The comments by the Open Court guys werent shytting on Nash though.
If anything, it praised how great a guy like Jason Kidd was.
Well, yes and no. The "who would you pick on a blacktop" was definitely a direct shot at Nash...
But I'm more responding to this site's take on Nash as some kind of gimmick player, when really the league's most successful teams are all now using that style of play.
I look at it in the opposite light. I think the offense Nash ran was ahead of his time and so teams had no clue how to attempt to defend it which helped it be so successful. I think in today's game with more teams playing that style teams are becoming more comfortable defending it. A large part of Nash's success was being able to force a switch with a prototypical center trying to guard them Which then would either force a double or give Nash room to take it to the basket for one of his flip shots (hugely underrated part of Nash's game) or step back and pop the three. Now more teams are getting away from slow lumbering big men and trying to use more big men who are comfortable stepping out and guarding points and attacking the ball handler. I think that would make Nash's life a lot harder since he wasn't the most explosive one on one player. Not to mention I think PG has gotten much deeper from Nash's best years as well. I think he'd be a Mike Conley level player.
This whole post is revisionist. Teams were constantly forced to play more athletic lineups against the Suns, that's where the term "going small" came from in the modern lexicon. They weren't trotting out centers, because the suns didn't use one.
And "know how to defend it" -- the way to defend a 3 point offense hasn't changed, there are just more teams doing it.
And on top of that, the point guard crop getting "deeper" really has nothing to do with anything I've posted. He'd still be an elite shooter and distributor... that doesn't change. Nash did plenty of scoring on opposing guards, without "having to get big men switched onto him" - making it seem like it was all mismatches is patently false, and honestly kind of unfair.
fukk, I don't even like Steve Nash like that, don't make me be the guy who has to defend him.