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If the NBA has gone soft, Nash didn't get the memo
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Steve Nash's nose collided with Tony Parker's forehead during
Game 1 of the 2007 WesternConference Semifinals.
Steve Nash is a warrior. No, I’m not breaking any news - he didn’t get traded to Golden State. I’m talking Merriam-Webster defined warrior. A battle-tested, still standing after the dust settles type warrior.
He never ceases to amaze me, regardless of how many Suns games I watch. Sure, he’s starting to wear down a bit. I don’t think anyone believes he’s going to add a third MVP to his belt, but that doesn’t mean he’s not still a great competitor.
In a league that has increasingly gotten softer over the past decade, it’s hard to find someone that touches the hardwood with little more than his own two feet. Don’t get me wrong, there are a handful of bonafide hustlers in the NBA, but I also think that Nash is still the head of that class.
Some like to criticize the 34-year-old point guard for his sub-par defensive efforts. But find me one player in the league that has consistently taken more charges on the defensive end than Steve Nash.
It’s been a long time since I’ve witnessed someone sacrifice his body multiple times every game, just to give the ball back to his team. He doesn’t pick who he steps in front of either. If someone is driving to the basket and he’s the last line of defense to an easy hoop, he’ll slide right in front, no matter how big or small the opponent. Sure, he’s late getting position sometimes and called for a block, but the point is, he makes the effort – every single time.
An irate Nash confronts San Antonio's Robert Horry after Horry
hip-checked Nash into the scorer's table during the last seconds
of a Suns victory in the 2007 playoffs.
In his 12 years in the NBA, Nash has averaged just 1.8 personal fouls per game. So that tells you he doesn’t miss getting position very often and called for the block.
As I watched him get pushed to the ground last week by Tracy McGrady, I couldn’t help but think back over the past few years to the times of Nash being in the middle of the competitive juice overflow.
In the past two years, Nash has had his front tooth knocked out by Carlos Boozer, his nose bloodied requiring six stitches in a collision with Tony Parker, and of course, the infamous hip check from Robert Horry that threw him into the scorer’s table. But yet, that fearlessness, what got him to the NBA in the first place, has never gone away.
In another respect, anyone with the fortitude to dress like Mork and ride a tandem bike with Baron Davis down a busy street is tough as nails in my book.
But seriously, when his nose collided with Parker’s forehead during Game 1 of the 2007 Western Conference Semifinals, he didn’t even know he was the one that had taken the worst of it. Seeing Parker on the ground, Nash went to see if he was okay, not realizing that his own nose was gushing blood.
A Carlos Boozer elbow chipped Nash's front tooth in a 2007
matchup between the Jazz and Suns.
The injury happened in crunch time of a back and forth battle between two rivals. What was Nash’s take on the incident? “Pretty bad timing, but that’s life,” he said.
Bad timing? That’s life? What about you just got six stitches in your nose and it hurts like a son of a gun. But that’s Steve Nash. It took him off the floor because they couldn’t stop his nose from bleeding every five seconds. To him, that hurt twenty times more than his gashed nose.
You won’t find a single player in the NBA that doesn’t want to go to battle with a guy like that leading the way.
In fact, Nash’s persistent aggression on every play he’s involved in, has always made a noticeable impression on his teammates. Along with training camp and a brief preseason, just several games into the year you can see strokes of Nash’s tutelage in Goran Dragic.
Dragic has already shown several times that he’s working on the patented Nash fade away from the middle of the key. But it’s no secret why the Suns worked so hard this summer for Dragic to get bought out of his Euroleague contract – one more season to learn beneath Steve Nash.
Although the Suns felt it necessary to get Dragic here sooner than later, Nash has been vocal about not being anywhere close to finished, despite his harshest critics.
He has one year left on his current Phoenix contract which is a team option. But Nash recently said, “I know I want to play four more years.”
That includes this current season, but it would take him all the way through 2011-2012, and 38-years-old. Most people wrote him off four years ago, and here is, four years later, saying he’s got another four left.
But that’s Steve Nash. That’s a warrior.
For more info: Watch Nash give a humorous halftime interview after his tooth is chipped.
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