I have to admit I just love Nash's game...he just so, so, so...scrappy.
what's kobe done?81 pts? so? 50+ 5 times? out of 80 games? what's kobe done for the other 75? Well, for the other 74 games (since he scored 81 and had 5 OTHER games over 50), he scored 2487 points, for an average of 33.6 PPG. Even after you arbitrarily take away his best 6 games, both stats would be enough to still lead the league. I think Kobe's scoring is easily worth 25 wins to the Lakers. I think Lebron's game is worth an equal amount. But I think Nash on Phoenix means 30-35 wins. I think that's a bit much. If they replaced Kobe, Lebron and Nash with league-average bench players, do you really think that the win totals would be 20, 25 and 19 for the Lakers, Cavaliers and Suns respectively? Now this is just a rough bit of number crunching (as I don't usually delve into basketball stats), but factoring in all the possible plays that are directly tied to scoring points (points and points-derived-off-assists*), the totals for the three players are: Kobe: 3618 (44.37% of his team's total points) Lebron: 3609 (45.10% of his team's total points) Steve: 3342 (37.61% of his team's total points) * points-derived-off-assists is calculated by the number of assists, times the average points per field goal made by the team. For LA it was 2.18, for Cleveland it was 2.17 and for Phoenix it was 2.24. The idea is that an assist is registered for any basket made, but not all baskets are of equal value (2pt or 3pt). But not every team has an equal ratio of 2pt/3pt baskets, so I calculated it based on the number of baskets made by the whole team of each type (2pt/3pt). If I really cared, I'd have removed all the baskets each player made and calculated the points/basket made for the rest of the team. But I'm a bit lazy this afternoon.
Grum you've made some good points, I think one thing that that helps prove is that while people rag on Kobe for being a ball hog, it may not neccesarily be hurting his team. Kobe is the best player on his team, hands down, and has a much better chance of hitting shots than the other players. Obviously, ball hogging too much hurts the overall effectiveness of an offense, but ragging on Kobe just because he scores a ton and carries the Lakers on his back is not justified. However, I think that a scored like Kobe is most effective when he is playing so well he draws multiple defenders, therefore leaving other players open. It is at that point that the top player has to realize the oppurtunity and get the ball to the open players for the jump shot. If a team can do that, they have the potential for a lot of success.
grum - there is a guy on every team that will have a similar percentage to Nash. Arenas, Carmelo, Garnett, Carter, Bosh, Wade, Pierce yadda yadda. But given the fact that NBA.com's poll of GMs also crowned Nash, I have a feeling your numbers may not bear the weight of significance.
i dont care how much they score in da game as long u make ya team better and brought them to the playoffs its cool he scores 81 but it doesnt matter so screw kobe 81 pts
what about other stats.......... kobe nash winner points 35.4 18.8 kobe assits 4.5 10.5 nash boards 5.3 3.6 kobe steals 1.8 .7 kobe blks .38 .15 kobe to 3.13 3.49 kobe WINNER KOBE
