Hoops Tonight - Top 25 Players of Last 25 Years: How Steve Nash ended up with 2 NBA MVP awards

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let's continue right along with number thirteen. Steve Nash, the last remaining player on our list who never won an NBA championship in his career. He was three time First team All NBA, seven time All NBA in total, He was the assistant Champion in the league five times, and he won back to back regular season MVP Awards in two thousand and five in two thousand and six, the only other Top twenty player other than Allen Iverson not

to win an NBA championship. On this list, I put his prime down from two thousand and one to twenty twelve. Believe it or not, Steve Nash made an All Star team in twenty twelve. In that span, he averaged sixteen points, three rebounds, and nine assists on sixty one percent true shooting, and then in the playoffs during that span he averaged eighteen points, four rebounds, and ten assists on fifty nine

percent true shooting. He always went up a level as a scorer in the postseason, in large part because teams would try to force him to score by staying home off the ball. As a matter of fact, he had nine to thirty point playoff games in his career, including a career high forty eight in a game against the Dallas Mavericks in two thousand and five, which was higher than any regular season scoring total he ever had in his career. As for his claim to fame. I think

Steve Nash will be remembered for two main things. First, he basically invented pace in space basketball. The Sons played significantly faster than everyone else in the league. Even if it's not necessarily fast compared to today's basketball, it was significantly faster than anyone else in the league at the time. And obviously we think of Steve Nash as this incredible passer, right and we see that a lot in his pick and roll numbers, which we're going to get to in

a little bit. But I thought Steve Nash's best trait as a pick and roll ball handler or ex just me as a point guard, I should say, was his willingness to throw the kick ahead pass. You know, we think of the you know, the point god Chris Paul as, you know, a guy who strangles the pace of games. He'd get the reboundary, he'd get the inbound pass on the baseline, he'd slowly bring the ball up on the ball up the floor, get guys to their spots, and then run a pick and roll. Right. Well, Steve Nash

was the exact opposite of that. He just any single time that the security defensive rebound or inbounded. After a made basket, Steve immediately pushed the ball up the floor with pace, and if he saw anybody in a position to catch ahead of the floor, even if they weren't necessarily wide open ready standing for a shot or for a dunk, he'd throw it ahead. And there's a ton

of value in kick ahead passes. Not only do you eventually, on several occasions, catch the defense slipping and you do get a wide open three or a dunk, but in addition to that, it keeps the defense unsettled from the start. So you can imagine made basket, turnover, a misshot, whatever it is. The defense is sprinting back in transition defense, right, but they're not actually back yet. Usually there's one guy at the basket, but there are guys that are trailing

the play. Sometimes guys aren't matched up yet, And so when you throw a kick ahead pass, Let's say that Rajah Bell's run in the left wing and he's ahead of, you know, some of the guys, Like he's ahead of four of the five defensive players, even though he's not gonna be able run right to the rim for a

dunk because that fifth guy is back there. If I pitch it ahead to Raja Bell, everyone on the defense turns, and when they turn, all of a sudden, the other four guys have opportunities to fill lanes and get open behind. It's one of the best ways to keep the defense from getting set. Throw that kick ahead pass. It's kind

of a lost art in the NBA. The only guy really who you know consistently does it as a point guard in this era really that I can think of is Lonzo Ball, and he's been injured for a while. It's something that Lebron James has been very good at in his career, throwing kick ahead passes when guys are up the floor, when you see opportunities to push the ball up the floor and transition ahead of defensive players.

Even if it doesn't necessarily immediately generate a shot, it usually gets and causes even more chaos in the defense, which can which can create openings. Now you'd see guys in situations like that too. Specifically, Raja Bell was gunning for jump shots in that particular situation. There's the real difference between because you know, I talked about Jason Kidd

being the best fast break player of the early two thousands. Well, Steve Kid kind of excuse me, Steve Nash kind of took that mantle away from him, right, But the way that the Suns played fast break basketball was actually very different from the way that the New Jersey Nets played fast break basketball. The New Jersey Nets were more athletic, and they were constantly running to the rim, right, whereas the Suns in a lot of cases would run for

jump shots. And as a matter of fact, they took more jump shots than anybody in the league over that span. They led the leagues. They led the entire NBA in jump shots attempted three years in a row from two thousand and five, two thousand and six and two thousand and seven. So when Steve Nash came, they immediately massively increased their pace. They hunted jump shots, including in transition,

they played faster than everybody. That was kind of like, I think the first thing that Steve Nash will get remembered for kind of inventing pace in space basketball, particularly as it pertains to hunting jump shots. The second thing that I think Steve Nash will be remembered for is I think he was the most accurate shooter of his

particular era. So not only did he have four seasons in his career where he finished fifty to forty ninety, meaning he shot at least fifty percent from the field, forty percent from three to ninety percent from the free throw line, but he also was consistently at the very top of the league in field goal percentage on jump shots overall. So I'm gonna read you guys some numbers.

This is where Steve Nash finished relative to the entire NBA in field goal percentage on jump shots among players who attempted at least five hundred jump shots during the season, so all high volume jump shooters in field goal percentage two thousand and five, Steve Nash finished second in field goal percentage with at least five hundred jump shots two thousand and six, fourth two thousand and seven to third, two thousand and eight, first, two thousand and nine, first,

twenty ten, second, twenty eleven, fourth, And if you go through those lists, there's a bunch of random guys that ended up in high spots on that list. Because in any given season, it got I can get hot, feel good with his jump shot for eighty two games and shoot a good percentage, but every single year, Steve Nash was at or near the top of that list, and that was what it was like watching him. If you saw Steve Nash load up a jump shot and he had his feet set like you just felt like that

thing was going in his archetype. He was bigger than you'd think. He was a legit six foot three. He was constantly in motion. He was very rarely just pounding the ball in one spot on the floor even when you watched him. Obviously we talked about those kick ahead pases that we were talking about, but every time he got rid of the basketball, he was always cutting and running through and moving. Every time he was keeping alive, dribble alive for ten fifteen dribbles at a time. He

was moving. We all remember those plays where Steve Nash would like dribble along the baseline and get underneath the basket, but instead of shooting, because he'd see a rim protector chasing him, he would just dribble it all the way back. Also, sometimes he would just dribble and circles around the floor until somebody broke open and he'd hit them. And he always hit the guy when he broke open. He was by far the best pick and roll ball handler in

the league. During the mid two thousands, there were fourteen players who ran at least five hundred pick and rolls. In two thousand and five, Nash finished first at one point one to two points per possession. Gilbertorenaz was second at one point two points per possession, so he was literally a full tenth of a point per possession better than everybody else in the league. In that particular season, twenty three players ran at least five hundred pick and rolls.

In two hundred and six, Nash finished first at one point one points per possession. He was first out of twenty five guys in two thousand and seven, so first place three years in a row, second place out of twenty six players in two thousand and eight. Anybody want

to guess who was second, Ziito turk Glue. We talked a little bit about that when we talked about Dwight Howard yesterday and how everyone remembers the Orlando Magic as being like a Dwight Howard post up team, but they were actually the biggest, the highest volume pick and roll team in the league in two thousand and nine. In particular,

he was third. Nash was third out of thirty two players to run at least five hundred pick and rolls inefficiency in two thousand and nine, back to first out of forty two players in twoenty ten, second out of forty one players in twenty eleven, and first out of

thirty five players in twenty twelve. So over an eight season span from two thousand and five to twenty twelve, he was first place in the league high volume pick and roll efficiency five of those eight seasons, and he was top three in the other three seasons, so easily the best pick and roll player of that era. He was also a good ISO player. He'd like to pick

on bigs on switches. A lot of you guys might remember key moments in like a series against the Spurs or the MAVs, or like he pulled Dirk Noaviski out to the perimeter and just kind of toast him off the dribble for a layup, or if he played too far off, he'd hit a pull up jump shot. Did similar things to Tim Duncans sometimes in switches, But he kind of reminded me of Chauncey Billups in that regard, like it's very heavy to the left hand, Like he went to the left about seventy percent of the time,

and it was just a simple give and take. It's I'm either going to take this pull up jump shot if you're too far, or I'm going right by you

if you are up too close into my space. One of the things that was kind of kind of cool with Steve Nash two is he always used his right hand, So like when he was on the right side, he go right hand, but when he would drive on his left hand rather than left side, instead of like switching to his left hand and like shielding with his right arm, he kind of positioned his body between the rim protector and kind of extend way out in front of him and make like a low, right handed scoop shot off

the glass. Lots of young guards in that time tried to copy that. Finish Steve Nash's crowning achievement. He went back to back MVPs in two thousand and five in two thousand and six, although unfortunately they lost in the conference finals both times. The biggest one if of Steve Nash's career what if the two thousand and seven series

with the Spurs had gone differently. This is an interesting one because, first of all, the Suns lose this really tight Game one, and there's this weird play where like Steve Nash closes out on Tony Parker on the right wing and he bunks heads with him and he gets this big gash along his nose and it just will not stop bleeding, and he ended up actually having to sit on the bench during several pivotal offensive possessions at the end of that game. And they lost in a

very very close game. And so that's kind of the first what if in that specific series. And then, as you guys know, the Sons go on to win two of the next three games, including winning Game four in San Antonio, and unfortunately, in Game five at home, we have the brawl, the shove into the scorers table, people leaving the benches. Amari Stodemeyer, the second best player on the Suns, gets suspended for the pivotal Game five and

they end up losing Game five. Actually, excuse me, the shove into the scorers table happened during the Sun's big Game four win. Stottamayer had to sit out Game five, and so the Sons ended up losing at home in a pivotal Game five with their second best player not able to play, and then they ended up losing in Game six in San Antonio. So again, if you look at like, what if Nash doesn't bust is no open and what if Stottomeyer doesn't get suspended for Game five?

Do the Suns win that series? I don't know, but they certainly have a much better chance, right And do they beat the Jazz in the conference finals? Probably they would have been favored. Do they beat the Calves in the finals? Definitely? That Caves team wasn't very good. So I mean, we're talking about a game of inches here that kept Steve Nash away from potentially being a champion in US. Looking back at his career, very very differently, all right. Number twelve Kawhi Leonard best player on a

championship team in twenty nineteen. He was a role player on a championship team in twenty fourteen with the Spurs, three time first Team All NBA, five time All NBA Overall, seven time All Defense, and two time Defensive Player of the Year, and he also led the league in steals in twenty fifteen. He also is a two time NBA Finals MVP in twenty fourteen. In twenty nineteen, although I personally don't think he should have gotten the twenty fourteen one. We'll talk about that in a little bit. I put

his prime down as twenty sixteen. To the president and everything before that, he was more of a role player, really became a primary shot creator in twenty sixteen. During that span, he averaged twenty five point seven rebounds and for assists on sixty one percent true shooting. In the playoffs, always one of the best playoff performers of his era, twenty nine points eight rebounds and for assists on sixty

three percent true shooting. Kawis claimed to fame. In my opinion is he kind of carried the mantle of Kobe Bryant as like the next in his era, the best like two way score like when it purely came down to getting a bucket for yourself or stopping the other team's best player from getting a bucket for himself. Nobody

in the league was better than Kawhi during his particular era. Now, obviously, the game of basketball is way more complicated than just those two situations, and that's why there are players that are better players than Kawhi in his era. I never thought Kawhi was the best player in the league because of those complications that I'm referring to. But when we simplify the game of basketball down to just those two things, nobody was better at it than Kawhi Leonard. His archetype.

He was kind of like the way I would just break down Kawhi Leonard to someone who had never seen him before, as I'd say, he's kind of like a bigger, stronger,

but more ground bound version of Michael Jordan. He plays kind of like an old school two guard, a heavy diet of pull up jump shots in the mid range off the balance in I own and pick and roll, and then just a ridiculous back to the basket game with super reliable fadeaway jump shots over both shoulders and all of that, like you know, footwork that you became accustomed to seeing from the best two guards in the league during the late nineties in the early two thousands.

He does have more of a power style than some of those more athleticism based two guards right like Kobe and mj were more rise and fire guys that used their athleticism to get over the top of the defense. Kawhi Leonard was more of a power guy. He's winning ground battles. He's bumping you off of your base to get separation, generating that separation on the ground rather than

in the air. So that that kind of like gave him this unique quality where because he's so damn big and strong, he plays more of a three to four because of who who he can guard defensively and then offensively kind of fills more of the role of like a two guard, right. And you know, as we say all the time, like you your position in basketball has more to do with who you can guard rather than what you can do offensively. And that allowed Kawhi a ton of versatility that made him easy to build around

on any team. For instance, like on a Toronto Raptors team, he can play a smaller position next to Pascal Siakam and Sergebaka or Marc Gasol, right because of what he's capable of defensively, being able to slot up to twos. But then in a Clippers lineup, you can put him at power forward and it works. It's one of the unique kind of things that makes him versatile. He has absolutely mastered shot making at the NBA level this year

with the Clippers. He's just peaking right now. Fifty nine percent effective field goal percentage on catch and shoe jumpers, fifty six percent effective field goal percentage on pull up jumpers, forty six percent on floaters, sixty percent on hooks. He's

also made significant strides as a passer. I won't go too far into it because we did it in our player rankings, but he basically turned his biggest weakness as a basketball player, the ability to pass, into something where now he's kind of on par with his peers, and that's allowed him to get well over a point per possession and pick and roll ISO and post up situations, and he's turned into a legitimate top tier shot creator

in this league. Kawhi's crowning achievements. Early in his career, he was a role player with the Spurs, a cog in an offensive system ran by better offensive players more of a defensive focus right, But then he became a star level shot creator with the Spurs in twenty sixteen, But unfortunately, over the next three seasons, by virtue of some limitations on the roster and also some injuries, he never actually won a title with the Spurs, But finally

in twenty nineteen, messaiyu Jiri takes a big risk in trades for Kawhi Leonard and he goes to the Raptors and he finds himself in a perfect situation to hide his flaws and accentuate his strengths. He played a lot alongside high level passers like Fred van Vliet and Kyle Lowry, who could do more of the managing of the offense, so that didn't put that on Kawi's plate. He had elite back line help to help weaponize Kawi's point of

attack defense, which can be so valuable. He got to be the tip of a spear, which is kind of what you need for this archetype of player when you're primarily a two way scorer, a guy who gets buckets and gets stops like you have to be surrounded by a certain type of player or players around you that can allow you to just be the tip of the spear.

And that's what the Rappers, a Raptor Raptors allowed him to do, and that you know, so he ends up being the closer for that Raptors team, pushes them over the top and also helped that Lebron was out of the conference at that point, and Kawhi wins his first

legitimate Finals MVP. So I want to talk about the finals MVPs for a second, not just Kawi's because I think this applies to twenty fifteen as well, But the twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen finals MVPs to me were great examples of like the media just box score watching and buying into like stupid narratives rather than paying attention to what a basketball team is doing. And there were

two primary drivers of that. So like you see Kawhi Leonard average eighteen points per game in the NBA Finals because of just openings that were generated by better offensive

players on his team. Or you see Andre Gudala what I think Igudala averaged like twenty in the twenty fifteen finals if I remember correctly, same type of thing, like Steph Curry's getting blitzed thirty feet from the basket and Andre Goudala is shooting wide open corner threes and everyone's like, oh my gosh, look at how valuable Andre Gudala is.

He's averaging twenty points a game. And then there was a whole regarding Lebron thing, which was completely ridiculous because Lebron just lit Kawhi on fire in the twenty fourteen Finals, he averaged twenty eight points per game on sixty eight percent true shooting. Sixty eight percent true shooting, did very little to really truly bother Lebron James in that series, but it became the narrative, right and then the Andrea

Gudala series in twenty fifteen, same sort of thing. Everyone's like, he guarded Lebron, he held him to forty percent shooting, but it's like, literally Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving were out, they're guarding Lebron with five man groups with all eyes on him because he's playing with guys like j R. Smith was really the only legitimate NBA starter playing alongside Lebron James in that finals, because there was a lot of guys in that lineup that had to play because

of injuries that probably wouldn't have cracked starting lineups elsewhere in the league. And so it just was a silly narrative when the truth of the matter was is Steph Curry was far and away the best player on the Warriors and he deserved to win Finals MVP when his Warriors team won an NBA championship. And the same thing goes in twenty fourteen. These are some crazy stats for you.

So Kawhi in the twenty fourteen playoff run only ran one hundred and eighteen self creation possessions, that's pick and rolls, ISOs and post ups only ran one hundred and eighteen. Tony Parker ran four hundred and thirty nine. Okay, Manu Jeno ran two hundred and ninety. Tim Duncan himself old Tim Duncan ran one hundred and twenty five, which is seven more than Kawhi Leonards. So like, yeah, he averaged eighteen points a game, played extremely well in the finals.

I'm not trying to undercut how well he played. He did star in his role, but he wasn't the best player on that team. It was either Tony Parker or Tim Duncan. And this is why I'm a big advocate of the like getting rid of the finals MVP award and making it more of the championship MVP, the award you give to the player who deserves the most credit for leading that team to an NBA championship. That way

you can filter through the crap right. That way you can look at it and be like, oh, Kawhi Leonard only averaged thirteen points per game through the first three rounds of the playoffs. So maybe he's not the best player on the Spurs. It's probably Tony Parker or Tim Duncan who was awesome during that entire playoff run and

outscored Kawhi Leonard during that entire playoff run. It's just it's so silly how that works, because you end up zooming in on just this small sample size of games, and you have all these media reporters who can't look at past the damn box score long enough to understand how that basketball team is operating. Like it's I love Anddrake Guodala. He's a guy who played at the University of Arizona. The dude's a legend here in Tucson. I'm

a big fan of him in general. I think he's one of the best perimeter defenders of this decade, one of the best role players of this decade. Huge and Drake Guodala fan. Giving him the twenty fifteen Finals MVP is one of the most absurd mistakes the media has ever made in the history of the NBA. Like, literally, the dude was shooting wide open spot up shots and catching wide open dunks along the baseline because the Cavs

were throwing the damn kitchen sink at Steph Curry. It was completely absurd that we have to reevaluate how we do this stuff. Tony Parker ran the offense for the Spurs in twenty fourteen. Kawhi was really really good in his role in won five game series. Not nearly as valuable as Tim Duncan or Tony Parker was to that team. It's ridiculous that they gave him a Finals MVP, but again that's kind of a side tangent. He very very very much deserved the twenty nineteen Finals MVP. So what's

the biggest what if of Kawhi Leonard's career. What if his knee had held up during the twenty twenty one playoffs. Kawhi was hooping his ass off in that twenty twenty one playoff run. For those of you guys you remember, he averaged thirty points, eight rebounds, and four assists on sixty eight percent true shooting, which is off the charts. He had a couple of ridiculous donks. He had a dunk in the Jazz series where right left just went

down and just dunked on everybody. He looked amazing, but then he partially tore his ACL and missed the rest of the playoffs. Paul George finishes off the one seed Jazz. The one seed Jazz finishes them off, and then gets two games off the Suns in the Conference finals without Kawhi. So you can imagine how much better that team potentially could have been in the conference finals and then potentially in an NBA Finals series against the Bucks had Kawhi

Leonards stayed healthy. And if you start to look at it as three champion ships with two legitimate finals MVPs, that's where you know, Kawhi could have entered into some conversations like, hey, is he above Kevin Durant in this era? You know, that's an interesting conversation there. But we didn't get to see that because once again Kahi Leonard got hurt, which has become a recurring theme towards the end of

his career. Number eleven last guy for today, Kevin Garnett, first player to be drafted out of high school since nineteen seventy five, the best player on a championship team

in two thousand and eight. Now, Paul Pierce was was close to KG on that team and was definitely the closer on that team in terms of shot making and obviously like in that, like that's different than the twenty fourteen or twenty fifteen finals MVPs, Like those were role players that stole Finals MVPs from stars who deserved it, right, Like Tony Parker was, you know, like consensus one of the top ten to fifteen players in the league in those years. He was coming off of back to back

second team All NBA selections. Like it just it's totally different than a role player, right, you know, Steph Curry was the MVP of the league and twenty fifteen it was very clearly the best player. Those were different. Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett were at a very similar level and they were both stars. So Paul Pierce winning the MVP Finals MVP in two thousand and eight is not something that concerns me, and frankly I thought he deserved it. But KG, I do think was the best player on

that team in terms of overall winning impact. Four time First Team All NBA, nine time All NBA Overall, two thousand and eight Defensive Player of the Year, twelve time All Defense Team including nine time First Team All Defense. He was the rebounding champion in the league four times, and he was the MVP of the regular season in two thousand and four. I put down his prime from nineteen ninety seven to twenty thirteen. That's one hell of

a long prime. That's seventeen years. Guess what. He made an All Star team in both of those seasons, in nineteen ninety seven and twenty thirteen. This extends to before our nineteen ninety nine cutoff point, to be clear, but I wanted to try to capture kg's whole career, and we're only talking about two years there. During the regular season, in that span, he averaged twenty points, eleven rebounds and

four assists on fifty five percent through shooting. In the playoffs, nineteen points eleven rebounds in four assists on fifty two percent true shooting. Kg's claymon the fame is. I thought he was one of the very best defensive players of his era. It's hard to say. This era was just so stacked with defensive talent. Like most people will tell you, as Ben Wallace was the best defender of this era, A lot of people will tell you it was Tim Duncan. A lot of people will tell you it was Kevin Garnett.

They're all very different in the way they played, too. Like Kevin Garnett was like much more of like a active mobile defender that was kind of all over the floor, got a lot of steals and things like that. Tim Duncan was more of like a traditional rim protector, hanging back towards the rim. Ben Wallace was like a complete alien and didn't resemble anything else that we saw in basketball over that span, right, So they're all very different. It kind of depends who you ask, but those three

guys were basically the best defenders of that era. The biggest debate of this era is whether or not Kevin Garnett or Dirk is the second best power forward of all time behind Tim Duncan and I tend to our second best power forward of that era, I should say, behind Tim Duncan. I tend to lean slightly towards Dirk. As you guys can probably tell from the list his archetype. He had very similar frame to Anthony Davis, who six to eleven with a seven to five wingspan, just like

a terodactyl on defense, just all over passing, lanes. He was one of the best post players in the league. In two thousand and five, out of forty three players to run at least two hundred post ups, Scarnett ranked second out of forty three players with one point zero two points per possession. He was fifth out of forty five players in two thousand and six, and then he was first out of forty players in two thousand and seven. Just a super super deadly post up player. Very very

good mid range jump shot. Those of you guys who remember Kevin Garnett, like there were two main jump shots that he was kind of famous for. It was just a really good hard jab step jump shot. He had a good release that was almost like back behind his head,

so it was really difficult to contest. And then he had this turnaround fade away that he would take and uh, primarily over his right shoulder, but like he would like kind of like go into his high hesitation and then he would do like this triple like shoulder shimmy before he would go into his fade away, and like every

kid tried to copy that in the post. You'll just remember, like you get into the high hesitation and then it was like a shimmy and then he'd either out of the shimmy, he'd either go left or he'd go right. But he was better shooting that like kind of turn around fade away over his right shoulder. Also had a deadly accurate hook shot that he made about sixty percent of the time, knockdown, catch and shoot jumpers pretty well

in that fifteen to twenty foot range. He was about forty percent for the during the prime of his career, which at the time was a legitimate pick and pop threat, just a super valuable anchor for a basketball team on both ends of the floor. The ability to build around him defensively, and then he didn't really start to really operate and pick and roll as much until he got to the Celtics, but he did a lot of that.

There just a guy that could fill so many holes for a basketball team, which is why he was so valuable in a winning concept. His crowning achievement, he was the best player on the two thousand and eight Celtics when they won the championship. He was also third in

MVP voting that year. Led the Celtics to a sixty six teen record, averaged eighteen and thirteen with two point seven blocks per game in the two thousand and eight NBA Finals as the Celtics eliminated the Lakers in the two thousand and eight Finals, and we got to hear Kevin Garnett yell out anything is possible at the top of his lungs in a rather iconic NBA moment. Biggest what if of Kevin Garnett's career? What if he didn't

get hurt? We said this already in the Paul Pier's section, but what if he didn't get hurt in the two thousand and nine season. Again, the Celtics started twenty seven to two that year in their title defense, and if KG had stayed healthy, they probably win the title that year. They were better. They kicked the Lakers as in Game six, won by almost forty We're kicking everyone's ass to start the season. They were the best team in the league

and their best player got hurt. And so it's interesting to think about how that could have gone because now you're looking at potentially a two time best player on a championship team. All right, guys, that is all we have for today. We're going to be continuing next week with ten through ten through six and then five through one the following week. I'm gonna slow way down on these because we're just doing one player per day. We'll dive into a lot more of the individual stories in

their careers. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys, and I will see you on Monday. I hope you have a great weekend. The volume