Suns Lose to Hawks. Polish the MVP Trophy for Nash

what is his per, it sure is better than diop's. 16.24. LOL, trying to choose numbers to fit your ideas?

 

i disagree. since there is no replacement available for dirk, he has to pick up the load. since barbosa is able to spell nash, then nash's contributions should be less.

explain to me why in roland rating that dirk is more vital to dallas's scheme than nash is to suns?




what i am saying, but per says something else so maybe i have no point at all, by roland

mavs>suns(team)
dirk>nash
suns=mavs(w/d and n)record wise

then nash overall means more to his team because he has less to work with than dirk, while dirk being a better player has managed to have the same record when nash is on the team.


what is the difference between roland and per?

 

what do you mean? soy also isn't very clear as to what he means by mvp voting.

 

above edited

 

Well his closest rival is Dirk and in comparison to Dallas' record, the Sun's record certainly isn't earth shattering, so...

 

Um, before Nash went down, the suns had one more loss than the Mavs so...

 

I hate when I see people throwing around PER to compare players...
do you even know how that stat works?
please, wake up!

 

well, people like to make it seem as if THAT should be a starting point of discussion, this,
"let's put aside subjective ideas."

but, i would like to know what you mean. thanks

 

i have an excel spreadsheet that has the formula basketballreference.com and wikipedia give pasted into it. and i can calculate it for different players in different years. while it doesn't give the exact same result as the numbers hollinger has (i can't do tmAST/tmFG easily) it's pretty much the same. so yes, yes i do know how it works.

 

Roland rating is an index that adds up +/- when player is on the court and when is out of court per 48 mins basis. If Roland rating is high this may be due to the fact that:

(1) Player's produce well at an individual level (Direct contribution)
(2) He contributes to the team the way in which they are not picked by individual stats (Indirect contribution)
(3) It could just mean that the replacement just plain suck, and hence providing positive contribution to the index.

Of course, it may just be a co-incidence also termed luck. Now I do not have more detailed statistics that breaks down the index, but I pointed out Barbosa and lack of replacement for Dirk, to give more balanced perspective on this issue. I admit there is prime facie reason to think Roland statistic churn out a certain bias towards Dirk, but even taking these biases into consideration I am not so sure as to whether Nash contribute in a way such that he can overcome his lack of direct contribution compared to say Dirk, TD, KG and Wade.

Furthermore, given that Basketball is game whereby stopping opposition is equally important as scoring basket of your own, Net Production is somewhat incomplete but probably better index to gauge "overall" contribution at an individual level. And you know what, Nash is not even in top 10 category in this respect whopping 8.6 behind Dirk. What does this suggests? Nash is by all accounts probably poor defender - hardly an enlightenment should I say. But I guess in a world of 21st Century, in an era of small ball, defence isn't really a priority, and player's contribution should be strictly reviewed in respect to their attacking capabilities.

Ryoga Hibiki,

I am well aware of the statistical method that generate PER index. As mentioned eloquoently by durvasa in the past, PER is just terribly at picking up "intangibles", and we all know that many schemes involve joint production, whereas traditional statistics, which PER is based upon, rewards such joint outcome to a single individual. That is one of the reason why team's use Roland ratings. For the reasons mentioned above, Roland ratings have high correlation with PER because naturally players who does well at individual level should help the team to win ball games. What Roland Rating do well, however, it identifies those who might provide positive contribution in "intangibles ways" such that the player has low PER despite doing well for the sake of team.

Now, nobody is arguing that we should strictly base MVP decisions on these statistical metrics. But by all measures, Nash isn't doing too well compared to TD, KG, Yao, Dirk, and D.Wade, which makes you somewhat suspicious of whether he has a strong case for the MVP based on an individual merit. And here you missing the point. In the past when there were certain uncertainty in regards to ordering individual contribution to the team, it is quite clear to me that there seemed to be some bias towards favoring player with relatively little recognition. In many ways, this is natural, because in some form of the other, people want to cheer on for the underdog.

But such tradition seemed to have been overturned in respect to Nash, with whole argument framed in such a way as to give the Canadian his third MVP award. It almost borders on to the point of proving significantly that he doesn't deserve the award. But that is almost impossible to do in a same way that you cannot completely erase KG, TD, Dirk, and Wade out of the equation. And here comes second point that annoys me to an infinite degree.

The argument used to discredit is fallacious, and based on cliche. To eliminate KG and Wade, those who support Nash is bringing up team argument. As far as I am concerned MVP award is designed to recognize individual contribution and hence must take individual contribution first (which includes subjective judgement), and use team results as a sort of tie-breaker. But team result is explicitly used to eliminate choices such that it befits into Nash's favour - its kind of acting as hurdle. And having eliminated D.Wade, and KG out of the equation, people are coming up with cliche that Nash make people better to discount Dirk. Given that Dirk is ahead of Nash in many statistical categories, not just PER, there is a strong prima facie reason to suggest that former has had better individual season upto now. Espeically, if you take into the account basketball is a game of two ends, not just putting the ball into the bucket.

But this statistical metric shouldn't matter in the first place, because given past record of voting, players with lesser recognition in the past were more or less given the benefit of the doubt. Nash, however, seems to be above rules, since not only that his 2 MVP awards themselves are up for debate, but people are re-shaping the tradition as to hand him the third one. Some treatment for a career 14 & 7 guy. And why TD barely got a mentioned in MVP when his team has been doing quite well, and has put to good efficient numbers, I have no idea. In modern Run & Gun era, I guess Guards are the fad, making team-mates better must take precedents over all concerns, and Phoenix Suns is the team to love and vote.

 

blame the NBA for the rules changes where midgets rule the game now. you can't even breathe on them. i am used to the big man game. this is another reason why nash wouldn't sniff the award when hakeem played.

 

Per is not bad just becasue it misses intangibles, it's also bad because it overrates volume scorers who do it efficiently while underrating passers.
If you wish we can track down the formula and see why, but the whole point is that Hollinger's method is so flawed that can be any good only if two guys have a VERY different rating, little differences are worth nothing... but then it states the obvious, I don't need a compicated way to mix basic numbers see that Nash>Ford or Dirk>Abdur Rahim, statistically and overall.

 

I want to make something clear: for several reasons Dirk is my MVP, and he was the MVP last year too. I'm just arguing against whoever thinks Nash has not been a valid candidate, and those stats used to prove it.
First of all, the Roland Rating is nomore, since last year's playoffs, what you described. As you might see here it is a weighted sum between net produztion and the old +/- based rating. Nash's +/- is actually only second to Arenas's, among the top 15 MVP candidates.
Second, defence is not an argument that can be, in all fairness, used to push Dirk over Nash. No respectable stat proves it (the Suns's defence gets worse when Nash is out, more than Dallas's w/out Dirk), and there's really nothing to say even watching games.
Third, most of those stats have really no business used on their own to compare players who do different things, in different teams and playing different positions. Even just looking at basic stats, I don't know how anyone can say that Dirk's efficient 25p/9r/3a is so much more impressive than Nash's super efficient 19p/3r/12a: they're both great in a different way, one is a hell of a statline for a scorer, the other is a hell of statline for a facilitator. All those BS stats like PER that try to put everything together in a unique number make you lose rather than add informations, because you're giving Hollinger the right to tell you a point is more important than a rebound or a assist, when there's no answer to it w/out considering how each team plays and how each guy racks those numbers. All you can do is viewing all of them, both boxscore and +/- based ones, and test them watching the games to understand what's the deal behind them. I remember a ESPN writer stating, in 2005, that Nash was a passer because he couldn't score, basing everything on his ppg average. Then Nash went mad during the post season, when the team needed him to score instead of distribute, and he ended up looking like an idiot. You can use all those informations to make a personal opinion about how important the player is for the team's success.
Two key words, here: no matter what, as well thought as they can be, these are personal opinions. There's not, and there will never be, a magic number that will kill all the discussions. And team success is a huge part behind a prize like this: MVP is about individual contribution, right, but contribution to what? To make your team win, if you're not winning there's something missing!
The MVP award has been consistent over the years, you need to win games to win the prize, and that's the only thing that really prevents the MVP from becoming a joke like the DPotY, based just on reputation and a few numbers instead of actual play. Teamates talent is something to consider for sure, but behind Nash's nomination there's the common opinion he's the guy letting others play at their best, and his contribution is vital and not replaceable. It's not about leading the league in assist or the "improving his teamates" stuff: it's about making your team win.

 

Ryoga Hibiki,

I agree with you on that all numbers, ratings, etc are incomplete and that is why I never disallowed rooms for subjective judgement. I, too, cannot see any single "metric" that kills the entire debate, and provide "true" inference regarding to the matter which we intend to know. For that reason, I have explicitly pointed out I am in favor of current voting system, because as far as I know, this is one of the best system of re-concilliating differences, and take out a certain degree of hubris on the part of individual.

As far as PER goes, the definition behind the statistical method is pretty sound, though one may disagree with regards to weighting used to derive the system. But in the case of Nash vs Dirk, there respective differences are too large to simply treat it as irrelevant. I presume, though I do not want to spend my free time doing so, that Dirk will come out ahead of Nash with respectable range of weighting sytem.

Now in terms of Roland Rating goes, the breakdown of statistic do confirm the initial Dirk's rating have upward bias to poor the lack of direct replacement. So I do think, even if one has to take it with a pinch of salt, the cliche Nash makes his team-mates better is true to certain extent. Whether his positive externality on team-mates is sufficient enough, is another matter. But thank you for providing the detailed statistic to back up your argument.

As far as I am concerned, what I reject so much about Nash being MVP is not so much individual basis, but the general bias behind the journalist for the Canadian. I just do not think people like Lopez, Feign, or Stein, are that much qualified to make so called peer "judgement" even if some writers are terrific with exceptional knowledge of basketball. I would be much more comfortable if player, and coaches also had their say.

 

it might be large if Nash and Dirk were playing the same position and asked to do similar things, but that's not the case.
For instance, all the PER points Dirk have on Steve are due to rebounding, but you'll agree it makes no sense to compare a PF to a PG in this way.
Overall, I've always liked the idea to use the numbers to evaluate players trough the scientific method, but going into details on PER you'll see how all the assumptions Hollinger makes (and I feel there's some mistakes in his reasoning, too) only remove valuable informations about the game rather than add them.

Saying anything more than that both have a hell of statline, without going deeper on how the teams play and other on/off the court numbers, is reading to much into boxscores, imo.

I've always been a Nash supporter, and I was expecting him to turn the Suns franchise, really. Not him to become a MVP caliber and the Suns legit contenders, but I bet with friend at least a 53w seasons in 2005.
Still, I felt like the first MVP was a bit of stretch and that he got it just because there were no legit alternatives. He was agreat story, and that gave him the final push.
I was hoping him to justify his trophy in the PS. He did it by a wide margin.
He was arguably the best player in the PS, for sure the best among the other MVP candidates (Shaq and Dirk).
Using hindsight, I'd say both his MVP's are well deserved and, what really counts to our discussion, consistent with how voting went over the years.
You might say you'd have voted for others, but he's been at worse a TOP3 candidate for three years now, there's no travesty in his success, as much as I agree voters got caught a bit into his story.
Still, you don't give 3 MVPs in a row unless they're won by a wide margin: it's not the case.

 

Wow, I come back after a couple days (I do have other things to do than argue endlessly on a basketball forum), and I see John Rox REPEATEDLY parrotting what I said in some of my posts in some effort to spoof me. Even without actually showing how what I said was silly. For several pages. Essentially spamming this thread. Real CLEVER and MATURE. Did I get you upset or something?

Want to see an example of revisionist history making someone out to be a basketball god? Take a look at Bill Russell. His legend has grown so big that it's almost blasphemy to question his greatness. Even some of you out there who have basically agreed with my position will probably think I'm crazy for questioning him.

Bill Russell won how many, 5 MVPs? Over Wilt a number of times, including Wilt's ridiculously awesome 50 ppg season. Wilt vs. Russell has been regarded as one of the great player rivalries in the history of the league. But looking at their stats, there is NO WAY Russell was anywhere close to Wilt. Russell had defense and rebounding, but he has been outrebounded by Wilt. Russell was nothing extraordinary on offense, and his offensive game couldn't begin to compare to Wilt. The Celtics won a ridiculous number of championships, and Russell got the lion's share of the credit for them. But few people mention that the Celtics were basically an All-Star team back then, with stars like Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, Tommy Heinsohn, Same Jones, and John Havlicek also on the team.

Russell wasn't as good as Wilt. He also wasn't as good as Kareem, Shaq, David Robinson, or Hakeem. Another blasphemous statement, but I doubt he would be able to hold back Yao either. But along with Wilt, he's basically the gold standard that all centers now and forever will be compared to. I've seen more than one sportswriter saying this guys makes "[scrub center X] look like Bill Russell!"

 

Well, Nash came back and the Suns just thrashed the Clips by 25 in Staples. What are you guys' thoughts now?

 

that because of their style focusing on the pg and lack of backup pg, he is really valuable to the suns, but that doesn't mean he should just win the award every year b/c of his situation (if you're not the best player in the league, your situation shouldn't just give you the mvp). when dwade is the best player in the league and single-handedly beat a team that beat nash last year, it should be clear nash doesn't need to get the benefit of the doubt from here until the end of time when many are deserving in any given year and without some concrete way of nailing down the mvp for any given year, it seems wisest to give it to others who deserve it just as much as someone who already has 1 or 2 they didn't even deserve.

or was i supposed to say he has wrapped it up this year and any other year he gets a lot of assists and phoenix wins a lot he should get it that year, too, no other stars need apply?

 

The problem with that line of thinking is that from '66-'68 the Celtics went head to head against the sixers and won two out of three titles. And this was after a number of their HOFers retired. The celt's still had HOFers like Russell, Havlichek, KC Jones, and Sam Jones. But the sixers were pretty loaded too with HOFers like Wilt, Billy Cunningham, Hal Greer, and a perennial all-star like Chet Walker.

In my mind, those are evenly matched teams. And if Wilt was truly head and shoulders above Russell and everyone else, then the Sixers should have won more than 1 championship out of that run.

See David Robinson will get stat guys in trouble every time. By any statistical measurement (PER, efficiency, Roland etc.) David Robinson is one of the greatest players of all time. Top 3 in PER, and still top 5 even if we guesstimated and adjusted for Wilt and Kareem's blocks and pace. But that's ludicrous. Nobody in their right mind would ever call David Robinson a "great" player.

He was not a great competitor, he never improved his game that much, and his teams routinely folded in the playoffs. Robinson coasted by on his talent and ability, but never showed much determination or fortitude. He was a very good second banana, but was far from the basketball giant that his stats make him out to be.