PHOENIX -- Mike D'Antoni always knew Steve Nash was the perfect point guard to run his up-tempo offense. But it was during a game early in D'Antoni's tenure as the Suns coach that he learned what type of person was leading his team.
"We were playing New Jersey and we're getting beat by 40. I mean, they're just killing us and Jason Kidd is killing him," D'Antoni said of Nash. "I'm pretty upset and Steve comes by the bench and he's laughing. "I said 'What's up?' And he goes, 'Coach, I'm getting my ass kicked tonight and there's nothing I can do about it.'
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| 'I don't think there's any reason that this team is over,' Steve Nash says. (US Presswire) |
Don't misread this anecdote. Nash loves to compete, wants to win as badly as the next guy and dedicates himself tirelessly to that end. There's just more to the picture than those simple sports clichés.
"Basketball is what he does," current Suns coach Alvin Gentry said. "It's not who he is."
That's probably the best explanation for why Nash chose to sign a two-year, $22 million extension with the Suns this summer, rather than seek a team with more realistic title aspirations.
Phoenix sent Shaquille O'Neal to Cleveland. D'Antoni is coaching in New York. Former Nash backcourt mate Raja Bell and versatile Boris Diaw were traded to Charlotte. And the Colangelos (Jerry and Bryan) -- architects of this franchise and part of the key triumvirate that brought Nash to Phoenix -- have moved on.
Other than Amare Stoudemire and aging good guy Grant Hill, there is little on which to pin hope for the Suns. Phoenix missed the playoffs last season with a 46-36 record and its biggest free-agent acquisition was Channing Frye.
"It was a difficult year, obviously, and we had four really good seasons before that, so to take such a dramatic fall was disappointing," Nash said. "But I don't think there's any reason that this team is over or we're rebuilding or we don't have a shot."
That's Nash the dreamer, saying exactly what you'd want a team leader to say at the start of a season. But here's the more complex Nash, the one with myriad off-court interests and a big-picture perspective on life.
"A lot of people feel you should just go wherever you can to win a championship, but I want to be somewhere where I like my teammates and I feel good about the community," he said. "In the end, chasing a championship can be fleeting. Finding a home, that's important."
Keeping his leaders -- Nash and Hill -- was equally important to Suns general manager Steve Kerr.
"A lot of people asked me over the summer, 'Why didn't you trade Steve, break it up and go young?'" Kerr said. "To me, it was perfectly clear. We're bringing back two of the best leaders in the NBA. They both can obviously still play, if you look at their performances last year, and we're putting those two guys in charge of a team of young, talented players."
Not that Kerr wouldn't have listened to the right offer. "Steve and I were joking," Kerr recalled. "I said, 'Look, if New Orleans had called and offered us Chris Paul, you'd be out of here. Thanks for your contributions. See ya later.'
"That's what I love about Steve [and Grant]. They know how this league works."
Nash got an early lesson in league machinations after a successful six-season run in Dallas. Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, in a very public deliberation, chose not to offer Nash a maximum-level contract. That's when the Suns swooped in.
Then Suns chairman Jerry Colangelo, general manager Bryan Colangelo, D'Antoni and a Suns entourage flew to Dallas in the summer of 2004 and made Nash and agent Bill Duffy a take-it-or-leave-it, six-year maximum offer.
Nash took it and the Suns posted four straight seasons of 54 or more wins while Nash won two MVPs, orchestrating the league's most entertaining team.
"It's unbelievable when you think about what he's accomplished with his size and frame," said Jerry Colangelo, now the chairman of USA Basketball. "No one ever thought that he'd be more than a backup point guard. I think he turned out to be a heck of a backup."
The thought that Nash may never win that elusive title crosses his mind occasionally.
"Maybe momentarily," he said. "But not every team wins a championship. Only one does, so where should I have gone? Where would you go? You could pick the odds-on favorite to win it and they don't jell, they have a bad night, they have an injury and now you're saying, 'Man, I gave up a team that I love, and a community that I love for what?'
"There's more to life than games won and lost. There are a lot of ways to find fulfillment in life and I'm happy to being doing it here for Phoenix."
For Nash, that life includes a production company he started as a creative outlet; countless endorsements; his foundation; community outreach in Phoenix, his native Canada and other countries; an ownership stake in Tottenham Hotspur Football Club in North London; and a successful bid, as part of a group, to bring an expansion MLS franchise to Vancouver.
When it's time to walk away from basketball, Nash, 35, has a host of options and simple hopes for how he'll be remembered.
"Just to know that I gave it all that I had, that I competed hard and challenged myself, and that I was a good teammate," he said. "Those are the things that I think are lasting in life."
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