wins this series if Ewing doesn't play the first 2 games, setting the tone and stealing home court. All in all, the Knicks that year were 8-3 with Ewing in the playoffs, and 4-5 without him. Another poster in this thread made a comment about "not knowing what to make of the Ewing theory", and I had to check my calendar to make sure we hadn't gone back to the turn of the century. The Knicks were better with Ewing. End of story.

[Joao Saraiva]

I do understand that perspective, but I think it's important to remember that Wade was not leading an unstoppable offense when he did this. The team won with defense.

Wade's legend truly got established with those 2006 finals against Dallas.

In those finals, Miami had an ORtg of 101.0.

To use simple estimates, given that Dallas had a regular season DRtg of 105.0. That means Miami's performance in that series was a -4.0 rORtg, which means they underperformed by 6.5 points per 100 possessions against Dallas.

By contrast, the Suns in the previous round had an ORtg of 111.5, which gives them a +6.5 rORtg which was BETTER than what you'd expect from the regular season, despite the fact that the Suns were not playing at full strength in the playoffs due to injuries.

And of course, that doesn't factor in that the Suns were missing Amar'e that year.

So no, Wade was not succeeding in any way that could be seen as succeeding where Nash failed unless you're just doing RINGZ.

I'll further add that people tend to really lionize Wade's performance in the 2010 playoffs against Boston where he personally put up big numbers while his team put up a putrid ORtg. This is the trend of Wade. He puts up numbers, his team's offenses are meh.

To be clear, I do think Wade is a better floor raiser than Nash. I think Wade's at his best when you just tell him to go score and you try to use the rest of the lineup to win with defense, which is of course how they won the 2006 title.

Dallas in the '06 finals had an ORtg of 99.9. which was 11.9 below their regular season average. Anyone who wants to understand how Miami beat Dallas should be focused on Miami's defense not their offense. And the fact that the team had the ability at all times to have either Shaq or Zo on the floor is really a freakish thing.

But yeah, if I'm looking to build a team that will have an elite offense, Wade's pretty low on my list.

While team stats are useful, they provide a team context. The Heat did not have a fantastic team.

They had Posey and Williams as good 3 point shooters that year. Walker wasn't exactly that, he played how many modern PFs do but he was baaad.

The Heat struggled mightly on offense in games 1 and 2 in the finals. However, Wade by himself, gave them a boost on offense to be arround 100 points instead of 80 in those last 4 games. And it was by his will.

This is something Nash as a scorer never showed us, and it is an important aspect in a basketball game.

I just can't say I ever saw Nash do what Wade did. Fine, the Heat were not super great on offense, but a Wade made a big difference with his play. In the last 4 games of the series he always scored above 35 and he only had one game with less than 60ts%, two above 66.

While scoring isn't the only aspect of the game, a player scoring like that is for sure a force to be recognized.

And having that ultimate punch in his scoring arsenal and getting his team enough offense to win a ring is something Nash didn't do.

The only game Nash had against Dallas that comes within the same type of performances Wade had in the finals was G1.

Not that Nash played bad for most of the series, even tough he was subpar here and there. But he definitely didn't rise his game to the heights of D. Wade.

We're going in circles now.

I can certainly concede that team play cannot be used exclusively to judge and individual player, but I object strongly to the notion that in the end we should settle on who can do the most when they can't rely on teammates, because basketball is a team game.

I think in general it's more useful to talk in terms of floor-raising vs ceiling-raising, and what you're saying is that Wade is a better floor-raiser. Granted. I would suggest that ceiling-raising is the more important aspect of things.

Where I think people tend to get stuck is with the fact that Wade did win that '06 championship and Nash won no championships. It's hard for people to reconcile the fact that Nash was in general leading superior teams than Wade with the fact that Wade got that chip, and it's frankly why it will never shock me when Wade gets placed ahead of Nash on lists like this.

Re: didn't raise his game. I object to this phrasing specifically because he was leading a more successful offense than Wade was. I understand that this alone is not proof that Nash > Wade, but you're contexting things in a way where you think that Nash & Wade were trying to do the same thing one failed while the other succeeded based on scoring, despite the fact that Nash's teams were scoring just fine.

I think you'd clearly see things differently if Nash's teams performed precisely the same but Nash scored twice as much, and I'd suggest that perhaps you really shouldn't because Nash was literally playing smarter this way.

I'd also note that it's not like Nash didn't have bursts of volume scoring. Against Dallas in '04-05, his last 3 games yielded 48, 34, and 39 points, and I'd say this really shaped how teams approached Nash going forward.

Now you might say "Well yeah, but team's knew Wade's scoring was coming and still couldn't stop it!", but as we've talked about, the story of Wade's playoff success was not one where defenses against him were performing badly. It's not the other team's job to stop one guy from getting numbers, it's their job to stop the other team from getting numbers, and by and large, Wade's opponents did that better than most realize.

Phoenix wasn't scoring fine.

They had a 121 point game in G1 that makes it look that way. They had 98, 88 and 93 in 3 of their losses. That is well below their average.

Series have that problem, one game can mask a ton of things. But no, the Suns were not scoring at their usual rate.

Suns had 42 points in the 2nd half of G6... that is really low for them.
46 in the 2nd half of G5, again below average for them.
And 36 in the 2nd half of G3, a very important game for the outcome of that series since Dallas regained HCA there.

[Clyde Frazier]

Spoiler:

NY’s defensive RTG ranks from 92-99:

92 - 2nd
93 - 1st
94 - 1st
95 - 1st
96 - 4th
97 - 2nd
98 - 4th
99 - 4th

Top 5 defense for 8 straight seasons and best in the league for 3 straight? That’s damn impressive any way you slice it. 92 was riley’s first year as head coach, and he found a way to manage all these strong personalities (mason, oakley, mcdaniel, starks, harper, etc.) and help them channel that towards performance on the court. Ewing had an impressive peak in 89-90 putting up 28.6 PPG, 10.9 RPG, 2.2 APG, 1 SPG, 4 BPG on 59.9% TS and 115 ORtg. He rounded out his career with solid longevity (15 productive seasons) and 9 straight seasons of 20+ PPG, 10+ RPG and 2+ BPG.

My biggest reservation on Ewing is that 4th in '98. Ewing essentially missed that season. The teams record still took a dive (seems to have been clutch play based, so not sure how much luck and how much real), so it's not all bad news for Ewing. You're a New York fan (I think?), so I'm sure know it better than I, how do you feel they managed such a strong D/squad without him that year? Ward/Mills of all people seem to dominate their defensive on/off for the season.

I don't have the numbers right in front of me at the moment, but if you prorate the games where only Ewing played that season the Knicks DRTG goes from 4th to 1st, and IIRC, was somewhere in the [-6,-7] range. Ewing was having another fine season that year before he got injured. Even at 35 years old, he has the difference in the team having a good defense and a great one.

I'd point to that being his 13th season at 35 years old, and his impact just wasn't as high as it was in his prime. As I mentioned, they did have solid defensive players around him including a great scheme for the time. By then he was more the face of the team and had taken a back seat in role. I do think them missing the playoffs that season is still notable. Also, in 99 he was an integral part in upsetting miami in the first round despite later advancing past indiana without him en route to the finals. His body had really taken a beating at that point. It's hard to believe he ended up making it back for one more ECF run as he tore his achilles in 99.

With regard to the underlined: I'm not sure who "they" are in this instance, but the Knicks made the playoffs in 98.

With regard to the bolded: It is absolutely correct he was vital in their playoff wins agains MIA & ATL that year, but he did play the first 2 games of the IND series, which the Knicks split 1-1 in Indiana, stealing home court. Ewing was probably the best player for NY in game 1. He was tied for team high in +/-, contributed a double double, and with NY trailing by 1 with under a minute left (on the road), he makes 4 free throws on 2 separate offensive possessions to give the Knicks a lead they would not relenquish. He wasn't as effective in Game 2, but he was already playing with an injured achilles at that point, and would fully tear it during said game, causing him to miss the remainder of the playoffs. Despite that, it was Ewing that made 2 free throws, again with less than a minute left, to put his team up 2 on the road. If not for Allan Houston throwing the ball away with the shot clock turned off, it's possible (probable, even) they would have gone up 2-0. I'm not sure NY wins this series if Ewing doesn't play the first 2 games, setting the tone and stealing home court. All in all, the Knicks that year were 8-3 with Ewing in the playoffs, and 4-5 without him. Another poster in this thread made a comment about "not knowing what to make of the Ewing theory", and I had to check my calendar to make sure we hadn't gone back to the turn of the century. The Knicks were better with Ewing. End of story.

Thanks for the correction. When ewing was traded the Knicks had made the playoffs in 13 straight seasons. Don't know why I thought they missed the playoffs that year. Chalk it up to lack of sleep.

[Joao Saraiva]

I do understand that perspective, but I think it's important to remember that Wade was not leading an unstoppable offense when he did this. The team won with defense.

Wade's legend truly got established with those 2006 finals against Dallas.

In those finals, Miami had an ORtg of 101.0.

To use simple estimates, given that Dallas had a regular season DRtg of 105.0. That means Miami's performance in that series was a -4.0 rORtg, which means they underperformed by 6.5 points per 100 possessions against Dallas.

By contrast, the Suns in the previous round had an ORtg of 111.5, which gives them a +6.5 rORtg which was BETTER than what you'd expect from the regular season, despite the fact that the Suns were not playing at full strength in the playoffs due to injuries.

And of course, that doesn't factor in that the Suns were missing Amar'e that year.

So no, Wade was not succeeding in any way that could be seen as succeeding where Nash failed unless you're just doing RINGZ.

I'll further add that people tend to really lionize Wade's performance in the 2010 playoffs against Boston where he personally put up big numbers while his team put up a putrid ORtg. This is the trend of Wade. He puts up numbers, his team's offenses are meh.

To be clear, I do think Wade is a better floor raiser than Nash. I think Wade's at his best when you just tell him to go score and you try to use the rest of the lineup to win with defense, which is of course how they won the 2006 title.

Dallas in the '06 finals had an ORtg of 99.9. which was 11.9 below their regular season average. Anyone who wants to understand how Miami beat Dallas should be focused on Miami's defense not their offense. And the fact that the team had the ability at all times to have either Shaq or Zo on the floor is really a freakish thing.

But yeah, if I'm looking to build a team that will have an elite offense, Wade's pretty low on my list.

Couple flaws I see with the above as a major criticism of Wade.

1st....
I feel like this is overly-fixated on a single series of a title run. There can be A LOT of fluctuation from series to series [in terms of offensive or defensive performance], and what you've outlined doesn't give at all a fair picture of how the Heat came to win the title that year.
In getting TO the finals, they'd been riding the strength of their offense more often than not:
*In the first round they had a 107.9 ORtg against the 7th-rated 103.4 DRtg (+4.5), while allowing the 23rd-rated [104.0 ORtg] offense to rack up a 104.7 ORtg against them [+0.7 rDRTG].

**In the semis they destroyed a 4th-rated 102.5 DRtg to the tune of a 112.9 ORtg (+10.5). Meanwhile they allowed this 25th-rated [103.9 ORtg] offense to perform as a 105.8 ORtg against them [+1.9 rDRTG].

***In the CF it was finally the defense that takes the lion's share of credit, though their offense still performed well: they managed a 107.3 ORtg against the 5th-rated [103.1 DRtg] defense (+4.2 rORTG). Defensively they held the 4th-rated [110.8 ORtg] offense to just a 101.1 ORtg [-9.7 rDRTG].

So thru the first THREE rounds of the playoffs, they were [on average] a +6.2 rORTG and a -2.6 rDRTG. And the finals played out as you indicated. Though overall (even with that finals series included) they'd been a +3.5 rORTG in the playoffs, and a -5.0 rDRTG.

Sure, it's a bit more defense than offense, but not NEARLY the defense-dependent narrative you've pushed. They were actually a pretty balanced team in the playoffs (which is more consistent with what they were in the rs: 7th-rated offense and 9th-rated defense).



Additionally, where we might laud their defense, it's worth noting that Wade was partly responsible for that, being an awfully solid defensive SG.



Re: "Trying to turn an apples-to-oranges comparison into apples-to-apples comp" [trying to parse out individual offensive impact/contribution in a totally different circumstance]......I know it's imperfect, but I'll just note that '06 Wade's ORAPM was +4.6 (Nash's was +4.5).

Please don't take this to be me saying Wade >/= Nash on offense; this is just me saying he was a hella-legit offensive engine that year (playoffs included).

I'm glad you're bringing up more context. I'm focused on the Finals because that's what made his legacy.

I think it's worth noting Wade's scoring in these playoffs:
1st Round: 24.7 PPG
2nd Round: 27.6 PPG
Conf. Finals: 26.7 PPG
Championship: 34.7 PPG

I've mentioned before how drastically I think Curry & Durant's estimation in people's minds are based on particular finals series. Quite honestly, Wade's popular conception is shaped considerably more dramatically than even that.

For some comparison here, let's look at Wade & Curry in the series they played without their respective team-up (LeBron & KD).

Wade averaged more than 30 PPG 3 times in 12 series (pre but not post LeBron).
Curry averaged more than 30 PPG 5 times in 13 series.

I think most would be shocked to realize this because of their respective reputations, and those reputations have everything to do with the outsized place the grand finale has on our schema-building.

I know I'm coming off sanctimonious as hell with all this stuff, but I just think even smart folks like y'all don't tend to realize how much we peg our understanding of these players based on particular flavors of memory, and then we tend to branch out from there without considering how things would appear if we started from a different approach.

Wade scored 26.7 in the ECF... against a top 5 defensive team. He did it on 68.4ts%. I'll keep waiting for the same scoring outburst from Nash.

And we're talking scoring... I never even got to the part of Wade being a much better defender, and while not in the same league as a playmaker he was a good one himself.

[FrogBros4Life]

Thanks for the correction. When ewing was traded the Knicks had made the playoffs in 13 straight seasons. Don't know why I thought they missed the playoffs that year. Chalk it up to lack of sleep.

Yep. They made the playoffs for 13 years in a row (!!). And advanced to at least the 2nd round for 11 straight years.

[Lost92Bricks]

Both Paul and Harden need to be damned to some degree for their personalities at this point. It's not a question of either/or, it's a question of why their relationship blew up.

And that's not actually a question, because we know the answer. Paul decided he wanted to go play with Harden, Paul then wouldn't shut up about how he thought Harden should play until Harden got fed up and got him shipped out. I've been pretty open about how I'm criticizing Harden for his attitude, but that doesn't excuse Paul because it was Paul's job to make his new boss happy, and he didn't do it.

I've got a relative. Incredibly smart. Reading from the age of 3. Can hear a song on the radio and instantly set down and perform it on the piano, both music and lyrics. He instantly recognizes and remembers all the music and lyrics, and generally has this command with anything. But his career really didn't go that well and everyone in the family has a sense of why: Because he wasn't the boss, and he didn't ingratiate himself to his bosses, he just told them what they should be doing repeatedly, insistently, and condescendingly.

When you're not the 600 lb gorilla in the room and you act like you are, bad things happen to you.

Some people suffer this simply because circumstances happen to them, but that's not what happened with Paul. He chose this specifically and chose it after creating an uptight, uncomfortable, fragile-in-the-playoffs environment on his previous team. He did this to himself, and while Harden deserves play, Paul has no one to blame but himself.

How much are you gonna blame him when he was always right all along? Him being the way he is is why those teams became as good as they were.

Harden and the Rockets needed someone demanding like Chris. He was great for that team aside from his injuries.

When Paul played with Harden, they had the best winning % of any duo in the league. Not even Curry and Durant were higher. They won almost 80% of their games.

[eminence]

Thanks for the correction. When ewing was traded the Knicks had made the playoffs in 13 straight seasons. Don't know why I thought they missed the playoffs that year. Chalk it up to lack of sleep.

Yep. They made the playoffs for 13 years in a row (!!). And advanced to at least the 2nd round for 11 straight years.

How the times change

Anywho, I'm heavily considering Ewing for #3 right now, maybe even #2, though I still see Nash a step up.

Thanks guys!

[Doctor MJ]

While team stats are useful, they provide a team context. The Heat did not have a fantastic team.

They had Posey and Williams as good 3 point shooters that year. Walker wasn't exactly that, he played how many modern PFs do but he was baaad.

The Heat struggled mightly on offense in games 1 and 2 in the finals. However, Wade by himself, gave them a boost on offense to be arround 100 points instead of 80 in those last 4 games. And it was by his will.

This is something Nash as a scorer never showed us, and it is an important aspect in a basketball game.

I just can't say I ever saw Nash do what Wade did. Fine, the Heat were not super great on offense, but a Wade made a big difference with his play. In the last 4 games of the series he always scored above 35 and he only had one game with less than 60ts%, two above 66.

While scoring isn't the only aspect of the game, a player scoring like that is for sure a force to be recognized.

And having that ultimate punch in his scoring arsenal and getting his team enough offense to win a ring is something Nash didn't do.

The only game Nash had against Dallas that comes within the same type of performances Wade had in the finals was G1.

Not that Nash played bad for most of the series, even tough he was subpar here and there. But he definitely didn't rise his game to the heights of D. Wade.

We're going in circles now.

I can certainly concede that team play cannot be used exclusively to judge and individual player, but I object strongly to the notion that in the end we should settle on who can do the most when they can't rely on teammates, because basketball is a team game.

I think in general it's more useful to talk in terms of floor-raising vs ceiling-raising, and what you're saying is that Wade is a better floor-raiser. Granted. I would suggest that ceiling-raising is the more important aspect of things.

Where I think people tend to get stuck is with the fact that Wade did win that '06 championship and Nash won no championships. It's hard for people to reconcile the fact that Nash was in general leading superior teams than Wade with the fact that Wade got that chip, and it's frankly why it will never shock me when Wade gets placed ahead of Nash on lists like this.

Re: didn't raise his game. I object to this phrasing specifically because he was leading a more successful offense than Wade was. I understand that this alone is not proof that Nash > Wade, but you're contexting things in a way where you think that Nash & Wade were trying to do the same thing one failed while the other succeeded based on scoring, despite the fact that Nash's teams were scoring just fine.

I think you'd clearly see things differently if Nash's teams performed precisely the same but Nash scored twice as much, and I'd suggest that perhaps you really shouldn't because Nash was literally playing smarter this way.

I'd also note that it's not like Nash didn't have bursts of volume scoring. Against Dallas in '04-05, his last 3 games yielded 48, 34, and 39 points, and I'd say this really shaped how teams approached Nash going forward.

Now you might say "Well yeah, but team's knew Wade's scoring was coming and still couldn't stop it!", but as we've talked about, the story of Wade's playoff success was not one where defenses against him were performing badly. It's not the other team's job to stop one guy from getting numbers, it's their job to stop the other team from getting numbers, and by and large, Wade's opponents did that better than most realize.

Phoenix wasn't scoring fine.

They had a 121 point game in G1 that makes it look that way. They had 98, 88 and 93 in 3 of their losses. That is well below their average.

Series have that problem, one game can mask a ton of things. But no, the Suns were not scoring at their usual rate.

Suns had 42 points in the 2nd half of G6... that is really low for them.
46 in the 2nd half of G5, again below average for them.
And 36 in the 2nd half of G3, a very important game for the outcome of that series since Dallas regained HCA there.

This is a good point, though I would again refer to the previous year's '04-05 series for counter example.

[Doctor MJ]

Wade scored 26.7 in the ECF... against a top 5 defensive team. He did it on 68.4ts%. I'll keep waiting for the same scoring outburst from Nash.

And we're talking scoring... I never even got to the part of Wade being a much better defender, and while not in the same league as a playmaker he was a good one himself.

WTF dude. I just realize I just responded to you again referring to the '04-05 Dallas series because you didn't respond back on that. When I responded to you, I didn't think anything of it. There are a lot of details, no reason to expect you to respond to them all.

But Jesus man, go look it up. And don't come back here quibbling about the details. I should have never had to write this post.

"And we're talking scoring..." okay, I'm out. Wade is a scorer. That's what he does. That's why he matters. We're on his home turf and you're still burning yourself with overreach.

[Lost92Bricks]

Harden is literally skipping practice to go to strip clubs right before the season. Of course someone like that will "clash" with Chris Paul. He is not a leader. He is extremely talented but he needs someone like that on his team.

[Doctor MJ]

But what about the ring?

We must cast it into the fires of Mount Doom.

I have to break away now, I'm sorry because you wrote a complex post that surely deserves further response but I need to stop.

[DQuinn1575]

Here I go again:

I'm putting up a vote for Harden; he has 9 elite years in the modern era, and has been a scoring and passing machine. Team success hasn't been there, which is what keeps him from being ranked higher. But tons of points, efficiency, and playmaking. I think he is best choice out there.

I have Wade next - his play at best has been among the top of the league, leading a team to a title and being key in other years.

Right now I'm taking Walt Frazier third - I need to look at the candidates closer, but love the combination of scoring, defense, and playmaking. He had a major impact in an era with some great Laker, Buck, Knick, Bullets team, and is one of the best two way players ever.

1. Harden
2. Wade
3. Frazier

[trex_8063]

Thru post #118:

Dwyane Wade - 6 (ccameron, Dr Positivity, Dutchball97, iggymcfrack, Joao Saraiva, Odinn21)
Steve Nash - 2 (Cavsfansince84, Whopper_Sr)
James Harden - 2 (DQuinn1575, Magic Is Magic)
Patrick Ewing - 2 (Clyde Frazier, penbeast0)
Elgin Baylor - 1 (Hal14)


Will try to wrap this one to go in about 20-21 hours (again: around 6pm EST tomorrow). If your name isn't there, I haven't seen a vote from you. In the event of a close one, I'm going to copy the new flow-chart to each OP.

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[trex_8063]

...

I had a PM in my outbox for 15 minutes to reach you.
If you went with the 16 votes on time, I wouldn’t object.
The deciding votes got to be extremely late and I got to object for 3 hours and didn’t see that post of you. Those two votes didn’t come out right away when you stated we need tiebreakers. That was an overtime we never had before.
To me, personally, #26 should have been Wade because he had minor but some advantages over Stockton in votes on time and #27 should have been between Stockton and Nash.

But like I said in the pm, I know that it’s not easy for you and even though it’ll be my biggest disagreement in here by far, if your decision is to carry on, I can’t do anything but respect it. Cheers.

Don't want to belabor the point, though the bolded is only true in terms of a ballot system. If we look at it from the standpoint of a single-vote system, Stockton wins (5-4).

And fwiw, a single-vote system was the voting protocol for the 2008, 2011, and 2014 Top 100 Projects (and possibly earlier ones too??). A ballot system hasn't been used for over a decade and half [if ever??] for this project.

So if I had been to employ an alternate voting method as a tertiary tool to decide a winner, retrospectively it would have made more sense for me to fall back on the single-vote principle [as there is ample use of that method within this project's history].