OT: Many Of You Thought Steve Nash Was Over-The-Hill

Well, he ain't. (As an example, 21/20 in a come-from-behind win over the Sixers, tonight.)

[video=youtube;OOkhqxaKqVs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOkhqxaKqVs[/video]

 

JERRYD BAYLESS IS TOO MUCH TO GIVE UP TO GET STEVE NASH!

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He's just like Stockton. He will play and play well until he is 40

 

as i recall most (all?) posters here, outside of giving up any of big 3, were pro getting nash if he were available including shipping bayless.

 

http://www.sportstwo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134052&highlight=nash

 

haha, i guess i was in the "save Bayless" camp.

 

There's a difference between "will" and "conceivably could", sir.

 

I predict that that Bayless will win as many or more rings as Nash. There. I said it!

 

I can't help but think by game 60 or 70, Nash will just get tired again.

 

never thought nash was over the hill - would love to have him but i doubt nate would be able to get the most out of him here, that system in PHX is exactly what he needs to excel.

 

And how many rings will Nash win? Zero. Unless he goes somewhere else.

Sorry, but I don't think that team will be going deep into the playoffs with Channing Frye as their starting center.

 

I still stand by my stance from the thread last January. He IS old, and despite being able to play like this early in the season will he really be able to sustain this for 82 games and beyond? Back issues don't just magically get better with age and especially with the repeated pounding players take running up and down the court all night long, fighting through screens, getting banged around, etc.

Good for Nash being able to still get it done for now, but I'll be shocked if he actually gets to April without breaking down physically.

 

Let's see how's he doing on game 80 of the season.

However, that was a very great game he had.

 

Well said. a 35 year old, 178 lb. PG with a history of back problems is hard to rely on down the stretch. Now, if you could limit his minutes to 20-25/game . . . but that ain't going to happen.

I can't imagine Nash and Nate being on the same page either. Nash's loosey goosey run-and-gun mentality would drive Nate crazy. Nash will win you some games, and he'll cost you some too. The game at Portland last year when Brandon had 52 for example - incredibly tight game, back and forth, back and forth. Nash is trying to throw bounce passes between defenders legs in the 4th quarter, and got caught up in the air a few times with no where to go. He's a great player and tremendously fun to watch, but you have to live with his ups/downs. Not to mention he makes Blake look like Bruce Bowen defensively.

 

I didn't think he was done, just that he is in decline and probably not enough to get Portland to a championship. If you're giving up players who can be significant parts of the future for "the final piece," you'd better be pretty sure that he is the final piece. Reaching "not quite good enough" and then having to win a title post-Nash but with fewer good players to do it, isn't a good result.

 

Hey Nik, I found this statement you said about Nash to be intersting given the "Miller saga" these days:

Secondly, I don't want our all-star playmaking 2 guard to have to change his game at all just to adapt to a player who is only going to be around for a year or so, and Brandon's off-ball, on-ball game has nothing to do with our bigs

 

Interesting ... let's just say that the Houston series was something of a revelation for me, the Roy-iso heavy offense got pretty clearly exposed as being not quite enough to get the job done. This team needed better balance and another playmaker if they want to get to the next level. I don't want Brandon to be taking a backseat and to be marginalized, but more guys needed to get involved and the offense needs to create more easy buckets.

I still think the team needs to feature Roy as their primary option (which means him scoring 20+ a game and also handling the ball at the end of quarters and games and I think with time he will reassert himself into the forefront of this offense.

But another thing changed for me between last season and this one; Oden actually looks like he can be a comfortable low post scorer, last year he was garbage on offense unless he was getting putback dunks off of offensive rebounds, so I didn't want Brandon dumping the ball into Greg. Things change and with Miller running the point the majority of the game I think you can see evidence that Greg is getting more shots and and he's doing good things with it.

Mea Culpa, I was dead wrong.

Edit:
Funny, I went and read the whole thread to see where my statement about brandon fit into the context of the discussion, in hindsight I think I was probably reacting more to the defensive shortcomings that shamlessblazer's end lineup would have left us with. He wanted a backcourt of Nash, Sergio, Roy and Rudy. Certainly Miller and Blake are no great shakes defensively, but I'd rather have Miller and Blake over two sieves like Nash and Chacho. Other than that he probably was right about Nash being able to feed the post a little better, but it wasn't like Nash paired up with Shaq set the world on fire.