I'm sure most of us in this sub know Shawn Marion as 2 things: the Matrix, and the guy with the wonky shot form. While both are true, I believe Marion has slowly but surely become underrated historically, and especially underrated when talking about the star players of the 2000s. Marion is historically brushed aside as just the 4th wheel within the D'Antoni/Nash/Amar'e 7 Seconds Or Less Phoenix Suns era of basketball (at least from what I've heard).

However, in the 2005-06 season (Steve Nash's 2nd of his back to back MVP years), Amar'e Stoudemire would only play 3 games on the season, needing microfracture surgery to repair cartilage damage in his knee. This opened up a huge void in Phoenix's run & gun system, and a lot of players benefitted from the extra opportunity (Raja Bell, Boris Diaw, and Leandro Barbosa all saw dramatic increases in their numbers from the previous season). But no one benefitted as much as Shawn Marion, who IMO turned in the most underrated individual season of that whole decade.

Shawn Marion drew comparisons to Scottie Pippen coming out of UNLV due to his defensive versatility, and those comparisons were especially warranted in the 2006 season. He was by far the Suns' best defensive player, consistently guarding the opposing team's best player sometimes regardless of the position they played. He was the ultimate Swiss army knife of the league and helped propel Phoenix to 54 wins and the 3 seed in the West despite the loss of their star big man.

Marion's counting stats look like this:

21.8 / 11.8 / 1.8 / 2.0 / 1.7 on 5.5 rTS

Marion's league wide ranks:

15th in PPG

3rd in RPG

5th in SPG

17th in BPG

12th in PER

7th in WS (14th in OWS, 3rd in DWS)

9th in WS/48

11th in VORP

8th in ORTG

11th in DRTG

2nd in double doubles (60)

1 of only 4 players to average 20 PPG and 10 RPG this season (Kevin Garnett, Elton Brand, Yao Ming, Shawn Marion)

Marion led Phoenix in every major stat category besides assists. He led Phoenix in PER, win shares, win shares per 48, net rating, and what may be most impressive about his season is that his defensive numbers are so gaudy, meanwhile Phoenix's defense as a team was pretty bad (16th in DRTG, gave up 3rd most PPG).

For his efforts, Marion was an all star, awarded to the All NBA 3rd team and placed just 7th in DPOY voting, which to me seems like not enough praise for what he actually did that season, although he did win a Player of the Month award in February after averaging 24-14-2 for the month. Would Phoenix have done as well with Amar'e taking Marion's place that season? Phoenix's defense would be even worse, their rebounding would be worse, and they'd lose a solid 3pt shooter, so I really don't think they'd do as well. Of course Steve Nash gets most of the credit because he ended up walking away with the MVP that year, but Marion has an argument for being a top 10 player in the league for that season, playing DPOY level defense nightly while being the jack of all trades guy and effectively the team's best big man at just 6'7 tall.

What's your opinion? Has the Matrix become underrated in recent years? How would you rate his 2006 season vs underrated seasons by other players in the 2000s?