Go watch the games or even highlight reels, I give it to you that Kidd is not a shooter like Nash or a explosive scorer like Isiah Thomas or Kevin Johnson. Kidd CAN get buckets, its just that he find it more fun (and more productive) to get the assist. If, and i put a big if, that if Kidd goes to games looking to score he could have easily match his 03 season where he got 18.1ppg. And what makes it even more astonishing is that for someone that could not shoot for most of his career, his actually the 3rd in the most 3p made list.
You have it completely backwards. If Kidd, as you described, picked and chose the spots where he scored, then it stands to reason that the spots where Kidd would choose to score are places where he has a high chance of succeeding, which means that Kidd should have an incredibly high efficiency, just not with the volume of the great scorers like say Durant or McGrady. Yet the data says otherwise - Kidd was a very poor scorer by efficiency overall throughout his career. If he had tried to be more of a volume scorer, it's fairly obvious that his already bleh scoring efficiency would have fallen even farther, just like Harden's efficiency went from "GOAT" as a sixth man to just really, really good as the main option. You know who DOES have an incredibly high efficiency with low volume? Steve Nash.
I like this list I still have no clue how Nash is so high on some people's list. He is the single worst defensive player I have ever watched in my lifetime. That alone keeps him out of the top end category
Because PG defense is not really that critical, and Nash was THAT good on offense. It's like suggesting that Iguodala or even Paul George are better than Harden because of the Beard's bleh defense.
There was a reason that Nash's SUPER talented teams never made a trip to the finals, DEFENSE. I remember Rafer used to routinely put up 30 points on him. He never even tried on defense. You can't only play one side of the ball and consider yourself among the best of all time. A guy like Kidd dominated on both ends of the court, a way more impressive career for me. And those comparisons are not too valid, Iggy is almost a nothing on offense while George is probably pretty close to Harden
Very overrated all-time great. Very inefficient. Low TS%, high turnover rate etc.. The "best" offensive player on teams that were super good because of their defense. The Derrick Rose effect. Or I guess it's the Isiah Thomas effect. Paul George has the makings of that kind of overrating but he's actually a huge contributor to the defense so he gets a pass.
so much love for CP3..and he hasn't even won anything yet..didn't even make it to the finals. Magic is #1, the rest are pretty on par, so you could argue Kidd been top 2-7.
I would say that a great defending PG can minimize the other team's offensive efficiency...because the offensive plays typically start with the PG setting up the play. When that gets disrupted, the offense tends to not be as efficient. Kidd vs. Nash, head to head in a game...looks to me like Kidd would abuse Nash on one end...and Nash wouldnt have the same impact on the other end. You cant ignore Nash's inability to play defense. You shouldnt diminish the impact of defense just because it's coming from the PG position. In many ways, that can be one of the more important positions to have a good defender. I know that if Im playing a team that has a PG like Nash, then I sure as hell want a defender as good as Kidd or Payton guarding him.
Anecdote. I'm going to point out that the opposing point guard against Nash...normally are actually below average in terms of scoring volume and efficiency. As for the Nash-Kidd argument, here are my points: I intend to debunk your arguments on two prongs: 1. Jason Kidd dominated on both ends of the court, eg. Kidd was good offensively If we are to argue that Jason Kidd was good on offense, we should ask well, what precisely was Kidd good at offensively? It wasn’t scoring, obviously. Kidd’s lack of a jumper was well known, but he was also a bad finisher. As Well, then, it was his passing. The most common argument here is Kidd’s high assist numbers. But my argument is that it’s not good enough to get an assist. As everyone knows, if I dribble the ball for 23 seconds, pass the ball to a guy, and he makes a shot at the last second, I am credited with the assist, but I didn’t actually make the offense any better. What’s important for a point guard is not to rack up assists, but to have a good offense – and these are not necessarily the same thing. ( John Stockton is a clear example of this – he was a very, very good offensive players, but he is not the GOAT and it’s not even close offensive player that his high assist totals may cause one to believe). So, were the Nets good offensive teams? Nope. Not at all. They were never even above average. 16th was their best mark, and that was in 2006-07. They made the Finals (and anyone knows what an empty accomplishment making two Finals really was given how pathetic the East was during that era). So, Kidd didn’t score, and Kidd didn’t make the Nets a good offensive team. So how precisely how did Kidd dominate on that end of the court? If your argument is “Well, Kidd had crappy teammates,” I want you to realize just HOW good Nash was offensively then. Measured by offensive rating, Nash was on 7 of the 18 greatest offenses ever. This includes the best offensive team ever ( 2010), the 3rd best (2005) and the 5th best (2007). Nash was on either the best offensive or the 2nd best offensive team in the league every single season from 2001-2 to 2009-10. In 2010-11 and 2011-12, surrounded by stellar teammates like Childress, Turkoglu, Dudley, and Gortat, the Suns were top 10 offensive teams. In 2006, with Shawn Marion, Boris Diaw, and Barbosa, the Suns had the 2nd best offense in the league. Furthermore, every single player who has played with Nash has looked like offensive geniuses compared to playing without him – Stoudamire, Marion, Gortat, and so on and so on. Nash thus led some absolutely amazing offenses. And to top it off, thanks to his shooting, he was an amazing scorer. Kidd’s HIGHEST TS%, in Dallas in 2010, was .577. Aside from his first 3 years in the league, Nash’s LOWEST TS% was .576. Kidd’s highest eFG% ever wasn’t even at Nash’s average (and btw, the fact that Kidd’s eFG% is relatively better than his TS% shows that Kidd was not a good foul drawer, which heavily implies that he wasn’t a great finisher either). Given all these facts, I think I want to make it clear. The offensive gap between Jason Kidd and Steve Nash is absolutely gigantic. But to be fair, Nash was that good, and is in fact a top 5 player period if judged purely by his offensive ability. 2. Even so, Kidd is still better because he was a much better defender. I’m not going to counter this by discounting Kidd’s defense. Kidd was in fact, a much better defender than Nash. That much is obvious. But how actually important is a point guard’s defense? My answer is: not really. There realistically is only so much a small guard can do defensively. Defense is fundamentally a big man’s game, as it is big men who clog up the rim, alter/block shots, and so on. A big man who is elite at defense and bad at offense is better than one who is elite at offense but bad at defense, because the big man will almost certainly be called to have an impact on every single play. It is perfectly possible to have a good defensive team even when your point guard is bad defensively – from the 2001 76ers to the Gasol-Kobe Lakers to the Dwight Howard Magic. That is because you can have good defensive big men to make up for it, while you can’t have good defensive point guards make up for terrible big men. So, how did Nash lose then? Because the TEAM defense sucked, because Nash played with absolutely terrible defensive bigs ( Stoudamire). The Suns lost because they couldn’t stop two power forwards and a shooting guard ( Dirk, Duncan, and Kobe). It didn’t matter how good Nash was defensively, because as long as Stoudamire was Stoudamire on defense, the Suns didn’t have a chance.
@rhino, you mention that kidd "dominated" offensively. can you tell me how he did that? i read someone mentioned that a pg's job is to facilitate. no a pg's job is to lead an effective and efficient offense. jason kidd didn't do that. besides, in his prime, he took as many shots as cp3, and nash took even less. and both scored more on considerably greater efficiency. and both even generated more for their teammates. i fail to see how anyone can make an argument that kidd is even two tiers below them offensively. i mean kidd took a good volume amount of shots and couldn't score efficiently. kidd also turns it over at a much higher rate than cp3. the only reason kidd can be mentioned in the same breath is b/c of his defense. if the suns lost b/c their defense wasn't good, then the nets lost cuz their offense wasn't good (and lol at blaming a pg for a teams overall defense..amare is arguably the most clueless big man defender of all time, and he was playing C for majority of the time). i mean, i showed the ORTGS for all of jkidd's nets teams. they were garbage. among the worst in the league. i posted the stats of how jkidd was dominated by cp3 in 08. and how his run to the finals isn't any more impressive than what cp3 has done individually in the post season, and what nash did in terms of leading his team to the wcf. i mean seriously, kidd is getting this much credit for leading his team to the finals? cp3 and especially nash anchored even better teams than those nets teams. the thing was that the east was historically weak, and kidd/nets took advantage. good for them, but it's just not that impressive in the grand scheme of things. can kidd do what cp3 did in that 08 playoffs? 24/5/11 on 57% ts with a 31 PER? can he do what he did in the 09 regular season with 23 ppg, 5.5 rpg, and 11 apg, and turning it over only 3 times per game. his ability to take care of the ball, score at a high volume with terrific efficiency is REMARKABLE. nash is an animal, he was like on a top 2 offensive team in the league for 9 years straight (including dallas). that's no coincidence. nash did 25/5/11 on 60% ts in the run to the wcf in 2005. tell me a series where kidd has had that sort of offensive impact. you wanna know what nash did in the semi finals v. dallas? 30.3 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 12.0 apg on 55/42/96. that's NUTS. are you under the impression that deng is a better player than harden? it's the same thing. a mediocre offensive player and an elite defensive player (deng's RAPM defensively is astounding) v. an elite offensive player and a horrible defensive player. kidd is a better defender than magic too, why is kidd not higher than him? because magic is SO much better offensively. the same applies for nash and cp3. to reiterate the premise of the point, kidd is NOT a good offensive player. and no one has posted anything to prove otherwise. all i see is "lol, you're insane, kidd is a dominant two way player." jkidd had a 48% ts in 2002. that's absolutely pathetic. otherwise he's always <52%. if nash or cp3 even came near that mark, it'd be a historically poor season for them. jkidd anchored below average offenses (and bottom 6 offenses) for most of his nets tenure. nash and cp3 anchor top 5 offenses every year basically...nash in particular has been apart of the greatest offenses of all time. unless we're accrediting kidd for being the anchor to their defense, then the gap doesn't even come close to making up for the offensive edge. and it's also a bit far fetched to claim kidd was the anchor when the nets had a good rotation of big men defenders. pg defense has historically been known to be less impactful than big men defense. @redawgz when you're that good an offensive player, defense won't matter. case in point is actually looking at the matchups instead of just assuming. check out nash's games in order from 2002 against kidd (not even nash's prime) 30/9 on 12-18 24/8 on 10-16 18/5 on 6-12 30/9 on 10-15 27/6 on 11-18 clunker game where he went scoreless in 26 mins on 0-5 shooting. 26/13 on 9-16 42/13 on 16-25 13/9 on 5-11 i mean, LOL. even with the 0 point game, from 02 to 08, nash averaged 23.3 ppg on remarkable shooting. cp3 also torched kidd as i mentioned in 08. the thing is guys like nash/cp3 can take over games offensively even though they are pass first pg's too. kidd's inefficiency and rather high volume limited the nets from being a real good offensive team.
Absolutely agree with this post. PG's are supposed to primarily orchestrate the offense, and even defense, of teams, take the role of a general. Great PG's had that uncanny ability to handle the ball and have that extraordinary vision on the court. They are also measured by how they made their team mates better. The best PG's also made it routine to deliver the ball to their team mates on time and on target. All other stats are just gravy. Magic, Cousy and the other great PG's had all of these abilities.
Lol.... We both know someone doesn't fit here, but I'm hoping to eat crow if that's what it takes.... ....... ....... .......
