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big_pimp_tim said:
a bad year? yet nash helped fuel exactly the game style nellie utilized. run n gun, lots of shots, lots of passes, and in the process, turnovers happen.



I'm not sure what you're responding to. What's this about a bad year?

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agreed marion helps nash, but to conclude marion is going to do as well without him is also possible. he might go to a team of lesser quality, like joe johnson and put up bigger number, but then do what? like joe johnson, he will not make the other players around him better. nash does. that is not a stat, but is undeniable.



Even in his best year, Johnson still wasn't nearly the player Marion is, so you can't lump the two together.

I'm not really sure why you say that Nash makes everyone else better and Marion doesn't. I mean, I can't really argue against it...but you can't really argue for it, either. There's not much to say on it one way or another.

We can all visualize the scenario with Nash and Marion, where Nash dribbles around some players, drives to the basket, and makes a behind the back pass to Marion for an easy dunk or layup. We can all see that, arrive at the position that this is how most offensive positions go with Phoenix, and then say "well, clearly Nash is the MVP and the other guys are just his role players".

But not only is that lazy, it's also criminally unfair to Shawn Marion, who has been a good player in the NBA just as long as Steve Nash has.

At the end of the day, I believe that no one player can make all the guys around him better. The only team that I can think of from the last 30 years to win a championship with less than two great or very good players is the '94 Rockets. The Pistons won it in '04 without a great player(I think Billups has become great now, though), but they had three very good ones. Jordan had Pippen. Shaq had Kobe. Bird had McHale. Magic had Kareem. San Antonio had the twin towers.

Almost all of those mentioned above had points early in their career when they were not winning, and a few of them were put in that category of being great but never able to win the big one, never able to carry their team to the top. Until they did, at which point all such discussion stopped. Sort of a fickle thing, really. So many people said that John Elway would never win a Super Bowl. Now, having won two, people only talk about what a great big game performer he is. I believe that in 10 years when Peyton Manning has retired, having won a Super Bowl or two, all the people saying now that he chokes under pressure will be talking about how great he is in the clutch.

I digress, but my only point is that the advantage to following empirical data is that it is rarely fickle.

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yes, but before dirk, who were the mavs? a point gaurd alone is nothing. best in the league or not.look at a.i. or kidd. or any other point. you can make the best passes all day long, but if you pass to a butter hands with 2 left feet what good does it do?



Ok, now it seems like you've switched sides and are now agreeing with me. This is what I've been saying all along, and what you have been arguing against.

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as far as joe johnson, i addressed him. better stats, but what has he done for the hawks?



You "addressed" him by claiming that he had performed much worse since being weaned off the teet of Steve Nash. Which is false.

What has he done for the Hawks? That's kind of beside the point. He chose to take a boatload of money to play for what is probably the crappiest franchise in basketball. That makes him greedy, but it doesn't take away from the fact that he was better without Steve Nash around.

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he hasn't made them as a whole better, really, or his teammates. just padded his career stats and wallet. and q rich, you say he was better knwon as a clip, i say q rich was a clip? exactly, a pretty good player on a horrible team isn't impressive.



I'm sorry if it doesn't impress you, but if Nash made all these guys better, as you claim, why are they performing better without him?

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dirk was labeled soft because he is soft. you don't see dirk banging it in the middle because he stays out there, he prefers out there, and when gaurding men in the middle he would rather not be there and it shows. you compare him and the no defence dirk, to the run n gun suns. dallas without nash tried it, and the suns were better at it.



Technically, Dallas got closer, since they came within two games of the NBA finals, while the Suns "only" came within three.

I've watched nearly every NBA game Dirk has ever played in, and I see Dirk banging in the middle just fine. He'll never be confused with Ben Wallace, but he's not as bad as his reputation would suggest, and he's certainly not as bad as Steve Nash.

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it does, hence him being one of the finalists. and drew and z. ilgauskas are underrated, but easily marion calibre, switch either with marion and it's marion is underrated and ilgauskas is awesome, all the sudden. why? nash. makes them better.



Actually, I don't think Ilgauskas would fit terribly well in the Suns' offense. He's slow, and better at creating his own shot in the post than being set up by someone else. He's not a "run and gun" guy.

Marion, on the other hand, would be terrific with LeBron. The two would be an unbelievable fast break tandem. Marion combines the better aspects of the two players that were supposed to be LeBron's go to guys: Drew Gooden and Larry Hughes. Marion also wouldn't be as out of position playing the four in the East, which has fewer big men.

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johnson, again i addressed this, he is good, but he doesn't make his team better. boozer has not done anything in utah, hurt, maybe, but not hurt it means nothing. he is still just another good player as opposed to hearing his name on espn every night. no jason kidd to up his game, give him the dish, and the open looks. he has to earn every bit of it as opposed to have a pg to give him great looks. k-mart was just a flop in denver.



When did either Johnson or Boozer play with Jason Kidd?

Boozer has not done anything in Utah because he's been hurt. If Boozer was healthy last year, the Jazz are in the playoffs. Infact, if the Jazz weren't idiots, and drafted Chris Paul instead of Deron Williams, the Jazz are not only in the playoffs, but division winners and challenging Phoenix for the #2 seed in the playoffs. That's for another discussion, though.

Really, Boozer is sort of similar to Johnson, in that he's a greedy guy who took bigger money to go to a shittier team. Believe me, if Nash is in Atlanta, the Hawks are still a cellar dweller.

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no, i perhaps wasn't clear enough. what does marion do with the ball. he looks to score. nash passes. now you can turn the ball over why attempting a shot, but opposed to being the ball handler. you cannot compare a ball handler, a pg, to a forward. so he turns it over less, sure his ratio is lower, but then how many passes per turnover. how many shots. if he touches 10 times, passes 3, turns over one, he has a low ratio.



That makes no sense. Statistically, a player is more likely to turn the ball over while holding on it than passing it. A player can attempt a shot and have it blocked, they can have it stripped, they can simply lose it out of bounds, they can travel, carry or double-dribble, they can commit an offensive foul, or be called for time violations. A player's role on the team provides very little statistical variation in their turnover ratio.

Of course, even if you were right, you're still not addressing my main point: that Steve Nash turns it over more than almost every other point guard, even guys like Jason Kidd, who do pretty much nothing but pass(by your logic, making them more susceptible to the turnover).


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but again mvp. no amare, or johnson. and he still pulled his team to the 2 seed. (3rd best record in west) he was the most valueable on his team, and most valueable in the league for brining a team with the most going against them and still acheiving a great record.



This is a great argument for biggest surprise team. Not a very good one for MVP, unfortunately.

Although, saying he had no Johnson doesn't mean much, since the player they traded Johnson for(Boris Diaw) turned out to be better.

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i think there are quite a few that would happily disagree with you on that. hamilton not as good as marion. sheed. ben. not as good as marion? that is your opinion, and your entitled to it, but it is not a common one.



Actually, I think it is. It certainly is amongst those that actually pay attention to the data instead of jersey sales. Marion ranked 10th in the NBA in PER. Hamilton ranked 35th. Sheed 40th. Big Ben 42nd. Marion outscored Hamilton, outrebounded Wallace, and he's a great defender in his own right. He was better pretty much across the board than all of those guys.

That you don't realize it kind of goes back to my point about him being the most underrated guy in the game.

MisterJLA is RACKing awesome.