he is remembered as that

Reddit loves Steve nash

Man, Nash’s adored by the internet lol

Swap Nash with John Stockton in your title and it’ll be on point.

he’s in my top 5 pgs if that’s any consolation

He should have been shooting 3s like crazy. Steph levels of volume. 13 of 14 seasons over 40% from deep. Three over 45%. And a 90% FT shooter. Insane that he wasn’t chucking at least 8 a game.

I think Nash is rated. One of the most common stats people use these days for MVP discussions is EPM. He peaked at +5.3 in 2007 and hovered around +3 to +4.5 for most of his prime, had a good 12ish year prime before dipping off for the final 2 seasons. He had a 20% usage rate while most stars are 25-40+%.

His assist rate was unbelievably high but his turnover rate could have been better. Harden, Luka, Jokic for example all have had comparable assist rates to Nash but their TO% was considerably lower than Nash despite all of them having way higher usage as scorers.

Nash provides a lot of value as a hyper efficient scorer who makes his teammates better but he has his deficiencies mostly on the defensive end. All 3 of the players i mentioned aren’t known for their defense but the advanced stats are showing that they were all much much better on that end of the floor than Nash.

He would’ve been even better today . He wasn’t encouraged to shoot enough in his day

He’s a little overrated, his defense wasn’t just not good it was genuinely among the worst in the league. People forget Dallas got better after he left.

If you compare him to Stockton for example, it’s very difficult to make the case for Nash. It’s extremely close offensively- Nash peaked at 18.8 ppg to Stockton’s 17.2, and they had essentially the exact same efficiency. But Stockton also averaged 3 more assists per game at his peak with a better AST:TO ratio.

It’s a similar story with Chris Paul. Nash actually has a significant efficiency edge here, but Paul’s scoring peak was higher from a volume standpoint and his assist numbers were about the same volume wise, but again like Stockton had a much better AST:TO ratio.

If you look solely at offense you can make a decent case Nash was better than both of them by a small margin, but the defensive gap is absolutely huge when compared to either CP3 or Stockton. Yes PG is probably the least important position defensively, but the difference between all defense level and near worst in the league level is still a big deal.

You can’t just say he should be top 5 without making your case.

I don’t think anyone dismisses Nash as not being an all-time great, but even after what I think is a clear top 3 (Magic, Steph and O), there are so many elite guys in that discussion. CP3 deserves to be 4th (and I wouldn’t push back too hard if some put him over O), and then I would also put both Stockton and IT ahead of him because both were also very good/elite defenders at the position, when Nash was pretty much always a liability at that end. And you also have to decide how you are going to categorise either the combo gaurds (West, Harden) or now the bigger PG’s (Luka, SGA).

I’m not gonna argue if you include him in a tier with anybody after those top 4, but I struggle to see him being clearly 5th.

And none of that should be seen as a real criticism (except for the defensive comment, which is where I drop him a bit). He is clearly one of the greats.

Easily is his impact to winning was very relevant it’s just nowadays we live in the hot take/discredit era

This is true. Nash was viewed as very skilled and star player in his time. I remember watch him cook defense like eggs and sizzle bacon but now he overlooked so much in favor of stereotypical NBA player who tall and atheltes. People tend to gravitation towards Kobe and similar stars and forget about Nash.

Just a huge liability defensively but aesthetically fun to watch

Nash was one of my favorite players growing up, wish they won in 07’

His offense skill set is god sent, but his defense was equally horrible

Some people rate him properly as one of the greats. Some people underrate him. I’ve definitely seen some people attack him way too much just because they think Kobe or Shaq should have won one of his MVPs.

Ultimately, he’s a legend and should be seen as such.

What did Steve Nash accomplish?

Winning MVPs for having more votes?

Players who don’t put up massive stats and who most don’t bother to watch themselves will be underrated. On the flipside, someone like Stockton became overrated by people who look at his stats and argue him over Nash and CP3. The Le Pure Point Guard Arguement is tired

Good but not good enough to win it all. Way too selfless with the ball despite being one of the greatest shooters of all time and I believe if he just took more shots, he would have took his team to the higher level. At the end of the day he couldn’t get past his rivals because he was running plays instead of closing the games out himself at clutch moments and imo this lack of selfishness hurt his success which is why I don’t rate him that high.

Still have massive hate in my heart for Robert Horry

That 07 Suns Spurs series that the refs gave to the Spurs should have been his ring.

Nash is absolutely getting underrated and it is kind of wild. Two time MVP, back to back, which not a lot of guards have done. Those Suns teams were genuinely fun to watch and he made everyone around him better in a very real way. The 2006 Western Conference Finals loss still stings because that team had a real shot. Without the ring he just doesn’t get talked about the way he should be but as a pure point guard there are very few who could match what he did at his peak

I agree with you. He was the most dominant player when he won those MVP’s. He could have easily averaged over 30 if he needed to but he sacrificed for the team.

Hot take: Steve Nash was better than Kobe Bryant in those two MVP seasons

Second greatest pure point guard after Stockton

The White (Black) Steph Curry

he’s literally in the hall of fame, what more do you want

Nash is genuinely underrated in these GOAT conversations. Those mid 2000s Suns teams were must watch basketball and he was the engine of everything. The Robert Horry hip check in 2007 that got Amare and Boris Diaw suspended is probably the single moment that robbed him of at least one finals appearance. His back issues getting to the Lakers was brutal timing. Top 5 PG all time is a very defensible take, the guy transformed how we think about point guard play and made offenses more efficient in ways that took years for the rest of the league to copy.

“Getting” the guy has been massively underrated for ages now

Peak was high but small

He’s a top 10 shooter and top 5 passer. You could even argue he’s a top 5 pure shooter of all time. Basically the perfect offensive player

Count his rings