You know what? I'm hating. I've always loved Kidd untill he became a Mav the second time around. I gotta go with Prime Kidd over Nash. The rebounding, the defense, the steals. Anyone remember that epic game they had against each other?
Jason Kidd is a top five PG of all time. Magic Big O Flopton Zeke J-Kidd/Bob Cousy I'm sorry but Steve Nash does not belong to top five.
Nash belongs in the top 5. Defense is pretty much a bonus with your PG. If you have it great but it's not like being a center or power forward that can't play D.
And he didn't even begin playing at an all-star level until pretty late in his career. Kidd has clearly had the better over-all career. Hell, didn't Nash used to back him up?
I'll elaborate on my ridiculous oversight by saying that I hate stockton as much as the next guy but he is the NBA leader all time in BOTH steals and assists. Better pick pocket that CP3 and better distributor than Nash. Rolled into one. He wasn't the scorer isiah was, but a better all around point guard IMO.
Yes that's exactly the reason why Nash is not in the top 5. He was not an elite player for the first half of his career. J-Kidd, on the other hand, was a star from the get-go. Nash is still in the top 10 with his two MVPs. He's just not in the same class with the top 5 or 6 PG's.
It's an interesting debate. If I'm picking a pg to go to war with... it's like picking between offense and defense. Naturally, I'd tend to pick Kidd bc the importance of defense on championship teams, but again, if we were annoyed by Rafers shooting, imagine a young Kidd getting the Rondo treatment every game. They both had great individual accomplishments. Kidd only recently seems to have patched up his long range shooting, but his defense has fallen off with age. For this argument lets look at Kidd as he's been for most of his career. Nash has always had the shooting down, but never so much the defense. But he doesn't have herpes that we know about. Which one of their deficiency's is greater? You guys remember in the late 90s when Phoenix had Kidd, Nash and Kevin Johnson? That was some quality pg depth right there.
Nash over Kidd for me. Nash is one of the greatest shooters in history while Kidd...isn't even close. Kidd beats him on rebounding and defense though.
That's pretty ridiculous. If Jordan had done what he did at the pg spot, would you bump him off because he wasn't big in assists? There's two sides to basketball, offense and defense. If you can't play one of them, then you're not close to being a complete player. Kidd is closer to being a complete player than Nash and that's where he has the edge. If Nash was putting up 30 and 10, then that could be crazy enough to let the defense slide, but his offensive numbers weren't that much higher than Kidd's, just his efficiency, and even that Kidd was able to improve on. You don't rank players based on how well they define a position, but on how much better they are at that position compared to others.
Ehhhh... Point guard are the most difficult to guard. Even the best defenders at the position usually can't do anything to stop the other really good PGs. I've always thought that Nash's D was in a way underrated, he was never good, or even above average, but he also was never Jose Calderon-atrocious. He took charges (i.e., flopped) and played adequate team D. Nash's peak was better than Kidd's, IMO. Even if Kidd was a better defender, I think strictly in terms of how much it helped his team win games, his advantage on defense is trumped by Nash's superior offensive game.
Ignoring the fact that he's rarely, if ever, played with an another impact defensive player, his teams have almost always been good to excellent.
But if your pg is a turnstyle, your big men will always be in foul trouble cleaning up the mess. If your first line of defense fails, its like a cascade effect.
Why does that matter when your team plays no defense anyway? Nash was one Horry hit away from dragging a team that plays zero d into the finals. He makes it work.
