i dont completely agree that point guards job is not to facilitate. Even if the pg have to help on making a good offense flow, its not his job only. It also depends on the coach and what he wants to do. U cant compare nash, who played for " no d, do whatever u want with the ball but shoot fast" Dantoni to jason kidd playing on a much more defensive oriented team like the nets. The nets tried to ( and did it really well) run everytime they could by getting defensive stops. The suns tried to run and shoot as fast as they could trying to just outscore u. Its not the same. I say nash was a better offensive player than kidd, but overall i take kidd. Great defense ( he could guard SG, wich is really important), incredible rebounding for a pg, good vision and passing. Nash is on another league on offense, but his D was so bad he helped carry his teams to defeat. And the suns where really stacked u guys forget, but prime stoudamire, prime marion, joe jonson, and a bunch of guys who could shoot helped him a lot, especially since his offense worked when the others team D wasnt settled.
How exactly does anyone puts Nash into the top 5? Nash padded his stats for years playing in Phoenix. Look at his Dallas numbers, the guy was at his best 17 points, 8 assists a game for a playoff team. A very good point guard in the league at the time, but all time great yeah right. Also not a great defender. Nash also never led his team to the finals. Not sure how anyone puts Chris Paul over GP, Payton was the total package, defense, passing, scoring, competitor, leadership. Only weakness was his 3 point shooting. Magic still the best, and Stockton is up there too purely for his achievements. He was an absolute pleasure to watch back in the day.
I'm judging based on how a player can change a team and not just statistically sound (LIKE MELO). 1) Magic - turns a team into championship contenders pretty much by himself 2) Tony Parker - People say Duncan is why Parker looks great. IMO most underrated point guard in the NBA. You don't win multiple championships without someone like Parker. (Especially in the golden era of PGs) 3) Big O - Another one that turns a team into championship contenders because of his presence, just not as much as Magic 4) Nash - You can say it's the system, but how often do you have a PG that can make a scrub team look like an elite team for a prolong period? Not to mention carrying them to deep playoffs. 5) Stockton - similar to Nash, can make his team look elite when they are not but just not as impactful 6) Kidd - very system oriented PG that can be used around championship contenders. He'll do all the little things to give the team an advantage. Very impactful on any team. Just not as much as Nash and Stockton was. So that's where I'd rank Kidd.
Thats true of Kevin Johnson also. The 1 only year he actually tried to shoot 3's at a high volume, he shot well over 40% late in his career. (Tidbit: KJ shot as many 3's his ENTIRE career than Klay Thompson did just 1 SINGLE season last year.) They just didnt value 3 point shooting as much then. People forget that John Stockton was a SUCKY 3 point shooter the first 1/3 of his career. (Like John Wall level). He worked himself into a shooter.
Still all-time favorite "small ball" team '98 Phoenix Suns. Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Kevin Johnson, three Top 20 all time PGS on THE SAME TEAM ? (And they finished with a higher DEFENSIVE rating than offense, go figure...)
@hoopcity, the non-nash supporters keep rehashing the same thing. - nash didn't go to the finals - nash doesn't play d - nash is a product of the system. a.) ok, that's legit criticism. but in regards to a comparison with jason kidd,can anyone really say what nash did anchoring among the greatest offenses of all time, and losing to the spurs (05), dallas (06) is less impressive than kidd and the nets beating under 50 win teams? in 07, phx got some garbage suspensions and could have legitimately won that series if that had not happened. in 08, they lost to the spurs again. in 2010, they beat the 50 win blazers in the first round, and SWEPT the 50 win spurs in the 2nd. they lost to the eventual champion lakers in 6. tell me how this is less impressive than kidd beating sub 50 win teams all the way to the finals? b.) right. nash isn't as good a defender as kidd. obviously. but pg defense has proven to be the least impactful. not saying it isn't important..but the suns had amare playing heavy minutes at center. amare might be the worst big man defender i've ever seen. kidd's defense is superb, and makes up the gap, but it isn't enough...because it's unfair to label nash as the reason why the suns were average to below average defensively. in fact, i remember reading that nash didn't make the suns noticeably worse defensively when he was on the floor. he's also OK at taking charges. c.) wrong. nash is the system. d'antoni has been exposed since, while the suns barely missed a beat when d'antoni left. he simply got more freedom in a different situation. ppl are severely underrating nash offensively. imo, he's on the shortlist as one of the greatest offensive players of all time. kojirou touched on it more..the offensive brilliance of nash. anyone taking kidd over nash would also rank deng higher than harden currently. because that's exactly what its like. deng is the high impact defensive player. plus, @hoopcity. doesn't cp3 do all those things too? defense, leadership, scoring, competitiveness and solid 3 pt shooting? using gp's argument as the all round package is a bit perplexing when cp3 was a better scorer and playmaker, while prob being the best leader and competitive guy in the league today. cp3 is also more efficient. gp is better on d tho, for sure. @shroopy. i think you touch on a good point. it'd be interesting to see how the pg's from the 80's/90s would be in a league where spacing is king. you guys know when isiah had his year where he averaged 21/14, his entire pistons team outside him made like under 20 threes the entire season! that's nuts. -- and frazier is being real underrated in this thread. hes arguably the goat pg defender. he's a good rebounder, a very good initiator of the offense (holzman offense), and he's efficient too. he's very similar to gp. i have both guys over kidd, cuz defensively at worst they're a wash, and offensively they're definitely better. similar with stockton. and for as much credit as kidd is getting for taking his teams to the finals, frazier has two rings. and since we seem to be disregarding context, then that's all that matters.. im repeating stuff at this point...but im bored with a couple days off, and no one is replying/reading, and posting the same stuff again also, without rebutting what's posted.
The thing with Frazier was that he was a complete team player. If he had wanted to, he could have padded any of his statistics. If he had been on weaker teams, he probably would have had much better stats and people would rank him higher. (In some ways, that's the Oscar Robertson effect. Oscar did as much as he could to help his teams, but that typically meant he had to do too much, and his teams really weren't that good. That said, Frazier did better with Jerry Lucas than Oscar ever did.) There was never a better point guard defender than Frazier. They didn't keep steal stats during his best years, and I believe they started keeping track of them largely because of the impact of Frazier's steals. Defense at that time, for a point guard, was important, if only because Frazier had to guard Jerry West and Oscar. (Similarly, the Knicks at that time had Bill Bradley playing out of position as an undersized small forward, largely because they needed a system that could defend against Havlicek.) Other thing not considered here is the inflated assist statistics that exist now, and have since early Magic/Stockton days. Frazier, Cousy, and Oscar would all have had much higher stats if they were awarded as they are now, and probably even higher if they had played with a three point shot. It's a different game now, and lots of these comparisons are either unfair or impossible. And the other thing that Frazier has that most of the people on these top ten rankings lack is championships. Nash and Chris Paul have to take a serious back seat on that score. At least Kidd, Stockton, and Payton made it to the finals. And Tony Parker deserves more credit than he's been getting here for the same reason.
Let me ask a question about Kidd's defense, since everyone seems to view that as the reason he's better than Nash. If Kidd was in Nash's place for the late 2000 Suns, how precisely would his defense have prevented Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki from sodomizing Amare and Boris Diaw? I'm especially curious to hear about Duncan, since even with bigs superior to Amare defensively, Kidd couldn't do a damn thing to prevent Duncan from destroying New Jersey in 2003.
I'll get a fast, small SG combo to guard opponent's PG and let Magic guard opponent's SG. What's so hard with that?
Outside of just offensive/defensive contributions Kidd played for what, 18 years? That's got to factor in somehow. He wasn't as quick near the end of his career so he was able to adapt his game to play as SG (spot up shooter, was always a good 3PT shooter). I remember him on the Nets when they made those 2-3 trips to the finals, too bad they were never good enough to beat their Western conference opponents. I can't rank him because I never saw any of the older PG's play but I would probably rank him somewhere in the top 10 at least.
I can understand all of y'all putting Stockton, Oscar Robertson, Thomas, Glove, and Thomas ahead of Kidd but can't understand why Nash is the better player here. How do you go about ranking the players? Is it if they are good at the certain role? Like point guard should be a good passer? Or do you look at the full body of work?
It's because Nash anchored the best offenses of all time. And I think Walt Frazier is clearly above Gary Payton.
That had nothing to do with what we are talking here. Of course his defense wouldnt help against TD or Dirk. He is pg not a PF or center. But his D helped his teams a lot against PG and SG and sometimes even SF. On the other side, nash D always helped the other team.
Anyone who saw Frazier play (and knows the game) has no doubt that he's one of the top point guards EVER!!!! Like top three!! I know there are many posters on here who are young, and never saw him play. So I guess they get a pass. However I laugh when I see people putting Stockton, Nash, Payton, Kidd, Cousy and many others ahead of Frazier.
I have a hard time with this ranking because I never really liked him as a person but the fact that he took the Nets to the finals with slightly above average running mates is pretty darn good. 1. Magic - I think Magic was better than MJ. He can make any team a contender. 2. Stockton - I hate him so much because he was so good. Would have had a few rings if it wasn't for MJ and Dream. 3. Zeke - 2 rings as the best player of a very good team 4. Kidd - 2 finals 5. Nash - 2 MVPs 6. Parker - 3 rings by taking what ever the defense gives him. King of the hockey assist. 7. CP3 - never won anything or even got close 8. Big O - never won anything
Anyone that doesen't have 1) Magic 2) Big O is insane to me. You do realize Oscar Roberston AVERAGED a triple double right? 3) Isiah 4) Kidd 5) Stockton Stockton is a **** eater though screw that guy. 6) Cousy 7) Payton
Magic and Oscar Robertson are clear 1 and 2 IMO. That's hard to debate. Robertson was on bad teams in a bad era. He had lot of problems based on how he grew up. He was an insane perfectionist also. After that it gets fuzzy. Kidd and Stockton have the best longevity. Neither really peaked that high for me. CP3 has an awesome peak but too many injuries and his career is not over. Steve Nash anchored the best offenses which is what a PG has the most control over. Payton and Frazier were the most complete PGs if you look at both ends of the court.
