We’re on a dicey ledge here, so hang on to the wall, won’t you?
Steve Nash is the superstar you want on your team. While everyone from LeBron James to Dwight Howard to Carmelo Anthony to Rip Hamilton have either left their teams or threatened to leave their teams, Nash is bypassing any and all option to escape Phoenix and their plummeting prospects of relevance. From ESPN:Nash insisted again this week, as he lunched on five-bean soup and the healthiest of chopped salads at one of his go-to temples for food purity, that he won’t be lobbying Suns owner Robert Sarver and new team president Lon Babby to send him to a contender.
“Maybe I’m old school,” Nash said, “but I signed a contract to play here and I want to honor it. I feel like I owe it to my teammates and the city and everybody to keep battling until they tell me it’s time to go.”
via Weekend Dime: Suns set on keeping Nash - ESPN.
Nash goes on to say he’s committed to the franchise, committed to the fans. Pretty much everything you’d want to hear from your superstar instead of the endless refrain of “I want to win a championship” which is always bereft of actual responsibility for said title.
But then, isn’t this the kind of non-obsessive drive for glory that we so often harangue athletes for? Don’t we idolize Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and Kevin Garnett because they’ll quite simply do anything to win? Don’t we revere Garnett for ditching Minnesota for a shot to win a title, and chalk up Kobe Bryant’s 2007 trade request to “just being Kobe?” So if we praise that kind of disregard for fan, franchise and contract, shouldn’t we abhor Nash’s settling for losing?
But then, as always, it comes back to LeBron. We don’t mind if you ditch your team, we mind how you ditch your team. Middle of the night in a trade request? Fine and dandy. National television? We mind a lot. And for Nash, who so many still hold some sort of ridiculous resentment over two MVP trophies that, regardless of whoever else’s accomplishments those years, he was more than worthy of, he’ll continue to be underrated, and be held out of reach of a title, the only thing that can truly validate a magnificent career.
In the end, though, Nash is fine with that. He doesn’t need our approval, our praise, our excuses. He’s able to look himself in the mirror and be proud of his career. And that’s worth enough in and of itself.