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| We saw a lot of this from Steve Nash |
Point Guard: Steve Nash
12.7 PPG, 6.7 APG, 2.8 RPG, 4.3 WS, .127 WS/48 on 49.7% shooting and 43% from 3 point range. Grade: D
2012-2013 in brief: Future Hall of Famer and still considered one of the best point guards in the league, Nash was acquired by the Lakers in a sign and trade deal with the Phoenix Suns. Had one of the most disappointing seasons for a Star player in recent memory.
2014 status: Still has 2 years left on his contract, earning an average of 9.5 million a year.
*****
Remember how excited we were when ESPN reported the Lakers trading draft picks for the future Hall of Fame point guard Steve Nash? I certainly do; it was one of the many reasons I finally started my own basketball blog. The expectations for the Lakers immediately went from playoff team to championship contenders. I would like to say that, at some point, Nash lived up to expectations. I simply can't. The season didn't start off well for Nash and the Lakers, falling to the Dallas Mavericks in the first game of the year. Everything just went downhill from here for Nash.
But that wasn't a big deal, it's one game after all. So, Nash took the court the next night vs. rookie Damian Lillard. Not only did Nash get completely destroyed on the defensive end, to the tune of 23 points and 11 assists to a rookie in his first career game. To make matters worse, he also ended up with a non-displaced fracture in his left leg and from there, set the pace for the Lakers as nearly everybody had a stint on the DL.
That injury was originally supposed to sideline Nash for a week or so; he ended up 7 weeks watching hopelessly from the bench. And injury wasn't his only problem. Nash had declined in quickness and speed; his defense was as bad as ever, frequently giving up large amounts of points to opposing players, simply being a defensive liability that forced the Lakers to run and gun more than they needed to on the offensive end. Later in the season, it forced Kobe Bryant to take up Nash's defensive responsibilities as well. This put more strain on the older core of the team that featured a 34 year old Kobe Bryant, 32 year old Pau Gasol, 36 year old Antawn Jamison and, well, you get the point.
I honestly didn't expect anything different from him defensively, this is one of the very few star players to ever have a negative DWS rating for a whole season and is largely known as an awful defensive player, barely able to stay with his own shadow, much less the increasingly speedier point guards of the league, so, basically, Nash performed just slightly below expectations on the defensive end; he is simply atrocious defensively. I do give him credit for trying, night in and night out.The real reason he got a D from me is because he wasn't the same Steve Nash offensively. His pick and rolls with Dwight Howard were underwhelming, at best. More of his passes were off target, he didn't make the offensive side of the ball easier for this teammates, at least not as frequently as before, while making the defensive side harder for everyone. His assist to turnover ratio was down to 2.6 this season, compared to 3.0 or higher in other seasons. He never had any sort control over the offense when Bryant was on the court (that could blamed on Bryant or Mike D'Antoni).
In short: He didn't take the ball handling load off of Bryant's back. Half way through the year, D'Antoni gave up on running Nash pick and rolls, opting instead to have Bryant do it and have Nash spot up to space the floor. Now, Nash did have tremendous value in this aspect, finishing with the second highest 3 point percentage for one season (43.8%) in Laker history, right behind Vladimir Radmanovic and ahead of Sasha Vujacic and Byron Scott and he would have led the Lakers in all time free throw percentage for one season if he would have shot enough of them at 92% for the year (part Dodger owner Magic Johnson holds the number one and two spots at 91.1% and 90.6% respectively) and Nash did just barely miss the 50-40-90 Club by 0.3%; had he made it, it would have been an unheard of 5th time making the club.
But the Lakers did not trade for a spot up shooter; they traded for one of the best point guards the Game has ever seen and instead got a player who only played 50 games and had a major decrease in assists per game and overall impact on the offensive side of the ball, all while paying him a bit more than 9 million a year.
Nash did have a strong second half, however, averaging 14.7 PPG and 5.9 APG after the All-Star break, before, once again, going down with injury against the Sacramento Kings that sidelined him for the final 8 games of the season before forcing himself to play during the start of the playoffs. Ultimately, the Lakers went 20-8 after the All-Star break, including an incredibly entertaining overtime win against the Houston Rockets on the final game of the season to earn the 7th seed in the West. During the 9 game stretch without Nash (this includes the Kings game, as he only played 1 minute before heading to the locker room), the Lakers went 8-1, showing exactly how much impact Nash ultimately had on the team, which was admittedly, little. The reasons the Lakers won and lost games last year had little to do with Steve Nash and more to do with Dwight Howard's health, Kobe Bryant's offense and team defense, which go hand in hand with Howard's health.
That said, he did not have a bad season by any stretch, scoring at a decent rate for a player on the same team as Bryant, Howard and Gasol. Nash did not have his expected season, however, which is the reason for the D rating. Nash did help the Lakers down the stretch with his shooting, helping the Lakers into the 7th seed of the Western Conference, ultimately to lose in 4 games to the San Antonio Spurs, where he played injured and aggravated an existing hip and hamstring injury, mercifully ending a disappointing season for both Nash and the team.
