Steve Nash is officially in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame where he belongs. As part of the pomp and circumstance of the ceremony, we are reminded of Nash’s career accomplishments including his back-to-back MVP awards. But did he really deserve to the win the 2006 NBA MVP Award? Probably Not.
Steve Nash is having quite a memorable summer. The eight time All-Star received a well deserved induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame and then got to promote his new app, HomeCourt, at a special Apple event only a few days later.
The 44-year-old is clearly hitting his post playing career in stride and I wish him nothing but the best for the rest of his days – but the man stole an MVP award and we don’t talk about it enough.
Back in the 2005-06 NBA season, the world was a very different place. There was no #NBATwitter yet and basketball analytics still were in the stone age. That being said even without Value-Over-Replacement or Win-Share Per 48 Minutes, the fact that a group of voters gave Steve Nash the Most Valuable Player award over his peers still seems unforgivable.
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Here are some players receiving votes for the 2006 MVP Award season statistics from that year:
- Steve Nash: 18.8 ppg, 10.5 apg, 4.2 rpg
- Dwyane Wade: 27.2 ppg, 6.7 apg, 5.7 rpg
- Dirk Nowitzki: 26.6 ppg, 2.8 apg, 9 rpg
- LeBron James: 31.4 ppg, 6.6 apg, 7 rpg
- Chauncey Billups: 18.5 ppg, 8.6 apg, 3.1 rpg
- Kobe Bryant: 35.4 ppg, 4.5 apg, 5.3 rpg
And here is how they finished in voting order:
- Steve Nash
- LeBron James
- Dirk Nowitzki
- Kobe Bryant
- Chauncey Billups
- Dwyane Wade
Kobe managed to score over 35 points a game and somehow couldn’t crack the top three. Now I understand more goes into MVP voting than just statistics but even taking standings into account, everything still doesn’t add up. Nash and the Suns won 54 games but were still third in the Western Conference behind Dirk and the Mavericks and were well behind Chauncey Billup’s Pistons who won 64 games that year.
The only thing that seems to stand out for Nash is the fact that he was coming off winning an MVP award the previous year. The 2005 MVP race however was as close as could be with Nash narrowly edging out Shaq by a total of 34 points. In 2006 Nash beat out 2nd place LeBron by over 236 points.
So who should’ve won the 2006 MVP Award? Depends on what your opinion of the award is. Best player on the best team? Probably Dirk. Stats guy? Probably LeBron. You could make a case for Wade, Dirk, LeBron or Kobe and wouldn’t get a lot of push back from me. The only one I’d really fight you on is the guy that actually won it.