I have to disagree. The other past great players competed with a lot more talents. It's not fair to ask Nash to compete with them, because he's competing today, competing with other candidates TODAY. Why can't we say he's the best player? Because he doesn't have the most points, rebounds, or steals? I guess he's having the most assists. He contributes and created most points, that's for sure. He makes lots of players max or near max worth. He makes a team one of the top ones. People said he only looked good, because there was Amare. Now people realized that Amare looked good because of Nash. Now, you guys are saying it's because D'Antoni's system? What's so genius about that system? What's so genius about that coach, whose ONLY record in NBA before he had Nash, was half season at Cleveland with a .280 winning percentage! No matter how crappy current NBA you would like to make it to be, if he's the most valuable player in today's NBA, he's the MVP.
nash is an enigma, the suns definitely got better with him, but dallas has actually gotten better after him. I think people don't give the suns' coach enough credit. he is the one who has designed a perfect scheme for nash.
To be fair, most people struggle going against Yao one on one. Yes, that includes Shaq. Yao is very underrated as an inside one on one defender.
Zboy, do you know any successful stories for this kind of operation? On the other hand though, Collangelo probably left because he realized he had made a giant mistake by not thoroughly going through Amare's physical before giving him the max contract. For Amare, I bet he knew his knee was not doing so well, he just kept it to himself until after the signing. Way to screw up a franchise, but who can blame him?
First, I didn't say anything about the system. Nash has been great on the Suns. Last season, I think there was a very good argument for Nash as MVP (but I still think Kidd deserved it more the year he moved to New Jersey), because that team wasn't very good until he got there. But this year, we knew what they could do and they did it. Agreed, people thought losing Stoudamire for the season would seriously hurt that team and it is a testament to Nash and his teammates that it really didn't, but there are other players who deserve strong consideration for MVP. Kobe Bryant, Elton Brand, Dirk Nowitski and even Chauncey Billups all deserve strong consideration.
Zboy, Colangelo left because of the new owner, who is quite the change of pace. Sarver didn't force him out but he made it clear that is what he wanted. I can't remember where I read about it. One area of disagreement between them was supposedly Colangelo wanted to give Joe Johnson the extra $5MM (from $45MM to $50MM over 6 years) in 2004 to sign him long term. Sarver said no. There are other examples but they slip my bad memory. Colangelo's theft from the Hawks in the JJ trade will go down as one of the greatest parting gifts a GM has ever left a franchise, IMO. francis 4 prez, I have no problem with Nash winning 2 MVPs because the last 2 years he has been better than Stockton ever was. His career body of work isn't close to Stockton but Nash is playing on a level Stockton never reached.
This will be true only if they are able to resign Borris Diaw next year when he become a restricted FA (ala JJ). Mind you, Leandro Barbosa will be a RFA as well in the summer of 2007 so Sarver will be force to make a decision. The man will want to get paid too and with Sarver's money piching ways, he may piss off Borris by low balling him as well. That trade will not look so good if they do not resign Diaw. If Borris replicates this season's output, I see him asking for $8M - $10M over six years ala JJ. Maybe deja vu all over again [sic].
It will be difficult for the Suns to keep both Barbosa and Diaw. In the Joe Johnson "trade", the Suns not only got Boris Diaw, they also received 2 first round draft picks and something like a 5 million dollar exception that they used, I believe, to sign James Jones. So they really did make out like bandits.
Actually, that was the real theft. There was no way the Suns were going to match JJ's frontloaded contract so the Hawks shouldn't have given up ANYTHING. Getting these draft choices (whether or not Diaw signs long term) was quite the steal.
