From a Canadian footballer family to the two-time NBA MVP: How Steve Nash became one of the best passers-by in the league’s history, how he became the perfect player in up-tempo basketball – and, for example, the mature, committed athlete. Today the Point Guard celebrates its 44th anniversary. Birthday. SPOX looks back.
This article was first published on 25.10.2014.
In the end, however, they did more together than at first glance assumed. Steve Nash, this filigree point guard, this virtuoso on the ball and the elegant title character of the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Social conscience. Passion. The most adverse circumstances.
And that’s how names best describe Steve Nash’s career. Jermaine O’ Neal. Stephon Marbury. Allen Iverson. Antoine Walker. Ray Allen. Kobe Bryant.
All of them came to the NBA together with Nash, in one of the best drafts of league history in 1996. All blessed with the best qualities, infinite athleticism and speed.
But this Steve Nash has surpassed almost all of them. Kobe Bryant has always played in his own class, and Ray Allen is probably still a dreaded marksman at the advanced age of 41.
But while O’ Neal,”The Answer”, Marbury or Walker meanwhile either chase after their former form, stay in a careless retirement or throw their last baskets in a basketball exile, Nash has outlived them all.
He, whose later career progression began on that 26th birthday. June 1996 of all the draftees, who were allowed to/have to squeeze themselves on the picture with league boss David Stern, seemed to be the most unlikely (Vitaly Potapenko we just sweep under the table).
This Steven John Nash grew up in Victoria, Canada in British Columbia, and in the Commonwealth state he almost inevitably first came to football and ice hockey, practiced with his younger brother Martin.
“Of course Wayne Gretzky was one of my first idols,” he later says,”I loved Diego Maradona and all the players of my favorite club Tottenham Hotspur.” When I was a teenager, Nash first found out about basketball,”I was immediately fascinated by Magic Johnson, by Isiah Thomas, and I tried to orientate myself to them.”
Especially father John, a professional footballer himself, has a great influence on the young Steve, who was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, where daddy is playing. He gives him important advice, helps his offspring on their way without pushing him in one direction.
“My father knew exactly how to make the best of the given possibilities: A trick here, a trick there – as an athlete he had the gaze to anticipate situations, that was a big advantage for me and also for my brother. He didn’t praise us for great goals, but for fine passes. Not many children are so lucky.”
But Martin follows in his father’s footsteps and will play 38 international matches for Canada’s national football team by 2010. Steve on the other hand – despite various school awards in football – decides against grass sports, the love for the newly found basketball is simply too great.
He works like a man possessed, becomes a star at St. Stephen’s. Michaels University School, in Canadian unpopular basketball. When it becomes clear that the path of talent in the homeland is at an end, the step to the small Santa Clara University in the heart of California comes in 1992.
Broncos head coach Dick Davey was the only one who saw the potential in the 18-year-old’s.”I was terribly afraid that one of the big unis would snatch away this rough diamond,”recalls Davey. But Santa Clara remained the only interested party.
He celebrates respectable successes with the team, distinguishes himself as a scorer and register. Play with the Canadian national team and workouts with later colleagues such as Jason Kidd continue to shape the “rough diamond”. In 1996, he joined the draft team as Santa Clara’s all-time leader in assists, free-throw quota and hit trio.
The Phoenix Suns elect him at 15. Place. What should be a temporary highlight of the young career will be transformed into a gauntlet run by the Suns fans. A Canadian, also from a relatively unknown college, with little profit?
Even at the Draft event, boos and whistles rattle for the pitiful youngster. The newcomer doesn’t get a leg on the floor in the episode either, playing at best a supporting role behind Kevin Johnson, Sam Cassell and later Kidd.
Names, which he was to surpass years later. 3.3 points and 2.1 assists in only 10.5 minutes in year one, in the second the numbers increase to 9.1 points and 3.4 assists, Nash is now on average 22 minutes on the field.
Nevertheless, Phoenix seemed to be a dead end in the long run. A change of scenery is supposed to get the career back on track. In 1998 Nash is traded to Dallas – and here he takes off.
At the Dallas Mavericks, Nash encounters another name that should shape his career. A young German forward named Dirk Nowitzki has just been drafted – the close friendship of the two still holds to this day. Gladly and much quoted is Nowitzki’s description of the gang:”It just fits between us, we would have made friends if we had met in a supermarket.”
In Texas, too, however, the big performance is a long time coming, with the team missing out on the playoffs in its first two years. Nash’s performances stagnate, evil memories of Phoenix come alive as the Mavs fans begin to restrain the “always eager” playmaker – 8.6 points, 2.2 rebounds and 4.9 assists in the second year did not pull out any trees.
But then it turns out that Nash is in the right place at the right time. The Mavs, with their new owner Mark Cuban, the constantly improving Dirk, the strong Michael Finley and Nash are the perfect constellation of success. With Don Nelson, an old trainer’s fox stands on the sidelines, whose philosophy is optimally suited to the stormy build-up.
Nash blossoms in the 2000/2001 season, starts in all of his 70 games, raises his score to 15.6 and distributes 7.3 assists – countless of them to his favorite player number 41. The reward for the noticeable increase: the first playoff participation for Dallas since 1990.
The semi-finals against the San Antonio Spurs will be over in the Conference Semifinals (1-4 in the series), but the exclamation point was set, also for the coming years. The trio is not only enthusiastic about German fans who are wrestling at night.
Suddenly, Dallas is one of the best teams in the league, with strong offensives, deep-seated, entertaining and spectacular. Nash grows beyond himself in a playful way and is at the same time a prudent conductor and turbo engine of the offense. The following year there was already a big praise: the nomination for the All-Star Game – the first of a total of eight. Nash, the star player, is increasingly making his mark – even outside the court.
Steve is just a normal guy who’s very, very, very good at his job,”Mavs assistant coach Del Harris once said – and with his praise for the character of the 1.91 meter man, he misjudged the Steve Nash behind the basketball player.
He is committed to protecting the environment and, together with his shoe sponsor, is planning an ecologically sustainable basketball shoe at a reasonable price. It is the counter-proposal to the jewel-clothed, socio-politically unsophisticated stereotype of the NBA-player.
In 2003, during the All-Star Weekend in Atlanta, he wears a t-shirt with the imprint “No War. Shoot for Peace!” The war in Iraq had just begun.”It’s embarrassing that even in the 21st century, we are still in a state of crisis. In the 21st century, he explains,” We still solve conflicts by force of arms.
Page 1: The long way to becoming a professional basketball player
Page 2: At the zenith of the Phoenix Suns