[orangedays]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

This is certainly, beyond question--to borrow a term you seem to like to use, irrefutably--NOT a fact. Let me repeat. This is NOT a fact. Again for you, I will say it one...more...time: This is NOT a fact.

The Mavs took a twelve- or thirteen-point lead (I cannot remember which) to the fourth quarter in Game Six of the Western Conference Finals in 2003. They would have been decided favorites against New Jersey if they had won the series.

Your inability or refusal to understand what I am saying is beginning to puzzle me. It's not a fact that Nash didn't lead us to the promised land? It's not a fact that Nash didn't win us a championship? It's not a fact that Dallas has yet to be graced by the O'Brien Trophy? No chum. It is a fact. An irrefutable one. We can sit by the fire and talk all night about how the Mavs (or any number of Western Conference teams that year for that matter) would have beaten the Nets had they made it past the Spurs but the point is moot. No statistic will change the fact that we did not win the championship. The Mavs did not make it past the Spurs. That is a fact.

You pin your argument to the 2003 victory over Sacramento and you accuse me of selective memory? It took us 7 hard-fought games to get past the Kings. What happened the next year? 4-1. That is significant. And using a single air-ball to characterize the play of Mike Bibby is just a poor effort.

If Dirk struggles "relatively," Nash struggles relatively. It is a well-established fact that individual, and thusly also team, statistics drop off in the postseason as compared to the regular season because the opposition is filtered. This is nothing new. Yet you find a way to champion Dirk while disparaging Nash.

A well-established fact which has no bearing on the premise. With the exception of 2001, Dirk improved upon his numbers from the regular season to the playoffs. With the exception of the 2002 playoffs, Nash's numbers declined in the playoffs. The evidence makes it very easy for me to champion Dirk while (I hate to use this word but you seem to love it) 'disparaging' Nash.

If you want to retract what you said and say that you appreciate Nash's contributions to the team, and that he helped WAY more often than he hurt (if he ever did), you can expect a "fair enough" from me. But if you continue to paint Nash as an ineffective performer, playoffs or otherwise, you will continue to get a counterargument from this end. And if you persist in saying that we are better off without an All-NBA player than with an All-NBA player...well, I will just have to shake my head and question your sanity.

I'm not looking for a "fair enough" from you chum. This entire conversation has been you (1) misconstruing what I said and me pointing that out to you and (2) you throwing out various unfounded assertions and me providing evidence and commentary to the contrary. Whether or not you choose to see that evidence is certainly up to you. Nash was a good player, but Nash was not the piece we needed to move forward. History tells us that. Your argument is based entirely on conjecture - that we would be a better team with Nash. My argument is based on reality - Nash did not lead us to an NBA Championship. Nash led us to a 60-win season. And...that is a pace we are set to break this year. So...until the playoffs begin and we do indeed go deeper than Nash ever took us, I will simply point to our regular season record and say that we are a better team without Nash than we ever were with him. Question my sanity all you want, you will find that those who choose to stay in the dark are rarely able to see the world around them.

You characterize a one-third chance that didn't get there as "could not." Not in my world, buddy. In my world, a one-third chance "can," and does so, in fact, one time in three.

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. This is the most fallacious statement you have made thus far. In statistics, yes, if you flip a coin you have a 50-50 chance of getting heads of tails. In basketball, having a one-third chance to win means absolutely nothing. If the Mavs had a one-third chance of winning the Championship in the 4 years that Nash were here, then we would have won at least one. Right? A probability of one in three with a sample of four? Your world is skewed because it refuses to recognize the difference between the court and the spreadsheet. Statistics are a tool chum, they are not the final word.