This is on the Suns site, but wanted to make sure you all saw it.
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Nash's game worthy of call from the Hall
May 10, 2006
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On one hand, the question – has Steve Nash accomplished enough in his basketball career to earn a spot in the Hall of Fame? – is as ridiculous as a man purposely wearing a hairstyle straight from the pages of “Ivanhoe.”
Nine players have won consecutive NBA Most Valuable Player awards and in joining that list this week the Phoenix Suns point guard now stands beside Jordan and Bird and Russell and Magic and Duncan and players of that immense stature. The Hall of Fame should be as assured for Nash as his Canadian citizenship. He's a lock, eh?
But skeptics always argue numbers when claiming a player should be denied access to a sport's highest wing of honor and you can bet your last loonie they will eventually do so in the case of Nash. He is 32 and could conceivably play 5-6 more years, but career stats to date (13.5 ppg, 7.1 apg, four All-Star appearances, no NBA Finals) hardly seem Hall-worthy. He will also never be an outstanding defender, but he has progressed from guarding a pick-and-roll as if it meant contracting some deadly illness to being ordinary at that end.
Still, his Hall enshrinement should not be doubted.
All he has done is affect the game as only a few before him.
It's a knack. A propensity to scrutinize and then conquer. An ability to evaluate an opponent and then defeat him based on such assessment. It's among the rarest of basketball skills. Bill Russell did it while taking the floor and stroking his goatee. Magic Johnson did it while taking the floor and stretching open those huge eyes.
“Steve absolutely has that,” says Bill Walton, who might be the world's biggest Nash fan this side of the player's family. “Like Russell and Magic, he has figured out a way to outthink the opposition. We are so lucky to be witnessing such greatness. Steve will definitely be in the Hall of Fame. He is among those who changed the course of basketball. He is perfect in all things the way Michael Jordan was – with a completely different game than anyone else. Nobody in the entire NBA plays the way Steve does. He is the next logical step in the game's evolution from Russell to Magic to Jordan and now Nash.
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He is the MVP of a game dominated by winners of the genetics lottery. Here is little Stevie. He is short. He is not fast. He can't jump. And yet the ultimate testament has already been reached. Little Stevies all over the world go to sleep at night thinking, 'If I work hard and practice, I can do that, too.' That was Bill Russell. That was Michael Jordan. And now, they're saying it about Steve Nash.” What he is:
the opposite of every negative NBA stereotype on and off the floor. There are numerous problems with the basketball Hall of Fame – specifically multiple selection committees whose anonymous members and secret ballots have led to alleged improper influence and a ridiculously low representation of NBA résumés.
It's more a Hall of Shame, a ludicrously flawed system that includes Uljana Semjonova but not Phil Jackson and has welcomed Sandro Gamba (all together now: Who?) but not Pat Riley. More and more, the need for a separate NBA Hall of Fame becomes profusely clear.
But one positive is that character seems to play a major role in most selections. Nash's selfless, almost contrite, temperament should reverberate throughout the voting process when the time arrives. While other NBA stars exist wrapped in their own egotistical search for constant hype, Nash uses endorsement money to pay for new pediatric cardiology wards in Paraguay and builds basketball centers for underprivileged youth, all the while declining any excess publicity for his kindness.
But, ultimately, his play will combat any scrutiny. He is a good enough athlete that a pro career likely awaited in any of four sports – basketball, hockey, soccer and baseball. His vision is exemplary. His eye-hand coordination is unblemished. His conditioning (you get exhausted just checking the guy's workout regimen at stevenashmvp.com) is extraordinary. The NBA has suffered greatly with the influx of scoring point guards, and Nash's obsession with sharing the ball strikes at the root of the game's intended purpose: reaction, improvisation, creativity.
The most amazing part: At an age when most players steadily decline in talent, Nash is getting better.
“I'm not sure the question of him becoming great ever entered into the equation in college,” says Dick Davey, the Santa Clara coach who signed Nash after watching the player at a youth tournament in Canada. “But he wanted to make it so bad and he worked so hard at getting better. I have often said he is deranged when it comes to the game. He was that dedicated to get to the next level. I don't know much about the history of the Hall of Fame, but it sure seems like he is doing some things that would warrant serious consideration.”
It sure seems an easy call. He's a lock, eh?
