When the Phoenix Suns burst on the scene as contenders during the 2004-05 season, a debate raged within the league about which member of the Suns was most responsible for their surprising success: point guard Steve Nash, forward Shawn Marion or big man Amar'e Stoudemire.
MVP voters ultimately awarded the credit to Nash, choosing him in both 2004-05 and 2005-06. Still, after Marion confirmed to ESPN's Marc Stein on Thursday that he plans to follow Nash into retirement, it's worth revisiting the question a decade later. There's a stronger case for Marion than you might think -- one that makes him a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate when both he and Nash hit the ballot in five years.
The Box Score Stuffer
Here's a crazy but true fact: The two seasons Nash won MVP, he didn't lead his team in PER, Win Shares or my Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) stat. Stoudemire was tops in PER and win shares in 2004-05, while Marion led the team in those categories during 2005-06 and in WARP both years.
It's easy to forget how incredible Marion was statistically in his prime. His best season was 2005-06, when Stoudemire missed nearly the entire year following microfracture knee surgery and the Suns still managed to win 54 games and reach the Western Conference finals, effectively eliminating Stoudemire from the "most crucial" debate. Marion posted a .591 true shooting percentage while using 22.3 percent of the team's plays. He pulled down 16.3 percent of all available rebounds, came up with steals on 2.5 percent of opponents' plays and blocked 2.9 percent of opponents' 2-point attempts.
Few players can come close to matching that kind of versatility. Since 1977-78, when individual turnovers were first tracked, 10 other players have surpassed a .550 true shooting percentage, 20 percent usage rate, 15 percent rebound rate, 2 percent steal rate and 2 percent block rate. (Marion also topped those marks in 2004-05.) None of them averaged at least one 3-pointer per game, as Marion did both seasons.
And remember, Marion did all this while playing 38.8 minutes per game in 2004-05 and an incredible 40.3 a night in 2005-06. He was remarkably durable, playing 81 games both seasons and every game of Phoenix's deep playoff runs. Had SportVU tracking existed back then, I suspect Marion would have led the league in distance traveled given the Suns' fast pace and his end-to-end role.
In terms of value statistics, Marion's heavy minutes totals help give him an edge over Nash, who played fewer minutes per game and missed a handful more due to injury. Nash actually rated better on a per-minute basis in WARP in both 2004-05 and 2005-06, but Marion's total WARP was greater because he played more than 1,000 more minutes than his teammate.
The Plus-Minus Perspective
The case for Nash starts with his ability to make teammates better, something that can't completely be measured in the box score by assists. While the evidence for Nash's impact on Marion's own efficiency is mixed, teammates generally scored far more efficiently with him on the floor.
To try to capture this effect, let's turn to the earlier form of ESPN's real plus-minus available on co-creator Jeremias Engelmann's website. Fittingly, in 2004-05 Marion, Nash and Stoudemire all had nearly identical estimated team impact per 100 possessions. From there, Nash took the lead over Marion:
However, those are per-possession stats. Once we factor in Marion's edge in playing time, he's tops in RPM wins above replacement all three seasons, too.
Uniqueness
As crucial as Nash's playmaking and shooting were to Phoenix's league-leading offense, it was Marion's unique skill set that gave the Suns the ability to play the small lineups that spaced the floor for Nash without getting crushed defensively. Long before anyone had heard of a "stretch 4," Marion played that role so singularly that around the league, smaller, quicker power forwards began to be referred to as "Phoenix 4s."
Who else could have played Marion's role for the Suns? Perhaps Andrei Kirilenko, then with the Utah Jazz and the closest facsimile for Marion's skill set. Josh Smith developed into a similarly versatile contributor, though never anywhere near as efficient a scorer as Marion. Even today, in a league with more stretch 4s than ever, only a handful of players like Draymond Green and Serge Ibaka can approach the breadth of Marion's skills.
It was fitting, then, that after considering trading Marion for other combo forwards like Kevin Garnett and Rashard Lewis, when Phoenix finally moved him it was for a player on the polar opposite of the frontcourt spectrum: Shaquille O'Neal. The Suns, 34-15 (.694) at the time of the trade in February 2008, went 21-12 (.636) the rest of the way and lost a difficult first-round series to the rival San Antonio Spurs. While Phoenix got back to the Western Conference finals without Marion in 2010, the last season Nash and Stoudemire played together, that team never approached the heights of the Marion teams during the regular season. Most important or not, Marion certainly made the Suns a better team.
Career Value
Marion's value declined pretty much the moment he was traded, in large part because he went from a matchup nightmare as a Phoenix 4 to an ordinary 3-and-D specialist at small forward elsewhere. While Marion might have been happier defending players his own size -- Jack McCallum's account of the 2005-06 season with the Suns, ":07 Seconds or Less," details Marion battling D'Antoni over playing inside -- he didn't get nearly as good of shot attempts when playing small forward, with occasional cameos at power forward. But Marion did earn an elusive championship ring in this role with the 2010-11 Dallas Mavericks.
Because his prime ended relatively early, Marion didn't accumulate as much career value as Nash, who has him beat comfortably in WARP (167 to 142) and narrowly in Win Shares (130 to 125). Still, those differences aren't nearly as large as the gap in the perception about the two players' careers. By virtue of his MVPs and eight All-Star appearances (Marion made just four), Nash is considered a no-brainer Hall of Famer while Marion is a long shot.
When I evaluated Marion's Hall chances last summer, I argued he would probably need to reach the 20,000-point mark that has historically been the closest NBA equivalent to 3,000 hits for Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame. Alas, Marion added just 276 points to his career total in his final season, falling out of the Cleveland Cavaliers' rotation midseason and finishing 300 points shy of the 18,000 mark. The abrupt end to Marion's productive career surely won't help his chances with voters.
Still, Marion would be a yes in my book. Among eligible players who retired with more career WARP than Marion, only Tim Hardaway has not yet been enshrined in the Hall of Fame, and I suspect he'll get there eventually. Every eligible player with as many Win Shares has been voted in. Given his importance to one of the most memorable and influential teams in recent memory, Marion should be a Hall of Famer.