The best basketball player every to come out of the Great White North hung up his high tops over the weekend, announcing on Twitter and via a thoughtful, reflective letter on The Players Tribune that he was retiring from the NBA.
Steve Nash’s career totals 1217 games over 18 seasons and includes eight All-Star appearances, three straight All-NBA First Team selections and two Most Valuable Player awards. The 41-year-old Canadian walks away with career averages of 14.3ppg and 8.5apg with three rebounds and having shot .490 from the floor, .428 from deep and .904 from the stripe.
In this country, his impact extends well beyond the numbers he put up and the accolades that followed.
Nash was our guy; had been since he led No. 15 Santa Clara to an upset win over No. 2 Arizona in the 1993 NCAA Tournament and remained that way when he was selected No. 15 overall by the Phoenix Suns in 1996. He was the first true superstar to emerge from this country and it came through visible effort. You saw him develop over his first two seasons in Phoenix, take a step forward once he moved to Dallas and truly blossom into one of the best players in the game upon his return to the desert. He was one of the players the current crop of Canadian talent watched and whose path they aspired to follow. Along with the emergence of Vince Carter and the Toronto Raptors, Nash and his success played a big part in basketball gaining traction and taking root in this country.
And man could he ball.
When he finally became a full-time starter in Dallas during the 2000-01 season, the team jumped from 40 wins to 53 and ended its 10-year playoff draught. They won 57 games the following season and 60 the year after that, losing to the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals with a team that got 30-plus starts from Raef LaFrentz, Shawn Bradley Adrian Griffin and a pre-Phoenix, “still hadn’t figured out his role” Raja Bell.
His first three years back in Phoenix were unbelievable and his four-year run under Mike D’Antoni featured some of the most electric team basketball the NBA had seen in years. Nash was the perfect quarterback for D’Antoni’s offense that changed the way basketball is played. The “pace and space” strategy that is dominating the NBA right now? That was D’Antoni’s and Nash was the one that took the concepts and made them work on the court.
The Suns averaged 58 wins during D’Antoni’s four seasons at the helm and Nash was never better.
His numbers were incredible. He could have won MVP all three years. Ironically, his best season of the bunch was probably the 2006-07 season when he finished as the runner-up in the MVP race to his big German friend from Dallas.
While basketball fiends will always debate the merits of his back-to-back MVP wins, there is no denying that the Victoria, British Columbia native made everyone around him better. Very few players left Phoenix and got better without Nash orchestrating the offense and getting them their shots, while plenty of people turned up and delivered career years running alongside the Canadian point guard.
The move to Los Angeles didn’t work out and lands as an unfortunate anticlimactic ending to a brilliant career, one that should include a spot in the Hall of Fame in the not too distant future.
It’s almost fitting that he calls it quits now, at a time when Canada’s basketball future has never been brighter because not only did he have a hand in bringing the sport to where it is now, but he’s also directly involved in shaping where it will go in the future as the General Manager of the Senior Men’s National team, a squad that has 2016 Olympic aspirations and will likely include the likes of Tristan Thompson, Kelly Olynyk, Cory Joseph and Andrew Wiggins.
Congratulations on an amazing career and thanks for all the memories, Captain Canada.
