<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (BrewCityBuck @ Apr 19 2007, 08:04 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>No he's not. Your comparing one of the softest defenders in the game to Kidd/Payton who were all-NBA caliber defenders....I don't think Nash is that much better offensively to put himself over the top. The only thing Nash has on Payton or Kidd is shooting....and Payton was a good shooter....</div> Nash is the better playmaker than both of them and if you are saying Payton is a good shooter then Nash is one of the greatest to play the game. Payton's best year in terms of shooting isn't even as good as Nash's careers averages.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Milgod @ Apr 19 2007, 03:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Nash is the better playmaker than both of them and if you are saying Payton is a good shooter then Nash is one of the greatest to play the game. Payton's best year in terms of shooting isn't even as good as Nash's careers averages.</div> I'm not going to say Nash is a better playmaker than Kidd....if even anything they are pretty even. Gary Payton was a very good midrange shooter like Sam Cassell. Once you bring defense into the picture in the comparisons of Nash, Kidd, Payton, it's pretty obvious to me that you can't put Nash ahead of either....Nash is great offensively but his offensive play isn't that much better for me to put him ahead of either.
Tmac is my number 3. No disrespect to Duncan. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>The lost MVP candidate this season. Lemme know if any of these tidbits interest you:A. The Rockets were 50-21 when he played this season and 2-8 without him.B. When Yao went down for 32 games with a fractured kneecap, T-Mac carried the team to a 20-12 record and boosted his stats to a 29-6-6 for that stretch.C. Other than Yao, his best teammates were Shane Battier, Luther Head, Rafer Alston, Chuck Hayes, Juwan Howard, Dikembe Mutombo and Yugoslavian gunner Turdo Sandowicz.D. On a personal note, I don't trust basketball stats beyond a certain level because they can't interpret somebody's general impact on a game. Tim Duncan averages a 20-10 every night with two blocks ... does that measure everything he does for the Spurs? Of course not. Along those same lines, T-Mac and his cousin finished this season with almost identical numbers (a 25-5-6 for T-Mac, a 25-6-5 for V.C.), but unless you watched the games, you wouldn't know that Vince happens to be a streaky offensive player, a moody teammate and a defensive liability, and T-Mac happens to be a great teammate and superb all-around player who only goes for his numbers when absolutely necessary (like when he recently bumped his numbers to push Houston into the fourth seed).If you asked 100 NBA players who they'd rather play with between Kobe, Vince, Arenas and T-Mac ... T-Mac would win the vote in a landslide. You win with Tracy McGrady. Wasn't always the case, but it's the case now. He's a true superstar. Now he needs to prove this in the playoffs. Please.</div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>No he's not. Your comparing one of the softest defenders in the game to Kidd/Payton who were all-NBA caliber defenders....I don't think Nash is that much better offensively to put himself over the top. The only thing Nash has on Payton or Kidd is shooting....and Payton was a good shooter....</div>I really don't care about Payton or Kidd's careers; they had to compete with Jordan, Malone, Duncan, and Shaq, whereas Nash had weak competition comparatively for the MVP award. Nash's first season he was the only guy who was even close to deserving an MVP award. I could care less that he only averaged 15-11; the second choice was a broken Shaq who was not necessarily even the best player on his team. The next season Nash took a team that many thought would miss the playoffs to 54 wins the conference finals after losing 3 of the 5 best players on the team from the prior season and replacing them with guys who nobody thought would make a dint. Could Kidd have done the same thing with the same team at his peak? Maybe. But the MVP is not related to past seasons.
