Points in the Paint 01.09.09: The Point Guard Edition

Posted by Rob Bonnette on 01.09.2009

I take on Steve Nash!

Hello everyone and welcome to an early 2009 edition of Points in the Paint. This week we have outrage over Yi Jianlian and a screed on Steve Nash.that's bound to get me some hateful comments. Let's do it!

Stop the madness!

At last check, Yi Jianlian was in third place in the forward voting for the All-Star team. A close third place. The top two are KG and Lebron, and Yi could actually overtake one of them if things don't change soon. This would be an outrage and would undoubtedly lead to more wrongheaded ‘this is why the NBA sucks now' columns from boneheaded writers who listen to what other people who don't even watch games tell them about the league. That alone is reason to try and stop this. Please vote early and often not just for Lebron and KG but for Antawn Jamison or Caron Butler or Chris Bosh or Richard Jefferson or anyone that can knock this guy down a few pegs. He is a mediocre player at best, and is only this close to making to the freaking All-Star team because of fan voting. We have to stop this now.

Steve Nash: As good as advertised?

I'm ready for the emails now, but I had to pursue this. The reason I bring this up is because there have been a few columns written out there, one by Bill Simmons and another by MCBias at Sports on My Mind, which have called into question the validity of Nash's near sainthood amongst basketball aficionado's during the past four seasons. Now that Mike D'Antoni and his seven seconds or less system are gone from Phoenix, Nash's numbers have reverted to what they were when he was in Dallas which does beg the question of whether or not Nash was simply a very good player who excelled because of the system he was in.

Nash didn't start full-time until his fifth season (He started all 40 games he played in the shortened 1998-99 season, but went back to splitting time the year after). Started for four seasons, where he averaged between 14.6 and 17.9 points on shooting percentages ranging from 46.5 to 48.7 along with an assist average that went as high as 8.8 and as low as 7.3. His high in assists coincided with his low in scoring, which happened in his last season as a Maverick. At that point he was a very good player that everyone liked and a two-time all-star reserve. He was third team all-NBA in 2001-02 and 02-03, and an all-star those same two seasons. His last season in Dallas saw somewhat of a regression in a few categories. His scoring average fell from 17.7 to 14.8, and he did not make either the All Star team or the All-NBA team. So that's a four year run of good but not great before he went to Phoenix. Now in 2008-09, his numbers have reverted back to this level. So it really does look like we have a four year anomaly when it comes to Nash's years with D'Antoni. Now it shouldn't count as a black mark against him that he got to play in system that perfectly suited his needs, but there is such a discrepancy that you have to take notice. You throw those four years out and he's no better than Rod Strickland was during his prime; and last time I checked no one is considering him for the Hall of Fame. And Nash's best work falls short of Tim Hardaway's as well; anyone voting him into Springfield? In the pantheon of point guards, Nash's actual body of works falls behind not only the icons Magic, Oscar, Isaiah, Cousy, and Stockton but also behind Hardaway, Jason Kidd, Gary Payton, Lenny Wilkens and yes, Strickland. Even Terry Porter had a heyday that exceeded Nash's. Terry freaking Porter! He's not better than Kevin Johnson, either. That's a dozen guys whose best work can be fairly categorized as better than Nash's best. And they all did it for longer periods of time. And most of them (everyone except Hardaway and Strickland, to be exact) either have rings or at least got to an NBA Finals at some point during their primes. Many were the driving force behind their teams and the best player on them by far (Cousy was with Bill Russell, Johnson had Barkley and Porter had Clyde Drexler while Strickland ran with David Robinson and Chris Webber at different points in his career.) Was Steve Nash the best Sun during that time period? Yes. But ultimately what was it good for? One trip to the conference finals, two second round losses, and a first round defeat last season.

Now by no means am I calling Steve Nash a bum. He does all the things that are in a point guard's job description: run the offense, distribute the ball, and make everyone better. Shawn Marion isn't the same without him, and Amare Stoudemire's game tends to go south when Nash is hurt and out of the lineup. But all those guys I named in the last paragraph did that and more. To put Nash in their category is a fallacy. Nash did not average a triple double for an entire season (like Oscar), did not switch positions as a rookie in game six of the NBA Finals and dominate (Magic), he did not carry a group of lackluster teammates to the Finals twice (Kidd), or score 20-some points in one quarter on a bum ankle that had him limping up and down the court the whole time (Isaiah). Those are feats of legend, and Nash has nothing like that on his resume. And the ones like Terry Porter who didn't do any of that stuff either can say that they performed on the same level as Nash statistically but got further in the playoffs. In basketball more than any other team sport, playoff success matters when you judge players against one another, and in that department Nash falls way short. Being the best player on a second round loser for four years doesn't make you an all-time great. It makes you very good, but not great. Let me put it to you another way. If Chris Paul finishes this season and the next two with the same scoring, assist, field goal percentage averages that he has now while getting to the second round of the playoffs each time, then goes on to put up fifteen points and eight assists for the rest of his career while getting no further than the conference finals, would you call him an all-time great point guard? I doubt it. Or look at it this way. Nash's won the MVP award in a year where he averaged 15 points and 11 assists; John Stockton equaled or surpassed those numbers for nine straight years and never finished higher than eighth in the MVP voting. Stockton had eight seasons where his assist average was better than Nash's best two years, and never had the number of finishers around him that Nash did. You can easily say that Karl Malone is better than Amare or Joe Johnson or anyone else that was in Phoenix, but after him and Jeff Hornacek you can forget it. Stockton may have averaged 20 assists a night with Amare, Marion, Johnson, and Quentin Richardson on the same team. The two just don't compare, really.

OK, the rant is over (for now). I'm sure I'll get killed for this, so I may come back to it next week. Actually, after everything it took to get this one out, I got nothing else. Fire away readers, and I'll talk to you again soon.