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big_pimp_tim said:
nash is the key to the team, he is the one that makes them all better, as well as the best player on the team. for all his stats, you have again, nash to thank. though the d, is all marion, nash's offense capabilities open up marion for easy buckets, nash's passes, and drives, pick n rolls, all that boils down to a point gaurd that creates.



But without a player of Marion's skillset to finish, all those plays Nash "created" wouldn't amount to anything. Without Marion's scoring, teams would simply double Nash and force someone else to beat them. If Nash so vital to his team that everyone else was nothing more than a puppet being pulled at the strings, opposing defenses would just force the ball out of his hands. Also, Nash has no role in Marion's rebounding and(as you note)outstanding defense.

One aspect of Nash's game that doesn't receive a lot of attention is the fact that he turns the ball over a lot, even for someone who controls the ball as much as he does. Of the 40 point guards who qualified(those that played 2000 minutes or 70 games), Nash finished 30th in turnover ratio. Not the number of turnovers per game, but the percentage of his possessions that resulted in a turnover. Even guys like Allen Iversion and Stephon Marbury, generally considered to be ball-hogs and turnover-machines, finished well ahead of him.

For a comparison, of the 51 power forwards who qualified, Marion finished fourth in turnover ratio.

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2nd? behind san antonio and detroit?



Dallas has won more games the last half decade than any team other than San Antonio. More than Detroit. Even more than the Lakers.

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how does it hurt dirk is in the fact that in an offense only team, he was a star, no one played to sides of the court. now dirk, while brilliant on offense has shown what he lacks on d. they as a whole have come a long way, but he is not near as dominant on both sides the court as most mvp canidates.



That completely contradicts your argument in favor of Steve Nash.

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having a better year doesn't equate to mvp as we both know. and again, lebron is slowly dragging his team along while nash took his team on a team that was significantly less powered than the year before right back to where they were last year.



I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that LeBron is "slowly dragging his team along".

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who was? marion? your still beating that dead horse, no way is marion the better player.



Heh, well, if I'm beating a dead horse, it's because you seem to keep trying to give it life.

The argument for Marion against Nash is kind of similar to the one with LeBron against Nash(only, to a lesser extent). Marion scores more, rebounds more, is a vastly superior defensive player, turns the ball over less, is more efficient, more versatile, and plays significantly more minutes.

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marion? no, you can replace marion with any of a dozen of players and get the same result, but the same could not be said for nash.



That's a nice statement, but you have nothing supporting it, and certainly no way of proving it. Statistically, Marion was one of the 10 best players in basketball last year and, as he's arguably the most underrated player in the game, has also been one of the 15-20 best since 2001, his second year in the league. Although he had slightly down years in '02 and '04, he's ranked in the top 6 in player wins in '01, '03, '05 and now '06 as well. It is worth noting that, since he entered the league in 2000, Marion has ranked ahead of Nash in player wins and win shares every single season, including this season, and last. Most of those years, Nash was the more efficient player, just not the more productive one. This year, as I already said, he was neither.

So, flashy play aside, the evidence seems to suggest that Nash is the more replacable player, not Marion.

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who didn't? who didn't expect essentialy the same exact team but with a more defensive minded coach to do better.



I just gave you a bunch of examples of who didn't.

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actually, you should know suprise means a lot in the voters minds. you take last year mvp + did just as much with less team = excellent candidate to repeat.



Yes, I already said in my first post:

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Animalman said:
I thought either [Nash] or Billups would win, simply because sportswriters are dopes.



However, I wasn't arguing who should have won based on the criteria of idiot sportswriters.

MisterJLA is RACKing awesome.