“It wasn’t even in my mind,” Bell says. “That was a one-time thing. I’m okay. That will never happen again.”
The Suns win 121–90, becoming only the eighth team in NBA history to win a series after being down 3–1. The coaches exchange on-court congratulations, but the Laker players, with the exception of Jimmy Jackson, the former Sun, who had been waived, walk off without shaking hands, reportedly at the mandate of Bryant. The Detroit Pistons famously did the same thing after the Chicago Bulls swept them in the Eastern Conference finals in 1991. It was poor sportsmanship, but at least the Pistons, who had won the previous two championships, were somebody.
“So, let me get this straight,” says D’Antoni, when he gets back in the locker room, “the Clippers series is four-out-of-seven, right? Because this one we needed five.”
“Ah, hell, let it go,” says Gentry. “No, on second thought, don’t let it go.”
An exuberant Robert Sarver bursts into the room like a stripper out of a cake. “Well,” he says, “the price of doing business just went up.” He is referring to the exquisite performances of Barbosa (who made seventeen of his twenty-one shots in Games 6 and 7) and Diaw (who had twenty-one points and the same number of assists, nine, as Nash, in Game 7). The Suns hope to sign both of them to contract extensions in the off-season.
“And consider this, guys,” says Gentry, “those two guys who kicked the Lakers’ ass are twenty-three years old.” Nash describes it this way: “L.B. and Boris lost their virginity today.”
D’Antoni’s postgame speech is full of praise but carries a warning. “All right, guys, real quick. Unbelievable job. Down 1–3. Take tonight and savor it, but know we have the Clippers coming in on Monday. We know we can beat those guys so let’s put our minds at the point that Monday is the most important game we’ll play. One at a time. Keep it going. We kicked Laker ass. Now we’re going to kick Clipper ass, all right?”
Before the Suns can huddle, Nash, in his role as camp counselor, the guy who lets his charges tell dirty stories but ultimately has to turn out the lights, raises his hand. “I know it’s Saturday night and we should celebrate,” he says. “But we need a lot of rest. Let’s think about the next one.”
After the huddle, someone cranks up Young Jeezy at full volume. Kevin Tucker turns it down, and says, “The media will be coming in. We don’t want to be all ghetto.” But Marion protests, and Tuck turns it back up. “Guess we deserve it,” says the security man.
The great mystery of the game is why Bryant turned passive in the second half. He took only three shots, made none of them and scored one point. One theory is that, at halftime, Jackson had instructed Bryant to move the ball around since the one-man show hadn’t accomplished anything; so Kobe took it to the opposite extreme and gave Jackson the see-
what-happens-when-I-turn-it-over-to-these-clowns demonstration. Another theory is that weeks ago, after word had leaked out that Nash, not he, had been voted the league’s MVP, Bryant decided to become a ball distributor rather than a ball hog, to out-Nash Nash as it were. A third possibility is that Bell had finally gotten into Bryant’s head, that the grinding, never-ending mano a mano battle had finally extinguished Bryant’s seemingly indomitable will.
Logic says the latter theory is the least reliable, but it’s the one no doubt accepted by Raja’s mother. Out in the hallway, decked out in a replica of her son’s jersey, Denise Bell sees Bryant passing by en route to the postgame interview session.
“Kobe,” she says, reprising Bryant’s comments after Game 5, “do you need a hug?” Bryant glanced at her for a second but kept on moving.
In what seemed like a risky move, Jerry Colangelo had earlier that day scheduled a celebratory repast at Pizzeria Bianco, a few blocks from the arena.
“What if you had lost?” I ask Colangelo.
“I never considered that,” he says.
I climb into D’Antoni’s blue Porsche Carrera for the short ride. (He had bought it a month ago but for a week couldn’t bring himself to drive it to work because he feared it looked pretentious.)
“Are you sure this is safe?” I ask his wife, Laurel, who will be following in the family car.
“He drove a Maserati in Italy safely,” she says. “It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with him.”
The evening could hardly be more pleasant. Chris Bianco, whose restaurant has been rated the number one pizza eatery in the country by numerous sources, is a close friend, and he sends out plate after plate of food and bottle after bottle of wine. (Bianco is such a trusted soldier around the franchise that he sits in on Suns’ draft meetings. Last season, Gentry, in his first draft session with the team, pointed to Bianco and asked Dave Griffin, “Who’s that?” Griffin replied, “Oh, that’s the pizza guy.”) A large table has been set up outside and it’s a beautiful night. McMillan, a veteran of ninety-eight postseason games as a player, and Boeheim, who won an NCAA championship in 2003, enjoy the positive vibe coming off a winning team that is moving on. Krzyzewski can’t stop talking about how much fun it is to watch the Suns play.
“You do it like you’re supposed to do it,” he says to D’Antoni.
“Yeah, well, you’ve won a few big ones, too,” says D’Antoni.
“But never a Game 7,” says Krzyzewski.
After just forty-five minutes, though, D’Antoni rises and says his good-byes.
“It’s still early,” I say.
“Coaches will be in at seven tomorrow morning,” he says. “The Clippers are coming to town. Or maybe you forgot.”
Chapter Twelve
[The Second Season]
Phoenix, May 7……………….
GAME 1 CLIPPERS TOMORROW
“I remember looking out the window of our house, watching Steve shooting free throws in the rain.”
Today is Shawn Marion’s twenty-eighth birthday. Julie Fie remembered it on her way into work—“Thank God,” she says—and, in keeping with long-standing Suns’ tradition, bought a cake. When I asked Marion whether he had spent last night thinking about the series that had passed or the series that loomed ahead, he said, “Neither. I thought about my birthday.”
Today is also the day that Nash officially received his MVP trophy. In his prepractice briefing D’Antoni forgets to mention it, or never intends to mention it, but Brian Grant says, “Uh, Coach. Steve?” D’Antoni says: “Oh, congratulations to Steve. Man that’s great. It really is. But you heard Steve say it [Nash had already completed his press conference]—we’re a part of this. He couldn’t have done it without you guys. And I know he couldn’t have done it without me. [Everybody laughs.] No, I really mean it. Any individual award in a team sport is a team award. All of you guys should really, really be proud. Anything else?
“Oh, yeah, Shawn Marion. Today’s the day? Thirty? Twenty-eight? Congratulations, Shawn.” Marion gets an enthusiastic round of applause from his teammates, some of whom are sensitive to his feelings about being overshadowed by Nash. D’Antoni is relieved, in fact, that there was a reason to turn the spotlight on Marion on the day it should be on Nash. At that moment, Paul Coro is putting the finishing touches on a long story about Marion that will run in the next day’s Arizona Republic, next to columnist Dan Bickley’s more abbreviated piece about Nash and the MVP award.
Ninety minutes earlier, I had come upon Nash in an otherwise deserted locker room. He was standing in front of a mirror, brushing his teeth, preparing for his press conference to be carried live on NBA-TV. He wore jeans and a blue blazer, the latter his concession to the importance of the day. When the NBA dress code was announced, D’Antoni joked that “Steve will be in violation even when he’s dressed up.” On this day Nash looks like a middle school kid trying to spruce up (but not too much) for his first dance.
A pro sports team can have the best marketing and public relations people in the world, but if it doesn’t have a player or players fans can respond to, it will have an unfavorable image or no image at all. End of story. And though a team may
pick up a few bonus points because its coaches and reserves are nice guys, what really matters is that the best players—or, in most cases, player—connect to the masses. Nash is the Suns’ connector. Mike D’Antoni is popular, Shawn Marion is popular, and, by and large, Amare’ Stoudemire is popular. But the Suns’ generally positive image is tied to the fact that people generally like Nash—the unorthodox but unselfish player, the citizen-of-the-world benefactor.
Nash is involved in so many charities it is pointless to list them. Suffice to say that he makes a lot of money but gives a lot of money away, too, in Phoenix, in Dallas, in his native Canada, and in Paraguay, his wife’s homeland. He walks the walk. He puts his money where his mouth is. All those clichés. He is not the only Suns’ player to visit kids in cancer hospitals, but he is the one who counts, and, moreover, the one who truly communicates with the patients. He doesn’t pass through and give a few sad shakes of his head. He sits down with a young patient, asks what his or her treatment cycle is like, and then says, “Man, does that suck.” Being able to communicate like that is part gift, but he has worked on it, too.
During the season I received an unsolicited e-mail from Mike Fernandez, who produces a radio show in Dallas with which Nash had a regular gig for five years. Fernandez wrote: “Any time the Mavericks were home he came into the studio (this wasn’t part of his deal) to do the show…at 8:50 a.m.! He would do this even after a game the night before. How many athletes do you know will pick up a phone before 10 a.m.? He made everyone he came in contact with at the station feel good. Yes, he was getting paid. But he never took any money. The $10,000 a year we paid him went directly to the charity of his choice. When Steve left Dallas, it felt like a family member had passed away.”
A couple of reporters who dealt with Nash in Dallas find him patronizing, feel that he talks down to the media. I don’t get that. But a certain weariness comes through from time to time. In my view, Nash’s ability to seduce the press would be less notable if he were a headline hunter, but, frankly, I don’t think he enjoys his media responsibilities that much, certainly not the daily what-happened-today-that-didn’t-happen-yesterday? aspect of it. He sees it as part of his job description, and Steve Nash is going to do his job.
“Got a speech prepared?” I ask him as he finishes brushing.
“I guess I’ll just say thanks,” he says.
“I think the people will be expecting a little more than that,” I say.
“Well, I hate to disappoint them but…”
Nash proves to be charming, of course. He deflects credit to his coach and his teammates and, when someone asks him, predictably, what he thinks about when he considers the incalculable odds that an undersized kid from Canada would be a two-time MVP he says, “It’s so ridiculous that I try to see the humor in it.” My guess is, no MVP in any sport has ever given such an answer.
As a senior at St. Michael’s University High in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1991, Nash made the outrageous decision that he wanted to play in the NBA. He had by then abandoned his first loves, soccer and hockey—his first spoken word was goal—because basketball had seized his soul. “I happened to have a group of friends that loved basketball more than the so-called Canadian sports,” says Nash. “At the same time, the NBA was really, really big, with Magic, Michael, and Larry. So, for me, it was combustible. I totally fed into the game and totally fed into the hype machine. I don’t know if it would’ve happened at any other time. Maybe I would’ve kept on playing soccer and hockey.”
But, still, the NBA? There was sincere doubt that he was even the best basketball-playing Nash. His brother, Martin, younger by eighteen months, was a better natural athlete and a much more confident one. Both of them agree on that. They played together for one year in high school, Steve the workhorse point guard, Martin the cocky fireman who came off the bench. “I remember looking out the window of our house, watching Steve shooting free throws in the rain,” says Martin, a pro soccer player in Canada. “I didn’t do that. Look, I have no regrets. I played in three World Cup qualifiers. I had my chances. But with that little extra drive—that Steve drive—who knows?” Martin’s superior athleticism remains a joke between them. When Nash was named Canada’s outstanding athlete of 2005, Martin called him to offer congratulations and added, “But we both know the real truth, don’t we?”
No one, least of all Steve, can explain where the Steve drive came from. His father, John, played soccer in his native En gland and also in South Africa (where Steve was born), but he was, and is, “a rather laid-back guy who never pushed me at all.” Jean Nash supported her son in sports but was no stage mother. Though his basketball buds loved the game, none of them ever thought about taking it all the way. “How do you explain where drive comes from?” says Martin. “You can’t.”
It was one thing to have a dream, something else to realize it. Nash knew he would have to get himself to a Division 1-A program in the States but couldn’t get anyone interested, including Syracuse and the University of Washington, the two schools he had targeted. Nash would more than hold his own in all-star tournaments against top high school competition, then hear nothing. “I don’t want this to sound egotistical,” says Nash, “but what I heard later was that scouts and coaches just didn’t believe what they were seeing. It was too weird. A recruiter would see this average-sized white kid, and then he’d have to go back to campus and say, ‘Hey, I saw this kid from Canada,’ and before he finished everyone would say, ‘Hey, we got a thousand kids like that.’ ”
Finally, Dick Davey, an assistant at Santa Clara (now the head coach), believed what he saw. Nash got his scholarship. “It felt good, and I owe so much to Santa Clara,” says Nash. “But honestly? I wish it would’ve been Syracuse or Washington.”
Nash worked and worked and worked and got better and better. In the summers he played for Team Canada, first for the junior national team and then for the national team. It was then that Del Harris, who was about to become head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, became smitten with Nash’s see-the-whole-floor game while working as an advisor to the Canadians. “I remember it like it was yesterday,” says Harris. “I approached him and said, ‘Steve, you may not know it, but you’re an NBA player. You have a shot at having a good career. You remind me so much of a guy who nobody said could play named Mike Dunleavy.’ ” Nash remembers, too. “I had so many people who told me, ‘Give me a break,’ when I told them I wanted to be an NBA player. So when you hear someone from the NBA say it, it means a lot. When you’re on the borderline of making it, when you don’t have what everybody thinks you need to make it, it’s important to have someone who believes in you. It’s sometimes the most important thing.”
What Harris saw in Nash was the kind of court sense that Dunleavy used to carve out a solid eleven-year career with four teams. (And now Dunleavy will be strategizing to stop Nash in the second round.) That’s what the Suns saw when they made Nash the fifteenth pick of the ’96 draft, primarily to back up Kevin Johnson. Suns’ fans saw something else: A too-small Canadian from an obscure school. They booed the pick when it was announced at America West Arena.
During a rookie season of limited minutes, the Suns got Jason Kidd in a trade, and that seemed to spell doom for the Canadian Kid. “I figured I was the odd man out,” says Nash. But by then Danny Ainge had taken over for Cotton Fitzsimmons as coach and, being a freewheeling guard, Ainge liked small ball and he liked shooters. He frequently played a three-guard offense, Nash generally being the one to come off picks and shoot. “To this day,” says Nash, “one of my biggest accomplishments was getting minutes my second year.”
Eventually, though, the Suns’ brass didn’t see a tremendous upside to Nash and traded him to Dallas after the ’97–’98 season. And over the next six years Nash grew into the perfect point guard for the Mavs, which is both praise and indictment. He and his team were offensive-minded, always entertaining, and, once Nash and Dirk Nowitzki got their pick-and-roll game down, a pretty good team. But Nas
h was almost as well known for being somewhat of a novelty act. He took his off-season see-the-
world jaunts (“I wasn’t staying in five-star hotels, but I didn’t do the Europe-on-twenty-dollars-a-day thing either”). He was a fervent follower of En glish soccer and in particular Tottenham, the Premier League team in London that the Nashes have been following for generations. A reporter saw him reading The Communist Manifesto in the locker room and the tone of the subsequent can-you-believe-it? stories were along the lines of: Wow, a cat has been discovered writing lyrical poetry. “I just wanted to learn something about it,” says Nash. “I was surprised when it became that big of a deal.”
He took a lot of heat back in Texas—“the reddest of the red states,” as he puts it—for sporting a “No War: Shoot for Peace” T-shirt to a press conference at the 2002 All-Star Game in Atlanta. “But I got a lot of positive feedback, too, and I don’t regret it at all,” he says. “I’d do it again if the occasion arises. The idea was to get people talking, and that’s what happened, even if I was the target.”
He was the target again—for Phoenix—when Mark Cuban decided that Nash was expendable. And along came Mike D’Antoni.
This season, as Nash again orchestrated the D’Antoni seven-second offense with an aplomb that was exciting and effective—even without Stoudemire—the question that has spawned so much debate around the NBA last year surfaced again: Do Nash’s abilities make the D’Antoni philosophy a success? Or is the D’Antoni style responsible for the dramatic elevation in Nash’s game?
Hubie Brown, the respected commentator and former coach, belongs to the first camp, insisting that Phoenix’s style only works because Nash is engineering it. After all, in the three years before Nash came to Phoenix, the Mavericks also had the league’s top offense and Nash was running that show.
Sam Cassell, the Los Angeles Clippers point guard, against whom Nash will sometimes be matched in the Western semis, sees it otherwise: “The style they play, that’s number one for Steve Nash being as good as he is,” says Cassell. “The up-and-down style, when you’re a point guard, and the coach allows you the luxury to control the ball, that, right there, accomplishes it all.” Then, too, Nash wasn’t even mentioned in the MVP voting before he got to Phoenix.
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