Steve Nash Explains How NBA Rule Changes Transformed Playmaking, Using Michael Jordan as a Key Example

In today’s “hot take” culture of NBA discourse where the loudest voice often gets the most attention, it’s refreshing to listen to two basketball geniuses sit down with a bottle of wine and break down the game in an approachable way. People love to pile on LeBron James, but every episode of his Mind the Game podcast is full of brilliant stuff, and the latest one is no different.

LeBron and his cohost Steve Nash always have a great back-and-forth, but in this episode, Nash took the ball and went coast-to-coast with it as he examined how the role of a point guard has changed over the years, from the table-setters of the 1990s to the heliocentric, do-everything playmakers of today.

Nash began his NBA career in 1996 and went on to play 18 seasons, so he saw the game has evolve firsthand.

“When I started playing, you were taught to be a true point guard,” Nash said. “Run your team, make your teammates better, shoot less but make ’em … Conversely, the scorers in the ’80s and ’90s, they weren’t asked to pass the ball. They were asked to score.”

The two-time MVP backed up his claims with some eye-opening stats. He pointed out how, in 1995, only one of the top-10 scorers (Michael Jordan, naturally) averaged over 5 assists per game, while only five of the guys who were top-10 in assists averaged at least 15 points per game.

That’s because, as Nash put it, “Point guards weren’t really taught 30, 40 years ago to score the ball. They were taught to run the team. Scorers weren’t taught to pass the ball, like, ‘Let’s get him a shot, let’s run him off screens, let’s get him in the post, whatever it is.'”

Nash checked in every 10 years to see how those roles evolved. In 2005, half of the top-10 scorers averaged over 5 assists per game, a big jump from just one in 1995. Eight of the top-10 assist players averaged 15 points, another big increase from the five that accomplished that in ’95. In 2015 those numbers swelled to six and nine, respectively, and this past season it was eight and eight.

As rule changes brought about the pace and space era, and the analytics revolution showed the value of not only 3-point shooting but of getting down the floor quickly and getting up a shot before the defense could get set, point guards were asked to score more, and scorers were asked to pass more. This created more of a position-less system that most teams employ today.

Nash himself was a pass-first point guard who became a reliable shooter and scorer after the first few years of his career. As the leader of the “seven seconds or less” Suns, he and revolutionary head coach Mike D’Antoni helped bring about the analytics revolution.

LeBron himself proves how position-less the game has really become, as he plays like a point guard in a power forward’s body. He’s scored more points than anyone in NBA history but has also led the league in assists multiple times. Imagine someone like Karl Malone or Charles Barkley doing that in the ’90s.

These NBA playoffs have proven just how valuable it is to have a player who can do it all. The Thunder have the likely MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. The Wolves have Anthony Edwards. In the East, Jalen Brunson and Tyrese Haliburton have led their teams to surprising but deserved conference finals appearances, and one of them will advance to the finals.

As defenses continue to become more sophisticated, players will need to keep expanding their skill set offensively to keep up. These final four teams are proof of that.