First of all, it was a charge. Secondly, Nash is a 6'1'' pg trying to take a charge against a 6'7'' power dunker. There is no shame in that. On the other hand, Bradley, with his majestic 7'6'' frame and 7'7'' swingspan, thought about contesting the shot, then changed his mind in mid-air after he saw what was coming, and tried to get out of the way... until it was too late. Now, that's called retiring with style.
yes, great stats. but 18.8/10.5 is not 35/5 or 31/7. lebron (thanks 3814) and kobe had seasons few have ever had. nash really didn't. they won fewer games, but it's hard to think that's b/c of those two and not the supporting casts. b/c i just don't see how any argument can be made that he's the best player in the game. i know it's most valuable and not most outstanding, but lets face it, a great deal of it is who is the best. i think there should at least be an argument to made that whoever wins the mvp is the best player in the game. you can pretty much do that for everyone who has won it before nash. i mean you could say duncan was better than garnett, but garnett's mvp season stats were outstanding, probably the best in the league that year. hakeem, shaq, duncan, garnett, you could argue these guys were the best and were at least top 3. i just don't see it with nash. or billups, which is why i could've never voted for him. it's not fair to count team accomplishments so much or "making your teammates better' which is going to help nash so much (these others are supposed to be go to scorers). but it's really not. i know quantifying basketball stats is still in it's early phases and not as reliable as in baseball, but on 82games.com, nash doesn't really even come close to kobe, wade, lebron, or dirk on almost anything. PER the others are at 30, nash is at 25, PER differential, they're between 13-17, nash is at 9. +/- they go from 11 to 16 (except dirk at 8.5) and nash is at 8.8. and whatever "Fair Salary" is, they go from 21-29 (lebron 29, kobe 28), and nash is at 16.5. it seems by all these different measures they not only beat nash, but are handily ahead. maybe his defensive shortcomings are more than we think, maybe these somewhat account for the suns pace and take down nash a little. whatever the case, nash is closer to barely being top 10 in terms of impact while kobe, lebron, wade, and dirk are way up there and with kobe and lebron kind of separating themselves. i see a disconnect b/t nash's perceived value b/c of the way he plays and what his actual value is on the court and just think there's no way he's an mvp, much less a two time mvp. the first one was just a "well we gotta give it to someone" award. doing it again with so many great seasons around is just wrong. edit: and i should point out, i like nash. i've liked watching him play for a while now. i love watching the suns. nash did a lot to validate his mvp in the playoffs last year with ridiculous performance after ridiculous performance. in the playoffs, you could almost argue he was up there with the best. so it's not like i dislike nash (hell of anyone in the league, i probably play more like him than anyone - can shoot, pass, take and make awkward shots when i drive, and i can't defend anybody). but that doesn't mean i think he's should be mvp.
time to put on your kobe pajamas and get some sleep. viva la revolution tomorrow, princess. edit: you make valid points...the main problem with the mvp is that there are so many different definitions for the thing. maybe believe that it means the person with the "best year," and along with that you need to be a top 5 or so team in order to even have an individual considered for having a "best year." i don't know if i agree fully or not...but the issue still remains - too many definitions.
It should have been Kobe or LeBron...those guys were ridiculous this year, and just as valuable to their team as Nash is to the Suns.
No wonder Nash gains the MVP award. Just check out wozup with the Suns during this whole season. They finished with 54 wins and pulled down a second seed position in the PLAYOFF w/o their big man. It very well shows how great Nash can be. If there is no Nash, I cannot imagine what the Suns are going to be. SO NASH-->VERY WELL DESERVE
I think the fact that Amare was lost for the season and Nash was able to lead the revamped Suns to a division crown and set career highs in several categories gave him a slight edge. Plus I bet Kobe and LeBron cancelled each other out in terms of votes. The Matrix deserve some MVP votes too.
Actually, it is. Assuming for a second that 4 of Steve's assists go to 3 pointers and 1 of Kobe's does. This is unscientific, but seems realistic. Steve Nash accounts for 46.3 ppg. Kobe for 46.4 ppg. Who knows what the exact %s are on the assists, but at the end of the day, I think it's fair to say they have about the same effect on total ppg for their team. And, I do not think the Suns have a better supporting cast then the Lakers. Not without Amare. Outside of Shawn Marion, who do the Suns have? Nobody...or at least a bunch of guys who used to be nobodies. Outside of Lamar Odom, who do the Lakers have? Same thing. It is fair to count team accomplishments. You're being sucked into deifying individual players. That is not what basketball is about, regardless of what the NBA wants you to think. It's about winning. It is, without a doubt, the most important stat out there. It doesn't mean you can't look at other factors. Of course Robert Horry isn't the greatest player to ever play the game, but damn does that guy know how to win. Steve Nash is a winner. He single-handedly made a crappy team a top 3 team in the Western Conference. Without him, they don't make the playoffs. Yes, all the same things can be said about Kobe and the Lakers...EXCEPT, the Lakers are not a top 3 seed. This is r****ded. There can be no doubt that Steve Nash has a bigger impact on the Suns than any other player has on any other team. Even when Nash isn't in the game, the way the Suns play is totally dictated by the way Nash plays. The Suns are a lottery team without him, the 4th best record in the entire league with him. In summary, my points are these, particularly in regards to the Kobe comparison: Stat-wise, Nash has as big of an impact. Non-stat wise, bigger. He is behind Kobe defensively, but way ahead of him in regards to how his impact translates into wins, imo. I'd be fine with anyoen of these guys winning the MVP. You can make an argument for them all. If it's Nash, my points above make sense. If it's someone else, you can fashion an argument for them, too, as you have done. It's unfortunate, though, that there isn't one dominant player on one truly dominant team. As I mentioned, winning is paramount to me, and I don't see Nash, Kobe or Lebron even making the NBA Finals this year.
I personally thought Nash should have been behind Kobe and LeBron. Nash is the perfect player for that system, however playing with Shawn Marion has been extremely beneficial (and vice versa). Yes, they won 50+ games this year without Amare, but Nash is also a below average defender. We'll see how far Nash takes the Suns in the playoffs, because even though it's a regular season award, this is where it really matters. When you talk about multiple MVPs, I just can't see him up there with the Kareem, Bird, Magic, and MJ.
The Suns offense declines in efficiency about 8 pts/ 100 poss. when Nash leaves the game - which is a big decline. The Lakers offense declines a staggering 18 pts/100poss. when Bryant leaves the game, which I would imagine is by far the highest in the league, (FWIW, LeBron is at 13 in this category) Factor in defense and it's even more pronounced of a net difference. Like it or not, there's no one team that is more dependent on a player than the Lakers and Bryant. It's not even close to being close in that regard.
Kobe should have been MVP. Other than Odom he has nobody! And Lebron has a quality supporting cast. Hughes, Gooden, Ilgauskasaksk, Donyell Marshall, that's not bad. Nash won it cause he's white, and most of the wealthy people are white.......blahblahblah...you can fill in the rest.
Horry has more rings than Dream, and Ben Wallace has more Defensive Player of the Year award than Dream. Nobody would even ask whether those guys are better than Dream. What's the point?
just puts things in perspective. no one cares about defensive player of the year and the thing about horry having more rings doesn't really compare because that's a team accomplishment that is earned on the court.
I haven't read through the entire thread to see if it were posted, but Kobe didn't even get the bronze. Came in FOURTH in the voting, according to an early poll of 75 of the 127 writers (East Valley / Scottsdale Tribune). Nash - 549 points (30 first) LeBron - 408 (11) Dirk - 370 (12) Kobe - 279 (11) Billups - 246 (10) Again, those are survey results and NOT the official results. Still, gives you a good idea that (a) a lot of first place votes got divided among several guys and (b) the media was not voting for Kobe at ALL. Apparently over half the voters polled didn't give him higher than 4th. Owch. No bias at all though. Evan
Nash is a perfect example that stats can't speak anything. For me, this year has a really intense competition among Nash, Kobe, and Dirk. But, Nash is most valuable to his team. There is a reason why Diaw turns into a totally different player overnight. You may attribute the change partly to the system, but the leader of the team must have his credit for the MIP award. When Amare is absent, most of people predict that Sun will hang around 7-10, and wait for the returning of Amare to take off. However, they take No. 3 and division title without Amare at all (except for several games). Everybody is talking about how great Marion is. He is really great and versatile. But personally I don't think he is a better player than Odom. It is the system and the Nash that make him that great. Don't forget the season of 03-04, Sun has Marion, Joe Jonson, and Amare (for 50 games), and both Marion and Joe have almost the same numbers (except for Marion's rebounding), what is the result of that season? To get his second MVP honor, Nash dose need bring this team to a higher level to further prove himself. It is very difficult without a healthy amare. HOwever, he is well deserved what he got and what he is going to take.
I think a lot of people struggle giving the MVP to a guy on a 45 win team. Perhaps that's unfair...but I think it simply is.
Kobe played in 80 games, 41 mpg. It's hard to really say Kobe has a bigger impact on his team because of what happens when he doesn't play. They key is what happens when they DO play. Suns = #2 seed. Lakers = #7 seed.
Umm - there's no better way that I know of to measure a player's impact on a team than removing him from the equation and seeing what's missed. You apparently agree with this: It's not hard to say at all what happens when he doesn't play vs. when he does play. One simply measures the 656 minutes he didn't - which is the equivalent of roughly 13+ full length NBA games - not exactly a small sample. This has been studied extensively over at 82 games.com - through every available measure Kobe and LeBron are the guys who have the biggest impact on their teams, and it's really not even close. Stat-wise, last year's Nash actually had a much bigger impact on his team than this year's Nash. It's just simply not credible to say that it's cut and dried that Nash is the most important player to his team in the NBA. By almost any empirical measure, the Lakers are more dependent on Kobe than almost any team in history has been on any one player. So to say "there can be no doubt that Nash has the most impact" is highly suspect. You can argue that Nash is better and the Suns are better and that's all well and good, but this Lakers team isn't a 7 seed without Kobe. It's not even 7th in the lottery. It's probably the worst team in the NBA, hands down, according to the numbers and according to intuitive evidence. It's not like the suns without Steve Nash and with Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion were a lousy team. In fact they were in the playoffs with those two guys in 2003. Hell even with just Marion I like them better than the McGrady-less rockets. N
