Steve Nash

Los Angeles Lakers' Steve Nash speaks at a news conference, Tuesday, March 24, 2015, in El Segundo, Calif. Nash announced his retirement Saturday, March 21, 2015 after a 19-year NBA career that included two MVP awards. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

(Jae C. Hong)

Jay Triano had a chance to coach the best Canadian basketball player of all-time and told him to go play somewhere else.

Triano, now an assistant coach with the Portland Trail Blazers, advised 18-year old Steve Nash that he'd be better off playing for another coach, beginning a 20-year friendship of two of Canada's most important basketball figures.

Nash, 41, retired Tuesday after 18 NBA seasons. He told reporters he isn't exactly sure what he'll do now that he's officially done playing, but it will no doubt include an involvement with Canada's national basketball team.

Nash has been the General Manager of the Canadian men's basketball team since 2012. He brought Triano back on as Canada's head coach in 2012 with hopes to revamp the program. Their basketball careers have been linked since Nash was a teenager and it started thanks to honest advice and a boat delay.

Triano was the head coach at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia and when Nash came on a recruiting visit Triano didn't beg Canada's top prospect to stay home.

"I actually told him he had a better chance of finding out how good he was if he went to Santa Clara," Triano said. "I told him 'Go there. Find out how good you can be. If it doesn't work out, come back and play for me.'"

Nash had plenty of reason to trust Triano, a former Canadian Olympic team captain and basketball icon. When Triano and Nash ended the recruiting visit, their ferry to Vancouver Island was delayed.

That ferry delay might have been a defining moment in Canadian basketball history.

"We just shared all our goals and dreams," Triano said. "He said 'I want to play in the Olympics.' I said, 'I want to coach in the Olympics.'"

"Nine years later we walked into the opening ceremonies together."

In 1998, Triano became the head coach of the Canadian men's basketball team and two years later he and Nash were together at the Olympic games in Sydney, Australia.

Nash had struggled to find his place in the NBA during his first three seasons, but after leading Canada to a 5-2 record in Sydney his career blossomed.

"After the Olympics in 2000 his career kind of took off," Triano said. "I don't know whether it was a confidence thing from leading Canada, but all of a sudden he came back and he just started getting better and better and better."

Nash averaged 8.6 points and 4.8 assists in the 1999-00 NBA season. In the season following his Olympic summer, he averaged 15.6 points and 7.3 assists. Over the next decade, he became Canada's most decorated basketball player, earning eight All-Star trips and winning back-to-back MVP awards.

Triano cited Nash's obsessive commitment to improvement and his forward-thinking approach as catalysts for Nash's success.

"His game just kept evolving and he kept getting better," Triano said. "He was never a guy that was satisfied with what he was doing so he kept working on his game."

"One year he came into camp in the summer and I said, 'Man, you look light. You've lost weight.' He says, 'The NBA's changed the rules and you can't touch guys anymore. They're trying to create more offense so I had to lose weight to be quicker.' He always was forward thinking that way."

Now that Nash's playing career is over, his life will present new avenues for his forward thinking. He has a charity foundation, a film production company and, of course, he'll help run Canada's national basketball team.

This summer the Triano-coached Canadian team will have a chance to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics at the FIBA Americas Championship in Mexico. Canada has not reached the Olympics since Nash and Triano first teamed up in 2000, but that streak should end in 2016.

Canada is in the middle of a golden age for young basketball talent, and this summer's team could feature a slew of NBA players, including former No. 1 overall picks from Minnesota, Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett as well as Cleveland's Tristan Thompson, San Antonio's Cory Joseph, Boston's Kelly Olynyk, Sacramento's Nik Stauskas and the Lakers' Robert Sacre.

The team's core is very young -- at 25 Sacre is the oldest -- and are the perfect age to have grown up during the Canadian basketball boom. Canada got its first NBA teams 1995 when the Raptors and Grizzlies franchises started in Toronto and Vancouver.

Triano credits two things for popularizing basketball in Canada and effectively ushering in this group of Canadian hoopers: Vince Carter, who was the first bonafide NBA star playing north of the border; and Nash.

"A lot of these young players were guys that really watched Steve as kids. He kind of paved the way," Triano said. "He let them know it's okay to be Canadian and be really good."

-- Mike Richman

mrichman@oregonian.com | 503-221-8162 | @mikegrich