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big_pimp_tim said:
yes, but then again, you keep uinderestimating what a good point gaurd can do. sure marion is good, but without nash to get the ball to him then does he get as much. does he get the shots opportunity nash creates.



Well, as I already said, Marion was a very good(and very underrated player) before Nash arrived. Marion's 2005 season was nearly identical to his performance in '03 and '01, so it was hardly a sudden, miraculous transformation.

I've never said that Nash doesn't help Marion. Nash is a great player, a great point guard, and yes, he absolutely makes his team better. That being said, I think it's a reciprocal relationship. Marion helps Nash, too.

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the thing is nash goes from dallas where he did the same thing, to suns, suddenly the suns are running and gunning. amre (who woul dhave been awesome) is instantly awesome. mareion and joe johnsone are wanted all over.



However, Nash's first couple of seasons in Dallas were pretty terrible. Then, in '01, when Dirk came into his own, suddenly Nash was playing well again. So, really, who was helping whom?

Also, Joe Johnson had his best season as a pro last year as an Atlanta Hawk, and Quentin Richardson was better as an L.A Clipper than as a Phoenix Sun.

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i started to look that up, but past 2003-04 i had a hard time. but it looks like you could be right. more wins though in the reg doesn't parlay into post season success.



You can look it up here.

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no, it's different in that steve plays it, on the perimeter, where dirk has a big man still prefers the perimeter. it gives him a disadvantage to start with. the same one he has on offense, he has to deal with on defense. he has always been soft on defense, hash will still get his steals.



Dirk may prefer to play defense on the perimeter, but that doesn't mean he's bad on defense. He's a much better defender than Nash, and really doesn't get the credit he should. Often times, when a player is labeled as "soft" early in their career, it's very difficult for them to shake that label. Dirk averages virtually the same number of steals per game as Nash, while blocking a good number of shots. Nash has been much worse than the league average defensive rating pretty much every year he's been in the league. I love the guy, but he's just bad on defense.

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because he is doing it slowly by himself. he is starting to get players to step up, but besides him, who else is there.



Well, Drew Gooden and Zydrunas Ilgauskas are pretty underrated players, but wouldn't the fact that LeBron doesn't have a terrific supporting cast, yet still wins, help his cause?

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no, you seem to not understand what one great playmaker does for players like marion. for instance, joe johnson, or carlos boozer, kenyon martin. great playmaker, and they looked good, but haven't lived up to it once leaving said player.



Joe Johnson, as I mentioned, had a career year this year as an Atlanta Hawk.
Carlos Boozer has faced injury problems his years in Utah, but was on pace to have his best season this year.
Kenyon Martin was an underachiever in New Jersey, and is an underachiever in Denver(who bumped heads with George Karl one too many times).

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and i would expect marion as a player not handling the ball to turn it over less.



I think you missed the point. It's not his turnover average, it's his turnover rate. His handling the ball leads to a smaller percentage of turnovers than Nash.

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to argue nash is easily replaceable that is not true. not many point gaurds of nash's calibre but plenty forwards with marion's abilities that would thrive off a point gaurd who can dish like him. or like kidd in his heyday.



I never said Nash was easily replacable. However, Nash being more unique doesn't mean he's better. There actually is a difference between similarity and replacability.

This thread kind of reminds me of the one on Barry Bonds, and the Jamesian theory on underrated players. Players that are good at everything, rather than great at a few things, tend to be overlooked and taken for granted, because they don't seem like great players. Marion is kind of a textbook example of this. Nash, conversely, is a pretty good example of an overrated player, because he's great at very specific things, but not very good in other important areas.

Actually, I'm not sure that last part is fair to say, because in Dallas Nash was actually very underrated. That's actually what makes this whole thing so interesting to me. He's gone from being underrated to overrated in just two years.

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so in your mind nash leading the team with the loss of their big scorer rebouinding athletic amare to a similair record and playoff seeding doesn't already put him as a heavy favorite?



As I already said, biggest surprise doesn't mean best, or most valuable. Nash shoudln't have been the MVP last year, so the fact that he had a better year this year doesn't mean a whole lot to me.

If there was just a small difference statistically between Nash and the top-tier players, I probably would have given him the benefit of the doubt, since he didn't have his best player on the court with him. Unfortunately, the gap is pretty significant. Almost massive, actually. He simply was not in the class of LeBron, Kobe, Dirk or Wade this year.

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billups is not in nash's league in the fact that he doesn't have one good player, like nash does, he has 4.who really does nash have besides marion.



But Billups doesn't have any player as good as Marion. Infact, the difference between Marion and Detroit's second best player is pretty close to the difference between Nash and the best players in the league.

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kobe has lamar, and kwame coming along nicely. james, for the same reason as nash should be up there due to his doing it alone venture, but nash is getting more done at this point.



Of Cleveland, LA, Detroit, Phoenix and Dallas, Kobe has easily the worst supporting cast. He also has the worst record, so...yeah.

MisterJLA is RACKing awesome.