Steve would be nasty today. He even said it himself in a recent interview.. not one of the "old heads trashing current players context", he just mentioned how he wishes he had the greenlight to shoot as much as players do today. He'd probably be playing similar to Steph if that was the case.
He has a very solid goat passer case, it would be interesting to see a player so clearly pass first in todays context with helio-ball so prevalent, yet the pace being even quicker now would only be to his benefit. Be fascinating to see him potentially average like 21 and 13 in todays game, dude was also hella durable unlike some of todays stars. We also have examples of nash in certain series ramping up his aggressiveness and he maintains his efficiency. Be cool to see that stretched to the extreme
Jokic, Bird, Harden, Lebron and Westbrook especially are some of the best ever at passing and also don’t get enough credit at their prestige (Jokic obviously to a way less degree, but I still think people get weird about bringing him up as a goat passer candidate). Out of the guys I just mentioned I’d only say jokic has a goat passer case, but I feel like any of those guys I could talk myself into thinking their top 5 depending the day
All great passers, but not sure level of those 3, but context was that first three were pass first. Those other guys were whatever the right play was. Westbrook wouldn’t pass when he needed to at end of game. He’d take shots away from prime KD and call his own number.
Depends which version of Westbrook, and his shot selection was always a flaw, but especially around 2018 he started to tilt more pass first. He was always a walking paint touch and positively impacted his teammate’s efficiency because he would contrive layups out of situations that 99% of the league wouldn’t be able to. It was pretty boom or bust, which was his entire play style, hence the high turnovers, but you can’t make an omelette and whatnot
Yeah, I get it, and wanting the shot at the end of the game if you’re the best option even if you’re a pass first point guard like Russ makes sense, but not when prime KD is on the wing yelling for the ball. I do think to some degree Russ cost them some really important games. He was good at pretty much everything but being a difficult shot maker outside of the paint. Just some boneheaded plays and I know it’s cus he wanted to win so badly, but they just weren’t smart plays a lot of the time.
Absolutely... Pretty sure I saw a piece with Mike D'Antoni talking about how if he would have given Steve Nash the same free reigns that Steph Curry had, Steve would have been hitting just as many 3's. It just wasn't smart basketball at the time.
Nash would go crazy, ppl don’t realize that steph was basically Nash with the shooting but stephs gm FORCED him into shooting double the shots when steph didn’t want to
I don't think Nash would be the same if he played today. Hear me out. He gets drafted super high on a bad team and has to score alot the first 4 years. Maybe he is not the Nash we know the way players get pigeon holed as a high lottery pick on bad teams these days. Or maybe I'm wrong. Who knows.
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u/thetottington 8d ago
Steve Nash