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**Dissonance19** · 10-15-2006, 03:22 PM

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5. Steve Nash, Phoenix Suns

When the news broke that Steve Nash was going to win his second straight NBA MVP award, Dime took a strong stance, calling BS on the voters. We believed then — and still believe now — that Kobe should have taken the hardware for his 2005-06 accomplishments. From that, a lot of our readers thought Dime was bashing Nash or didn't like his game. Far from it.

In fact, if we were picking a team today to win one game with everything on the line, we'd absolutely take Nash as our point guard.

Look at what he's done over the last two years in Phoenix. There's the 17 points and 10.9 assists per game, the 116 regular-season wins, and the back-to-back trips to the Western Conference Finals. On top of that is the fact that — with Nash running the show — guys like Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion, Tim Thomas, Boris Diaw, Leandro Barbosa, Raja Bell, Joe Johnson and Quentin Richardson have looked better than they ever looked in their careers. That's more than a coincidence.

They had next 5, with Marion at 13. True statements here.

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Shawn Marion, Phoenix Suns

Another Dime cover meeting has concluded, and once again, Shawn Marion's name is left on the cutting room floor. It's not his fault, really. And in fact, it's amazing how Marion's name has continually come up in these meetings for so long now. However, there's always someone bigger at the moment. Someone hotter. Someone who will sell more magazines off the newsstand no matter what Shawn Marion does on a basketball court.

Marion scores inside and outside. He cleans the glass on both ends of the floor. He plays D on everyone from point guards to power forwards. He blocks shots, gets steals, passes the ball and sets screens. Not to mention he plays more minutes than almost anyone else in the League, and in a system that runs its players almost as much as a soccer team. And if Marion can't perform all of those duties, then the Suns are not one of the NBA's elite teams. It's as simple as that.

If there's one drawback to his game, one thing that keeps him out of our Top 10, it's that when the game is on the line and the Suns need a bucket, he's not particularly adept at creating his own shot.

Another thing with Marion is, he has become so consistently great that his standout feats barely stand out anymore. In a four-game stretch following the 2006 All-Star Game, Marion averaged an absurd 33.5 points and 18.7 boards a game. Coming from anyone else, 33 and 18 at least gets you top billing on "SportsCenter." For Marion? Just another Matrix night.

Towards the end of this past season, Matrix made some rumblings in the national media about not getting as much attention as teammates Amare Stoudemire and Steve Nash despite all he does on the court. Well, we're watching, Shawn, and we see you.