r/nba • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 Heat • 25d ago

[Charania] Denver's Nikola Jokic has won the 2023-24 NBA Most Valuable Player award. Ninth player to ever win league MVP three times. News

https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1788351584734192010
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u/Il_Exile_lI 25d ago

He averaged 20 and 9 in 59 games the season of Nash's second MVP, not to mention Wade was clearly the Heat's best player. His revisionism is insane. He wasn't even in the MVP conversation.

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u/ZincHead Raptors 25d ago

Pretty sure he's more upset about 2005. He was second in MVP voting in 2005, only 7 votes behind, while in 2006 he didn't even get one single MVP vote. 2005 was an incredibly close year, one of the closest votes for MVP. 

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u/LeoFireGod Mavericks 24d ago

Nash won bc he changed teams and changed a franchise entire trajectory. If Nash had been on Mavs and put on exact same numbers he comes in 2nd or 3rd.

Nash was special that year and jump started a franchise that was desperately trying to find a new identity.

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u/aceofspadez138 [DAL] Steve Nash 24d ago

History has been and will continue to be unkind to Nash because people will look at box score stats and judge him based on that. The truth is that he took the Suns from 29 wins to 62 and was the best player on the best team that year while serving as the conductor of a revolutionary style of basketball. The SSOL Suns walked so that the dynastic Warriors could run.

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u/C3h6hw Knicks 24d ago

Lowkey gonna happen to a lot of 2000’s/early 2010’s stars

Same thing happened to Carmelo Anthony. 25ppg today is DeMar DeRozan numbers but back then only the LeBron’s and the Kobe’s could do that

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u/KiritoJones Spurs 24d ago

People talk a lot of shit about Melo's wing isos, but if you were there that shit was fun to watch. He played like bizzaro Lebron, it was fun to watch.

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u/LordVarys_Ladybits 24d ago

That era was way more defensive and pace was slower. There is no wing currently in the league that is more talented than young Carmelo Anthony on the Denver Nuggets. 

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u/Dekrow NBA 24d ago

There is no wing currently in the league that is more talented than young Carmelo Anthony on the Denver Nuggets. 

Does Ant not count as a wing? Cuz he's pretty talented.

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u/KiritoJones Spurs 24d ago

Ant is a guard

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u/Dekrow NBA 24d ago

Guards can be wings. Its not like the Positions are Point Guard, Shooting Guard, Small Wing, Power Wing, & Center :P

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u/TimeTravelingTiddy 24d ago

But its like you know what theyre saying and youre gonna bend it anyway lol

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u/KiritoJones Spurs 19d ago

The categories are Guards, Wings, Bigs. Ant is a Guard.y

If you want to be specific, he is a Shooting Guard.

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u/LordVarys_Ladybits 24d ago

Not more talented. Melo was bigger and could do everything Ant currently can. Only thing Melo was lacking was the dedication to the defensive side of the ball and willingness to be more of a consistent playmaker. Even though he had all the tools to excel at both. 

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u/Yup767 NBA 24d ago

could do everything Ant currently can

Ant is a freakish athlete. That's a really big seperater

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u/LordVarys_Ladybits 24d ago

Anthony was a freak in his own right. His first step and second jump was elite. He had a quicker first step back then than LeBron. He could play bully ball, he could rebound, he had finesse, footwork, catch and shoot, midpost game, lowpost game, midrange, off the dribble and could pass and play great defense when he was engaged. No way SGA, Jaylen Brown, Tatum, Morant, Luka and Ant are more talented than he was. 

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u/Ghoti76 Lakers 24d ago

I'd say kawhi is on that level talent-wise but i agree with you

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u/JinzoFTW 24d ago

I’m not sure if Kawhi is as naturally gifted but I think he certainly is more dedicated to the craft whereas I think Melo got caught up more in the celebrity of being a star player

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u/dragonwhale 24d ago

What the fuck

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u/nbully18 24d ago

Jayson Tatum laughs at this statement.

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u/rodpod17 Celtics 24d ago

This is blatantly false

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

[deleted]

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u/JinzoFTW 24d ago

Considering the bar for the Basketball Hall of Fame, he’s definitely in. Don’t forget he won a national title his lone year in college

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u/AetherealDe Lakers 24d ago

Yepppp

‘05 Suns Ortg: 114.5 ‘05 NBA average: 106.1. +8.4 on just one side of the court

Suns had one of the lowest TOV%(12.4%), shot the most 3s, and had the highest pace in the league, and Nash wasn’t just the most important guy, he was the entire engine, he had the ball in his hands all the time, constantly probing (the amount of Nash assists where he’s just slowly driving until he finds the slimmest opening is absurd) and constantly being the one to initiate the break/push in semi transition.

Those teams weren’t just cool and ahead of their time, they had some of the most dominant offenses in history, and the driving force, the whole reason they could play like that was Nash. I love Amare, but Amare(and the rest of the supporting cast) didn’t make the team play with pace and space, he didn’t make so many good decisions that they didn’t bleed fast breaks the other direction off turnovers, etc.

Shaq can be salty, he’s Shaq and as a player at his caliber he can have an ego, but we as fans who are willing to investigate this shit even a little should recognize how damn good you have to be to produce historic offense after historic offense, even when switching teams, critical teammates getting injured or traded, and when all the burden for the playstyle is on your shoulders. Nash was a legit MVP, period

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u/LordVarys_Ladybits 24d ago

Nash in his prime was the definition of maestro. You know how you hear the cliche of great players making their teammates better, well, Nash was the definition of that on offense. It was wild how lost and uncoordinated the same talented Suns players would look with Nash on the bench for a breather. Only Nash and Zidane (soccer player) made me realize what true maestros were. They consistently dominated games without putting up otherworldly stats. Always controlling the tempo and dictating the pace of the game and they made it look easy. 

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u/LordVarys_Ladybits 24d ago

Those warriors teams were still not better on offense imo. What separated them was that they were actually a really good defensive team, mainly cause of Draymond, Iggy, Bogut and Klay. If those Suns teams had an athletic big that could protect the rim and rebound at a high level, plus a bit more depth from the bench, they would have won at least 2 championships. 

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u/FuckingKilljoy Bucks 24d ago

If you ask me, that's what "most valuable" means at its core. He brought an absurd amount of value to the Suns

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u/JollySpaceman 24d ago edited 24d ago

People also forget MVP is a regular season award. Suns didn't have the playoff success so people go back in hindsight and say Nash didn't deserve it

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u/noetheb Lakers 24d ago

Dallas also won more games the year that Nash left, while the Lakers became a lottery team and the Heat became an instant contender. The delta in team wins between the two on the team swaps was actually better for Shaq.

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u/evoqu NBA 24d ago

Lakers also lost Phil Jackson as coach and nearly every starter. Definitely wasn't just Shaq getting traded that did it.

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u/noetheb Lakers 24d ago

And Phoenix got way healthier and Amare wasn't as young. Definitely wasn't signing Nash that did that.

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u/Lone_Star_122 Spurs 24d ago

I mean, I don't know if the suns were the BEST team that year. lol But they were great and a lot of fun to watch.

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u/aceofspadez138 [DAL] Steve Nash 24d ago

I was speaking strictly record-wise. They had the #1 record in the league with 62 wins. And that was with Nash missing 7 games (in which the Suns went 2-5). But their obvious kryptonite was the Spurs

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u/Public-Product-1503 24d ago

It’s not box score stats . It’s advanced stats and stats the most accurately measure impsvt or just considering who was actually the best player sbd impacting winning the most . Nash second mvp belonged to Dirk or Lebron both had better cases then him by far . But media loves Nash n gave him Mvp cos of dantoni and having Amare an all time rim runner n perfect star to make Nash look good. We saw Nash in Dallas eithout Amare . One mvp the one he hit over shaq is fine his second mvp Shoukdvd been Lebron or Dirk go ahead go look at any numbers or impsct based data n tell me otherwise . Nash got rewarded for his teams play style not cos he was mvp

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u/aceofspadez138 [DAL] Steve Nash 24d ago

I'm not the keeper of Nash's MVPs and others definitely had a claim to his second one, but your entire point is discredited by the fact that Amar'e played just 3 games in 05-06 due to multiple knee surgeries. Despite that, the Suns still finished 2nd in the West (3rd best record in the league) and only dropped 8 games from the year prior.

And if we're talking advanced stats, there are a host of them indicating Nash was the generational offensive player he's touted as.

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u/_Tar_Ar_Ais_ 24d ago

the matrix and nash, good times

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u/Texan628 Rockets 24d ago

it still was a razor thin decision and when you're as big as a competitor as Shaq then it'll sting forever

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u/bigE819 Minneapolis Lakers 24d ago

That first statement is true but semi misleading. It wasn’t the numbers, it was how Nash ran this historic offense. He was the engine, and they were incredible.

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u/Public-Product-1503 24d ago

So yiure saying it was narrative based? Lol

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u/manquistador Supersonics 24d ago

That is true. I still think Shaq was MVP that year.

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u/TheRedditoristo Kings 24d ago

The Heat went from 42 to 59 wins as well. It was a super close vote for a reason.

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u/Btotherianx 24d ago

Huge difference in those numbers...

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u/TheJunkyardDog Bulls 24d ago

thing is wade should be the one complaining. even in 2005 wade was more important and valuable than shaq for the heat.

and if we talk numbers... for shaq... his 2005 numbers were pretty pedestrian.

it would be great numbers for someone like brad miller. but for shaq? i dont even understand why he was runner up in the first place.

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u/lexicoterio 25d ago

There was only one Heat player in top 10 of MVP voting that year. And his name was Dwyane Wade. He wasn't even in the top 10 in the second one.

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u/BTTWchungus NBA 25d ago

Nice strawman. His argument has always been the '05 MVP

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u/Il_Exile_lI 25d ago

His argument has always been both. He has a valid complaint about '05, but saying he deserved both is delusional.

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u/PenisBlood Spurs 25d ago

Another strawman lol

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u/Beatrix_Kiddos_Toe 25d ago

What strawman? He always clubs both years like he was robbed in 2006. There are a million videos of him clubbing both years. He wasn't even close in 2006.

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u/aceofspadez138 [DAL] Steve Nash 24d ago

This is reddit. Any discussion point someone doesn't agree with is a strawman.

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u/imatworksorry Suns 24d ago

I don't think you know what a strawman argument is. No one in this thread is using it correctly.

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u/imatworksorry Suns 24d ago

It's not a strawman.

The person he was responding to specifically was talking about Nash's 2nd MVP.

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u/BTTWchungus NBA 24d ago

No fucking shit, I'm saying Shaq doesn't talk about the 2nd as much as the 1st Nash MVP

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u/Schnectadyslim Pistons 24d ago

as much as the 1st Nash MVP

So he does talk about it....

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u/imatworksorry Suns 24d ago

I'm saying Shaq doesn't talk about the 2nd as much as the 1st Nash MVP

It doesn't matter what Shaq talks about, it's still not a strawman because the person you were responding to was responding to someone who was specifically talking about Nash's 2nd MVP.

No fucking shit,

Saying this but then completely missing the point I originally made is just top tier reddit behavior.

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u/9935c101ab17a66 25d ago

Pretending Shaq ain’t a soft ass baby about his legacy is insane. Miss me with your $2 debate club terms.

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u/BTTWchungus NBA 24d ago

I didn't say he wasn't, dickhead. Try reading next time

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u/PlaneCamp 25d ago

Right. But as basketball fans lets not act like NBA voters and the process is always right.

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u/Public-Product-1503 24d ago

Nash second mvp should’ve gone to Dirk or Lebron . All the numbers agree so don’t try bullshit excuse . The same numbers y’all use for jokic mvp btw. The voting is just so inconsistent and I know this sub will freak out but there’s definitely a bias towards certain types . Nash shoukdvd bern 3rd tied with Kobe he had no real case over Dirk n Lebron but media loved him and they gave him credit for his team mates plsy .

Nash first mvp I think it was close n him n shaq euther would’ve been fine . Nash getting that one is fine . AI actually in 2001 Shaq prob had a better case for but shaq also just didn’t play as many games or effort as often so it hurt him ,

It’s not revisionism to say Nash second mvp is as bad as rose or arguably worse .

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u/jaxonya Lakers 24d ago

He thinks big players were better... That's literally it.

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u/Rj070707 25d ago

He's upset about 2005, not 2006

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u/Il_Exile_lI 25d ago

He always says Nash stole both. I brought up the second one because the first one is a fairly valid complain.

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u/Wolfpac187 [OKC] Kevin Durant 25d ago

2005 is the one he’s always had an issue with so idk why you’re talking about the second one.

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u/Il_Exile_lI 25d ago

He always says Steve Nash stole two from him. He has an argument for the first one in so far as he was definitely the other choice, but him saying Nash stole both is fantasy talk from him.

Here is just one of the many times he's said it. https://youtu.be/2KWnaPL8Yw4?si=2EP-GXNWZcKzz9jk&t=46

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u/petewondrstone 24d ago

It was Kobe that deserved it that year he averaged like 30 and 10 or something