DeAnna
Just A Face in The Crowd
Nowitzki, Nash are friends — and thriving
Mavs, Suns stars meet Wednesday night, and one of them surely title-bound
OPINION
By Kevin Ding
The Orange County Register
Updated: 3:16 p.m. ET March 13, 2007
There's a school of thought — and it's a pretty smart school — that says every time we in the media go about referencing "The War on Terrorism" rather than, let's say, "The Crusade for Peace," we are giving the terrorists a little more energy, charging our lives with a little more fear and basically feeding a little more power to something so wrong.
Translated, that would mean that every time we hark back to the breakup of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal instead of the championships they won together, it fuels the falsehood that people can't live and work together instead of accentuating how they certainly can.
That's what makes Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki an interesting case study. There is one easy way to slant their story, because since they broke up, neither has won a championship.
But if you're going to be cynical about them, you're going to have to hurry up.
In about three months, one of them will be crowned — probably Nowitzki in Dallas, but Nash and Phoenix remain the best of the rest. Maybe then the NBA, if it truly wants to make good on the team-oriented concepts set up by making it easier for clubs to re-sign players and changing game rules to replace stagnant isolation with slick passing, will stop scheduling Bryant and O'Neal on Christmas and trot out Nash against Nowitzki already.
There is no discussing whether they like each other. They did before, and they still do.
After Nash left Dallas as a free agent in July 2004, Nowitzki was named godfather to Nash's twin daughters three months later. On the Friday before the All-Star Game last month, Nash was on hand with Nowitzki at the wedding reception for Nowitzki's sister.
Nash and Nowitzki had never met until they came together to share a news-conference stage in 1998 after Nash came in a trade and Nowitzki came in the draft. They didn't exactly click to greatness on the floor that first season on a 19-31 team — Nash averaging 7.9 points, Nowitzki 8.2. But by the next season, they would watch soccer, drink beer, play guitar, go to movies, play one-on-one and hang out in every which way after the shy Nowitzki moved into the magnetic Nash's apartment complex. In so doing, they learned to win in Dallas seasons of 53, 57, 60 and 52 victories.
That true friendship is why even though Nash could win his third consecutive NBA MVP trophy — and join only Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Larry Bird in accomplishing that feat — Nash is stumping for Nowitzki to win this time.
Being that cool with your competition isn't as compelling as conflict. Maybe it has to be called "The War on Terrorism" to get you to read about it. There's a reason why the parody calling the Phoenix-Dallas series last spring the "Brokeback Playoffs" has gotten way more viewings on YouTube.com than the hilarious real-life footage of Nash and Nowitzki mockingly serenading their friend Simon in a duet.
The run of "Friends" as TV's dominant show is over, but let's not forget how good it was. Just on Sunday, Nowitzki's teammate, Devean George, came back to face his Lakers friends, and the funniest thing to see was Bryant's wide-eyed, bemused look directed at George after getting him into falling for Bryant's patented pump fake. (Luke Walton's grin on the bench upon hearing George booed by Lakers fans was next best.)
But the transcendent aspect of Nash and Nowitzki is how great they've become only by separating — so that each has had to accept total leadership responsibility for his team. That is exactly how the world works: Only by daring to break out of your comfort zone can you stretch your limits and do what you couldn't before.
And it was a comfort zone for Nash in Dallas with the team focused on Nowitzki. When the Suns offered more money and more years on a free-agent contract in '04, Nash still went back to the Mavericks in hopes they would want him to stay.
Yet Nash ultimately had the vision to see that if Phoenix was offering the bigger contract, it also was offering the greater opportunity.
Nowitzki wasn't mad at Nash for leaving; he was mad at the Mavericks' front office for not understanding that doubting Nash's age and health would only motivate him. And the very next season Nash became the oldest NBA MVP at age 31.
With Jason Terry at guard in place of Nash — and with Nowitzki maturing into his own man instead of the awkward foreigner being told by Nash what to wear — the Mavericks improved, too, to the point that they nearly won the NBA Finals last season.
This season, Nowitzki is on track to win the title and the MVP trophy, and Nash might be the only one who can stop him on either count.
So it should be a great game when they face off Wednesday night in Dallas.
Or can it not be a great game if no one is trying to kill each other?
Mavs, Suns stars meet Wednesday night, and one of them surely title-bound
OPINION
By Kevin Ding
The Orange County Register
Updated: 3:16 p.m. ET March 13, 2007
There's a school of thought — and it's a pretty smart school — that says every time we in the media go about referencing "The War on Terrorism" rather than, let's say, "The Crusade for Peace," we are giving the terrorists a little more energy, charging our lives with a little more fear and basically feeding a little more power to something so wrong.
Translated, that would mean that every time we hark back to the breakup of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal instead of the championships they won together, it fuels the falsehood that people can't live and work together instead of accentuating how they certainly can.
That's what makes Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki an interesting case study. There is one easy way to slant their story, because since they broke up, neither has won a championship.
But if you're going to be cynical about them, you're going to have to hurry up.
In about three months, one of them will be crowned — probably Nowitzki in Dallas, but Nash and Phoenix remain the best of the rest. Maybe then the NBA, if it truly wants to make good on the team-oriented concepts set up by making it easier for clubs to re-sign players and changing game rules to replace stagnant isolation with slick passing, will stop scheduling Bryant and O'Neal on Christmas and trot out Nash against Nowitzki already.
There is no discussing whether they like each other. They did before, and they still do.
After Nash left Dallas as a free agent in July 2004, Nowitzki was named godfather to Nash's twin daughters three months later. On the Friday before the All-Star Game last month, Nash was on hand with Nowitzki at the wedding reception for Nowitzki's sister.
Nash and Nowitzki had never met until they came together to share a news-conference stage in 1998 after Nash came in a trade and Nowitzki came in the draft. They didn't exactly click to greatness on the floor that first season on a 19-31 team — Nash averaging 7.9 points, Nowitzki 8.2. But by the next season, they would watch soccer, drink beer, play guitar, go to movies, play one-on-one and hang out in every which way after the shy Nowitzki moved into the magnetic Nash's apartment complex. In so doing, they learned to win in Dallas seasons of 53, 57, 60 and 52 victories.
That true friendship is why even though Nash could win his third consecutive NBA MVP trophy — and join only Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Larry Bird in accomplishing that feat — Nash is stumping for Nowitzki to win this time.
Being that cool with your competition isn't as compelling as conflict. Maybe it has to be called "The War on Terrorism" to get you to read about it. There's a reason why the parody calling the Phoenix-Dallas series last spring the "Brokeback Playoffs" has gotten way more viewings on YouTube.com than the hilarious real-life footage of Nash and Nowitzki mockingly serenading their friend Simon in a duet.
The run of "Friends" as TV's dominant show is over, but let's not forget how good it was. Just on Sunday, Nowitzki's teammate, Devean George, came back to face his Lakers friends, and the funniest thing to see was Bryant's wide-eyed, bemused look directed at George after getting him into falling for Bryant's patented pump fake. (Luke Walton's grin on the bench upon hearing George booed by Lakers fans was next best.)
But the transcendent aspect of Nash and Nowitzki is how great they've become only by separating — so that each has had to accept total leadership responsibility for his team. That is exactly how the world works: Only by daring to break out of your comfort zone can you stretch your limits and do what you couldn't before.
And it was a comfort zone for Nash in Dallas with the team focused on Nowitzki. When the Suns offered more money and more years on a free-agent contract in '04, Nash still went back to the Mavericks in hopes they would want him to stay.
Yet Nash ultimately had the vision to see that if Phoenix was offering the bigger contract, it also was offering the greater opportunity.
Nowitzki wasn't mad at Nash for leaving; he was mad at the Mavericks' front office for not understanding that doubting Nash's age and health would only motivate him. And the very next season Nash became the oldest NBA MVP at age 31.
With Jason Terry at guard in place of Nash — and with Nowitzki maturing into his own man instead of the awkward foreigner being told by Nash what to wear — the Mavericks improved, too, to the point that they nearly won the NBA Finals last season.
This season, Nowitzki is on track to win the title and the MVP trophy, and Nash might be the only one who can stop him on either count.
So it should be a great game when they face off Wednesday night in Dallas.
Or can it not be a great game if no one is trying to kill each other?
