It was a star-studded affair at halftime of the Suns-Blazers game Friday night in Phoenix as Steve Nash was inducted into his old franchise’s Ring of Honor. Connie Hawkins, Tom Chambers, Dan Majerle, Charles Barkley, Jerry Colangelo, Mike D’Antoni, and other Suns legends were all on-hand to help commemorate Nash’s highly-decorated tenure with the team.
Amazing moment. Phoenix Suns legend, Steve Nash gets inducted into the ‘Ring of Honor’ at Talking Stick Resort Arena https://t.co/DildhIasue
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 31, 2015
Colangelo recounted some of the highlights of Nash’s career, including the legacy he left behind on the league with the team’s famed “seven seconds or less” philosophy that in many ways anticipated the NBA’s current preoccupation with pace, floor-spacing, and three-point shooting. He ended by all but assuring Nash a place in another, more prestigious organization that honors legendary basketball players:
“Steve, you know I’m chairman of the Basketball Hall of Fame committee. I wanna say this to you without reservation. You will be a first-ballot electee,” Colangelo said.
It’ll be hard to argue with Colangelo about Nash’s Hall of Fame credentials. He was an eight-time All-Star, a two-time regular-season MVP, and is third all-time in assists behind only Jason Kidd and John Stockton. When they finally handed the microphone over to Nash to give his acceptance speech, he didn’t disappoint.
“This doesn’t feel real right now. I have a couple of things to admit. I didn’t prepare a speech, and they gave me a lot of drinks the last couple of hours.”
“I guess part of the reason why I didn’t write a speech is because I feel like I’m in my living room right now. So I felt like it might be a bit contrived to write something that couldn’t quite express how I feel, so I thought it would be good to just put myself on the spot and try to say the right thing.”
Nash went on to give a sprawling, heartfelt speech, which helped extend the halftime ceremony to nearly 40 minutes, at which point arena personnel eventually had to cut Nash off mid-speech, Academy-Awards-style, by dimming the lights and playing him off the stage with orchestra music.
