Okay, I think before they went out West I thought 8-11 by December 2nd; I'm a terrible prognosticator, so tomorrow night's game against the Wizards is big for me. Real big.
Anyway, I'll take a break from the Raptors and go all Nash today. So. . .
One game, some things, v3.18, Nash edition:
Being a fan of the NBA in Canada or certainly covering the NBA in Canada, you can't help but become kind of an amateur Nashologist. As his career continues in an almost uniformly positive and surprising way - speaking for myself anyway - I'm not sure he's fully appreciated here or anywhere else.
This is obviously an odd comment, given that he's twice an NBA MVP and celebrated here as the best basketball player Canada has ever produced, hands down.
But think about it: Do his fans in the United States really understand how rare and unusual his background is? There are smalltown heroes all over the United States, but even in most of those places there is an infrastructure - coaching, tradition, precedent - that can identify talent and push it upwards. In Canada a means to elevate a kid like Nash hadn't really been invented yet. The odds of this guy making it are staggering, as evidence by the fact he's only person in Canadian history to have had an impactful NBA career (Jamaal Magloire's excuse-me all-star appearance, with all due respect, doesn't quite cut it) and there's been no threat of one really since he arrived. That may be changing and I know there's a lot of excitement about the young kids in the pipeline, but there's a long road before any of them are earning multiple NBA all-star selections, MVP awards and Hall of Fame consideration.
Similarly, have Canadians quite grasped how good Nash is and was? I'm not sure I did. But believe me, the next time a true freshman leads a no-name NCAA school to one of the biggest upsets in NCAA tournament history; I will pay attention. The next time a six-foot-twp point guard dominates his conference; I will pay attention; the next time he gets picked in the middle of the first round of the NBA draft, I will pay attention. The next time he lifts Canada to a seventh-place finish at the Olympic Games with a 5-2 record, I will pay attention. Not that I didn't the first time around, but I think we all understand the context of those achievements much better now than we did before for any number of reasons.
I have no problem making an argument that Steve Nash is the best athlete in Canadian history, bar none. No one else is even close (and I say this with a full measure of respect to Gretzky, Ferguson Jenkins, Larry Walker; Mario; Clara Hughes; Mike Weir and many others). I'd be very surprised if he doesn't go down as Canada's athlete of the 21st century. Over time he should be to Canada what Babe Ruth or Johnny Unitas is to the United States: part of a nation's mythical fabric; an archetype against which others are measured and compared.
Okay, not sure where that came from, but where I was trying to get to before I interrupted myself was simply this: I've spent a lot of time watching the guy and thinking about him, and yesterday after the game he said something really illuminating.
The point had been made that the Raptors had thrown several different types of coverages at him: switching everything, going under screens; trapping him. As Jay said, the tactics would seem to work first time around but otherwise they were all equally ineffective.
This was Nash's answer to how he manages to decipher defence regardless of what scheme is laid in front of him: "You have to be flexible. Because if you pre-determine what you're going to do that's when you make the wrong decision...If you make the right read and you score they're going to adjust to that and if there's a new read to be made you have to be flexible and not pre-determine what you're going to do [next]
In other words, Nash's secret is that every time he comes down the floor, he doesn't really know what he's going to do; he's making it up. Think of how confident you have to be in your ability to free up your mind to play that way. Seriously. That's like Zen or something. Most of us spend the bulk of our energy making sure we know what do to and when. This seems very important to almost every body. Everything's a fire drill. Nash is saying "hey, set everything on fire, I'll react accordingly; could be fun." He's spent all this time working on his skills and his fitness and been rewarded with the confidence of a $500-million organization to let you - expect you - to go out and make things up as you go along.
It makes perfect sense - how do you defend someone's imagination? But the next time a Canadian basketball player makes the NBA and earns that kind of respect, let me know; I'm not sure we'll ever see it again.