Not many in the basketball world know Steve Nash as well as the man who drafted him.
Bryan Colangelo selected Nash 15th overall for the Phoenix Suns in the 1996 NBA Draft not knowing the type of player the Canadian would turn out to be.
“He is the Wayne Gretzky equivalent, if you will, in the basketball world,” the former Suns and Toronto Raptors general manager told Dean Blundell & Co. on Sportsnet 590 The Fan Monday. “He’s the best thing this country’s ever seen.”
Ironically, Nash wasn’t the player Colangelo had his heart set on heading into the ’96 draft.
“Our goal that year was to get Kobe Bryant,” Colangelo explained. “We were doing everything possible to trade up ahead of Charlotte (the team that ended up drafting Kobe 13th overall)…but when it came time to making our selection nobody would think that Steve Nash from Santa Clara would be a two-time MVP Hall of Famer point guard.”
Nash, 41, officially announced his retirement from basketball over the weekend after an 18-season career.
“He’s certainly just a very highly unusually talented basketball player,” Colangelo said.
Unusually talented indeed. Nash ranks third in NBA history with 10,335 assists. Only John Stockton and Jason Kidd are ahead of him. The eight-time all-star is also the NBA’s best free-throw shooter with a career 90.4 percent efficiency.
Although Nash represented Canada at the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics, many Canadian basketball fans wanted to see the Victoria, B.C. native finish his career with Canada’s lone NBA team, the Toronto Raptors.
There was an opportunity in 2012 for Colangelo and the Raptors to pursue Nash, however he ended up joining the Los Angeles Lakers in a sign-and-trade.
“Steve Nash said no to the Raptors that year that we were recruiting him as a free agent just three years ago now because he wanted to be near his family and that was the underlying reason,” said Colangelo, who still resides in Toronto despite leaving the franchise in 2013.
Nash never earned a championship ring, however Colangelo doesn’t feel that fact will tarnish the legacy he leaves behind.
“He’s one of the best players to never win a championship…I think Steve’s comfortable with the fact he didn’t win it because I know he did everything possible and laid out every ounce of effort that he needed to try to help his team. He did make his teammates better on and off the floor because everything he did reeked of professionalism across the board.
“Whether it was endless hours of individual shooting routines, diet and exercise, leadership on and off the floor, the things that he was committed to for the organizations he played for – the community and business-related conduct that he displayed – he was a leader and I think it all manifested itself on the court.
“He’s certainly a future first-ballot Hall of Famer.”
