Your inbox approves Men's coaches poll Women's coaches poll Play to win 25K!
LAKERS
Steve Nash

Steve Nash deserves better ending than this back injury

Sam Amick
USA TODAY Sports
Steve Nash pumps his fist after a basket for the Suns in Game 5 of the 2010 Western Conference finals vs. the Lakers.

At his height — 6 feet, 3 inches of Canadian creativity and competitiveness — there was no better point guard.

Steve Nash was the Everyman who made the most of what he had, the two-time MVP whose whirling-dervish ways during those desert days with the Phoenix Suns were some of the most memorable of his generation. The wispy, floppy-haired kid couldn't get the attention of top recruiters in high school but played his way to NBA fame by way of Santa Clara University, a school more known for soccer talent (such as Brandi Chastain) than hoops heroes (Nash and Los Angeles Lakers legend Kurt Rambis).

Nash's three years in Laker Land have been anything but legendary, and the Thursday announcement that he's done for the season with nerve damage in his back is painful in ways that go far beyond his medical diagnosis. He deserves a better final chapter than this.

While a person with knowledge of Nash's situation insisted that he has not given up on the idea of continuing his career, there's a better chance of Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard reuniting than of Nash overcoming this latest obstacle. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation.

Nash already was a shell of himself, having played in just 15 games in the 2013-14 campaign and 50 games the season prior, when his decade of durability came to an end. And now, with Nash owed $9.7 million in this, the last year of his contract, he becomes the unofficial poster boy of the Lakers' well-chronicled demise.

All things Lakers: Latest Los Angeles Lakers news, schedule, roster, stats, injury updates and more.

But there will be plenty of time to reflect on the July 2012 sign-and-trade that brought Nash to Los Angeles and couldn't have been more disastrous. Now is the time to remember all those good times that came before he headed (further) west.

Just hours before the news about Nash would be revealed, a fellow national NBA reporter and I were reminiscing about the beautiful basketball played in those 2010 Western Conference finals between Nash's Suns and Bryant's Lakers. Nash and Amar'e Stoudemire were still at their pick-and-roll peak, and Bryant — who was still running with Pau Gasol and Metta World Peace — was his "Black Mamba" self.

Game 3 had looked like the turning point, with Nash — who had one of his many mangled-nose moments when his face collided with Derek Fisher's head, giving him a nasal fracture — leading the way with 17 points and 15 assists in the first of two wins that evened the series.

For all the talk of Mike D'Antoni's seven-seconds-or-less glory days in Phoenix, these Alvin-Gentry-led Suns had the look of a title-worthy team that could have gone on to beat those Boston Celtics that June. But they lost in six games, and the Lakers went on to win their 16th championship.

The fulfillment in covering that series wasn't (solely) tied to the fantastic weather in the respective locales. There also was the beauty of the basketball that Nash played every time out. Suns fans adored him, as did his teammates, and the media would marvel nightly at his probing, playmaking and sharpshooting ways.

The idea of Nash and Bryant as a dynamic duo — so different in their styles but so similar in their dedication and toughness — made plenty of sense back then. Lest the hindsight's-20-20 crowd forget, Sports Illustrated put Nash and fellow new Lakers addition Howard on their preseason cover with the headline of "Now this is going to be fun" for good reason.

All of which makes it so much more surprising that it all unraveled so quickly not long after.

Say what you will about Father Time and how he's still undefeated, but the 38-year-old version of Nash that came to the Lakers had spent the previous season having a historically-efficient season. He was an All-Star for the eighth time, one who late in the season was threatening to break assist-percentage records set by John Stockton when he had been a decade younger.

"I didn't think I'd ever play this long, let alone feel as well," Nash said back then. "I sacrifice a lot, and I work hard to try to stay at a high level, and to be rewarded (with another All-Star berth) was actually kind of special.

"I think when I was 26 or 27, I thought I'd be done [playing] by the time I was 32, 33, 34. I never thought I'd play forever. I always thought time would catch up with me."

That time, sadly, appears to have finally come.

Featured Weekly Ad