“I didn’t have a Steph to say, that’s possible,” Steve Nash told Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star before Saturday’s Warriors – Raptors tip. Golden State will be looking to extend their history-making win streak to 21, after surpassing the previous high of 16 early last week. Their next step(h) towards history will have to come at the Air Canada Centre and so it made sense Arthur would check in with the two-time MVP and Canada’s greatest basketball player ever.
Nash isn’t just tied to the Warriors because they’re playing in Toronto Saturday night. He joined their organization during the offseason as a player-development consultant, the sort of amorphous job title that lets him pick and choose his responsibilities. Despite the timing, he was quick to deflect any credit for their hot start during his discussion with Arthur.
“I would cringe if I got any credit for what he’s doing,” Nash told Arthur over the phone from the home he keeps in Los Angeles.
For NBA fans, Nash’s place as the focal point of Phoenix’s acclaimed, sprint-happy offense — immortalized, honored and appointed by Jack McCallum in Seven Seconds or Less — offers up compelling evidence he could be Curry’s on-court progenitor; Nash was a supremely skilled point guard without overwhelming athleticism whose one-man fast break and pick-and-roll heavy tenor turned the league inside-out from the post- and iso-heavy days of yore to the whiplash-inducing side-to-side perimeter ball movement and three-point shooting we see in today’s game. After Nash rearranged the offensive blueprint with Mike D’Antoni in Phoenix, Nash has escalated it even further and at a seemingly exponential rate that’s left fans and analysts in delight and awe.
Despite his place in NBA history, Nash is like the rest of us when we watch what Curry is doing this season. The impossibility of Steph’s shot making is just as impressive for the two-time MVP whose prime was a year-by-year study in flirting with the 50/40/90 club (50 percent shooting, 40 percent from three, and 90 from the stripe).
“It looks easy, but the shots he takes are insane,” says Nash. “The speed, range, dexterity, going left, going right, leaning, fading. It feels like the possibilities are limitless. I feel like I could shoot the ball in as wide an array of ways as anybody, but he’s been able to do it with more range and more speed. It’s remarkable. It’s the evolution of the game. I don’t think we’ve ever seen anybody be able to do this.”
Nash isn’t someone used to hyperbole or embellishment, and he knows better than almost anyone the level of skill and hand-eye coordination necessary to turn an entire half court into a DMZ zone littered with possible 3-point land mines.
“It’s almost like I didn’t know what Steph is doing was possible. Because I’d never seen it. He’s taken the things that those ahead of him did, and expanded on them at a rate that’s unbelievable. Some of the shots he takes, 10 or 20 years ago you would have said, what is he doing? I think he’s the most skilled player we’ve ever had, as far as all-around skill.”
But the highest compliment Nash gave the 2015 MVP was the quote Arthur ended his article with. Nash wants a do-over, so he had someone like Steph to echo growing up.
“I wish I was 13, starting out, so I could emulate him.”
That’s a two-time MVP, one of the greatest point guards ever, but when talking about Steph, he’s just as prone to gushing as the rest of us.
