Steve Nash talks with regret, pride about Suns years

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — The only fitting aspect of Steve Nash discussing his retirement at the Lakers practice facility was that the building sits on Nash Street. Nash belongs to Canada — and Phoenix — in basketball lore. Just like when the Phoenix Suns drafted him in 1996, Nash strode to the platform Tuesday, decked out in suit and tie with his hair parted and partly shaved on the sides.

In 1996, he was a Canadian kid who walked into Phoenix, and the NBA, with an ordinary look but an extraordinary ability, which he used to evolve into an international basketball icon.

A decade of his career was spent in Phoenix, where his defining years earned him two NBA Most Valuable Player awards and three trips to the Western Conference finals.

"I think we were a championship-caliber team," Nash said of his Suns team that created the franchise's winningest era. "We didn't get there. We might've had a shot or two if we had stuck together."

Nash will have his day soon in Phoenix, when his Suns Ring of Honor induction is as much of a lock as his Naismith Basketball Memorial Hall of Fame enshrinement is for 2021.

This NBA farewell came a 10-minute drive from his Manhattan Beach home, where he has spent all of this season because the back issues he fended off in Phoenix finally overcame him at 41. He's been sidelined all of this season, his third while playing under the $28 million contract the Lakers gave him in 2012.

The Suns drafted Nash 15th overall in 1996, and he played two largely unremarkable seasons before being traded to Dallas. The Suns brought him back to Phoenix in 2004 after the Mavericks decided he could not sustain his level of play into his 30s with the congenital condition spondylolisthesis, which causes his vertebra to slip and trigger a hamstring nerve.

"Now I have about eight of them (back conditions)," Nash joked Tuesday.

He had to relearn the way he moved on a basketball court. He had to lie on the baseline when he rested during games, and he had to train like a madman without touching a ball in the summers.

That makes Nash's memories of Phoenix as much about sitting in ice baths or working out alone on the arena practice court as having five All-Star seasons with the Suns.

"To be able to play until I was 40 years old, I've rode this thing way past where my luck should have allowed me to get," Nash said.

"I've been lucky to be in this era. If I'd played in the '80s or before, I might've been done before I was 30."

He was deceivingly athletic, able to play soccer, hockey or rugby at a high level if he had not chosen to accept the only Division I scholarship offer he received — from Santa Clara. He changed speed with wizardry, shot better than shooting specialists and dribbled and passed ambidextrously, becoming No. 3 on the NBA's all-time assists list.

Nash changed the NBA for the better, helping to evolve from the defensive-dominated 1990s to an era of pass-first point guards that lives on today. The Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry, one of this season's leading MVP candidates, claims Nash as an influence for how he plays.

"To hear from those guys and have their support and respect is the ultimate," Nash said. "To walk away from the game with that respect and admiration is the greatest gift, to get it from peers and guys you admire."

Buried on the bench to begin his career in Phoenix and later booed when playing for Dallas, Nash hit his peak during the Suns' run-and-gun era while he was in his 30s, when most players are on a career downswing.

For two years in Phoenix, he was considered the best player on Earth, yet showed modesty when he had his teammates join with him onstage to accept his first MVP trophy.

"I simply want people to remember me as a competitor and a great teammate," Nash said. "That's it. Those are the two most important things."

Like any Suns fan, Nash can't help but think how close he came to not being the only MVP to end his career without a NBA Finals appearance.

"When you're knocking on the door in this league, it's so hard because the stakes get raised so much," Nash said. "There's so much expectation. There's so much criticism for not getting over the hump that sometimes we are maybe a little hasty in our decisions.

"Instead of keeping a core together maybe a little longer, you maybe say, 'Can we skip a step or a level here by making a move?' That's part of what makes the business so hard. I think, sometimes, it's as much the pressure surrounding the situation than it is the actual ideology inside the franchise."

Nash had a head start on NBA afterlife. During a career with $145 million in NBA earnings and more in endorsements, Nash learned to use his stature and wealth to delve into other arenas that would last longer: philanthropy, filmmaking and business.

He will have the ability to expend more energy on being general manager of Canada Basketball as well as his ownership stakes in Major League Soccer's Vancouver Whitecaps, a film production company, a chain of health clubs and a venture capital company.

Nash also will have more time with his son and twin daughters, who were the driving reason for him to come to Los Angeles to be close to them. In fact, they were the reason he had to cut short his post-press conference interviews so that he could pick them up from school.

What's next for Nash?

"Time and space," he said.

Reach Paul Coro at paul.coro@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him at twitter.com/paulcoro.

Steve Nash

Some superlatives for the Hall of Fame-bound point guard whose best years came as the leader of the Phoenix Suns.

•Two-time Most Valuable Player (2005, 2006).

•One of 12 multiple MVP winners.

•One of 10 consecutive MVP winners.

•Only repeat MVP winner shorter than 6 feet 6.

•Latest drafted player (No. 15 in 1996) to win MVP.

•Third all-time in assists (10,335).

•First all-time in free-throw percentage (90.4%).

•"Mr. 50-40-90" Only player to shoot 50 percent on field-goal attempts, 40 percent on 3-point attempts and 90 percent on free-throw attempts in four seasons (2005-06, 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10).

•Eight-time All-Star (2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012).

•Three-time first team All-NBA pick (2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07).

•Ranks first in assists (6,997), first in 3-pointers made (1,051) and third in games played (744) in Suns franchise history.

•Played on four Western Conference finals teams, including one in Dallas (2003) and three in Phoenix (2005, 2006, 2010).

19 NBA seasons, including 10 in Phoenix