And a ring, won in the west, against the best in the nba. Granted, he didn't lead them there, but he had a vital role.
And? Is the fact that Kidd won a ring, in his last years, as a role player, supposed to affect my rankings of him at all? Payton won a ring as a role player in his last years, he played an important role, but I'm not taking him above Stockton at all, and if I did take Payton above Stockton, it would be due to things like "Payton beat the **** out of Stockton in 1996", not "Payton has 1 ring, so he's better." Kidd winning a ring in his last is just as relevant to me as the argument which I've seen of him being a "better winner" than Nash because he made the Finals twice with a 50 and 49 win team respectively. Aka, none.
Kidd played really good defense in the 11 finals and was a much bigger contributor to the Mavs winning than GP was with the Heat. I'm not sure why you think it isn't important for a PG to play defense. Kidd was big enough that he could also hold shooting guards. He is also one of the best rebounding pgs of all time. In his prime he was averaging around 7 rpg. Kidd gave you a lot on offense with his playmaking skills, gave you a lot on defense, and did a great job rebounding. He couldn't shoot but the rest of his game was elite at his position.
See, that's just not true. Aside from transitional offense, Kidd was not a good offensive player at any facet of the game. Shooting, finishing, drawing fouls, even playmaking, he was not a good offense player, as can be demonstrated by the fact that he was a sub .500 TS% player between 2001 and 2003. The Nets were never an above average offensive team, and if you want to play the "Yeah, because he had garbage" card, Nash had the 2nd best offensive team in 05-06 with Marion, Diaw, and Tim Thomas, and the best offensive team when he was on the court in 10-11 with Gortat and Dudley. I'd also point out that the Kidd-less Nets were much better than the Nash-less Suns: the former was basically a little worse than .500, the latter were well, where the Suns are now. Because at the NBA level, man-to-man defense isn't just that important because you can't really shut down the elite players, and especially the elite point guards, by yourself. Teams don't play the Rockets by sending some elite defender against Harden, they swarm him and have bigs watching him at all time. Even in the legendary Kobe-Battier duels, so much of that was because Kobe knew that driving to the rim was a lot more difficult with a 7'6'' Chinese dude who would be nearby. It is much more important and much more impactful to have an elite defensive big than it is to have an elite defensive point guard - there is a reason why the DPOY is always a big, something which it should be noted, that Kidd never got a single vote for while he was in New Jersey, even if he did make the All-Defensive teams. Similarily, because point guards, especially players like Kidd and Nash, handle the ball so much, it is much important to have an elite point guard or ball handler than it is for them to be good at defense. Tl;dr, point guard defense isn't not important, but offense is much more important for a point guard than defense because of how much they handle the ball.
Steve Nash clearly above Jason Kidd? Nash is one of the most overrated 1 way point guards of all time. Nash is a great shooter and racked up the assists but he was a liability defensively. I'd take Kidd and Payton over him all day every day. Kidd and Payton were excellent defenders and rebounders in addition to everything they did on the offensive end.
First, as I just finished arguing, Kidd didn't do a whole lot on the offensive end. Secondly, here's the thing about defense, particularly with defense on point guards, though I think my earlier posts describe it. What good does it do to have a point guard as an excellent defender...if the bigs behind him can't defend anyways? Because a point guard cannot shut down a defense in the way a big can. Take a look at the Nets teams after Kenyon Martin left. They fell off defensively. A lot. Same with the Sonics, after Shawn Kemp got fat and drunk. Payton and Kidd were good defenders, but because of the nature of their point guard and their size, they can't overall impact a defender in the way bigs can. They CAN, however, impact a team's offensive ability much more than a big can. But Kidd was much worse at this than Nash. For a point guard, I'd much rather have one who's a 8 at offense and a 3 at defense than one who's a 3 at offense and a 8 at defense. That's just how it is. Nash is one of the greatest offensive point guards ever, and he impacted the Suns far more than the Nets did, who benefited just as much from the development of Martin and Richard Jefferson ( thanks CD), as they did from Kidd.
Whoever thinks Steve Nash is better than Jason Kidd is out of their GD mind. If anything, I'd lump them into the same group along with Gary Payton. Nash might have the 2 MVP trophies but Jason Kidd played both ends of the floor, was never a liability on defense during his prime years, and made a lot of players (Kenyon Martin, Richard Jefferson, Kerry Kittles, Shawn Marion, etc.) a lot of money just like Nash and Chris Paul has. Hell, if it wasn't for Tim Dunca, Kidd would have been MVP the first year the Nets went to the Finals.
Kidd is a top 10 pg. Once you really start breaking down his game, you see how much he did. He was a walking triple double at one point of his career. First Ballot HOF
I'm not sure about that. Jefferson was never the same player after leaving NJ, and he was in his prime when he left. They made it to the 2nd round without Kenyon Martin.
Jason Kidd has 107 career tripple doubles. Lebron James has 37 and he's in his 10th year. That speaks volumes. The knock on Kidd was that he was a bad shooter but he impacted the game in so many different ways. Kidd >>>> Nash
What good does it do? It helps keep your bigs on the floor if they don't have to be the last line of defense because your point guard plays matador defense. Just because defense is more synonymous with big men doesn't mean a defense point guard can't greatly alter the opposing team's offense. 1. When Kenyon Martin left, do you know who replaced him in the lineup? Nenad Krstic. Who was after Krstic? Brian Scalabrine. When you have that kind of significant drop off in defensive talent of course you're going to see a drop off in team defense 2. As for Shawn Kemp, Vin Fatty Baker replaced him in the starting lineup. 'Nuff said. So either your examples are irrelevent or you need to come up with better examples because having a very good to elite defender at the point is just as important as a very good or elite defender. You are severely underrating Jason Kidd's offense during his prime. He didn't shoot for a high percentage but he wasn't a non-factor as your rating of a '3' suggest. If Kidd's offensive rating is a '3' in your eyes and is an equal to Nash's defense (as you suggest), then that means Kidd has no offensive game whatsoever. How does this even make sense? If anything, both point guards had equally great impact on their respective teams. Discrediting Kidd's Nets team just because they were on the East is crazy. That squad was top 10 in defense in the NBA and not just in the East. And to go back-to-back to the Finals? And the development of Martin and Jefferson was more of Kidd's doing than Byron Scott's, just like how I can credit Nash for Marion's and Stat's development moreso than D'Antoni.
Completely agree, Kidd averaged a triple double over a whole playoff. Not a series, but the whole post season 19-10-10. Lebron is the ony person in today's game that could even sniff that. I also think it's to his credit that he became a knock down shooter and extended his career when he lost his quickness. Nash is a tireless worker and also a first ballot hall of famer. But to use a baseball idiom, Kidd was a 5 tool player.
Uh, sigh. I think I'm going to start by simply talking about Kidd offensively. Let's begin. The concept with Kidd is that even though he couldn't shoot jumpers, he was actually a good offensive player. This is not true at all Kidd was a bad scorer. In fact, he was a better jump shooter than he was a finisher. Until he arrived in Dallas as an old player, Kidd never had a TS% of above 53%, which is more or less average scoring. In fact, in his first three seasons as a Net, the seasons where he took the team to the Finals and got so much accolades, his TS% over that period comes out to below 50%, which is terrible in general. And you don't need to be a good shooter to have a good TS% - Tony Parker's an excellent example. Nash, by contrast, has had a TS% of above 60% every single seasonsince 1999, with the exception of 2003, where he settled for a mere 58%, still much better than anything than Kidd has ever done. Nash is not just a better shooter. He is a much better slasher, finisher, and FT shooter, and thus a much better scorer at all. Well, perhaps Kidd was a great offensive player through his playmaking, then. Not true either. Here were the Nets rating offensively during his tenure. 2001 22nd in O-rating 2002 17th 2003 18th 2004 25th 2005 27th 2006 25th Not a single year where Kidd managed to create an above-average offensive team. Not one. Nash by contrast? Nash's team, every single year since 2002 to 2011, with the sole exception of 2006, where he was working with Diaw as his 2nd best offensive player, was 1st. Every single year. And this isn't just points. This is offensive rating, which factors pace. Oh, and in 2006? They finished 2nd. Also, Nash completely turned around that team as offensively. Long story short, which I hope I proved, Nash DESTROYS Kidd offensively, both as an individual and in helping the team offensively. Now if you would like me to get into defense, I can do that. But I'd rather focus on one thing at a time first.
I love Nash and I personally think he's a HOF despite: 1. never winning a ring 2. not having that "entire body of work" from rookie season to retirement 3. being a matador on defense But Jason Kidd was on another level. Every night he was threatening to get a triple double. He even reinvented his game to becoming a pretty damn good 3 point shooter, something he wasn't good at early in his career. That's like asking Nash to be an average defender right now.
You just don't get it. Point guards can absolutely make an impact on the defensive end. If they stop penetration and lock down the perimeter it makes things so much easier for the bigs and life hell for opposing guards. You think Gary Payton was nicknamed "The Glove" for ****s and giggles? He's a 9 time all defensive first team member. And a defensive player of the year in 1996. The only player to ever win the award. The 95-96 season was a year that included an era that included TRUE bigs such as Olajuwon, Robinson, Ewing, Shaq, Mutumbo, Mourning. The Golden Era of big men who locked down the paint and were true defensive beasts. BUT Gary Payton won defensive player of the year over all those guys even though he couldn't impact the overall defense like a big man like you said right? Gtfo here with your silly good defensive point guards doesn't matter/ Nash argument.
