Sports

Timing of Nash split couldn’t be worse

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Divorce stories these reality-disfigured days normally generate a heated rush of page-turning. They’re as monotonous as the bores getting unshackled.

Leave it to a pair of dreadfully imaginative, privileged point guards to reverse that tendency and appropriate our unadulterated attention.

Within the last week, we alternately have been taken aback, titillated and turned off by Steve Nash’s startling divorce announcement the day after his wife gave birth to their third child and first son (earthquakes have more tender timing), and Tony Parker’s code of misconduct involving the exiting wife of a former teammate.

Sandra Bullock says Alejandra Amarilla, Eva Longoria and Brent Barry should have seen this coming.

In stark, raving reality, all three people did get a heads-up, but not until their marriages were too messy or recurring, in the case of Nash’s wife, anyway, to clean up.

In a terse statement released to a checkmated Phoenix press corps that has given its audience nothing more than spoon-fed, bare-bone particulars, Nash admitted the couple — wed in 2005, a year after twins, Lola and Bella were born — has been separated for more than two months.

Had Nash waited a while to run the pick-and-roll out of his wife’s life, he hardly would have aroused suspicion of how badly their marriage had failed. But he was out of there and back on defense before his wife’s episiotomy sutures were removed. Talk about post-partum depression.

Had such an extreme situation involving a world-class athlete unspooled in need-to-know New York, the dirty lowdown would’ve seeped out within days, if not weeks, before the fact accompanied by quotes, some even attributable, from snitches of all shapes and sizes.

How long do you think it would’ve taken before a picture of the 7-pound, 7-ounce bouncing boy, Matteo, was splashed across a front page or two?

On the other hand, the media here has avoided digging for dirt on Nash and asking loaded questions in fear of finding a key to his skeleton closet that would stain his wholesome image and, worse yet, terminate access to the state’s most captivating public figure.

Still, surely someone — a gossip columnist, Suns beat writer, opportunistic reporter who just happened to be out and about working on his own night moves — must’ve stumbled upon the knowledge that this wasn’t the couple’s first separation.

Two seasons ago, I’ve learned and confirmed, Alejandra returned to Paraguay with their girls for 6-8 weeks. I’m told she left Steve to decide whether he wanted to be a family man or to continue living by the sword.

Obviously, they worked it out … albeit temporarily. Hopefully, Nash’s next press release will explain what the unsolvable problem was this time.

That brings us to Parker, the latest cheating heart to get caught sexting … in this case, back and forth, with Erin Barry. Apparently the frisky Frenchman can go non-stop for hours.

Shutting out for the moment the inescapable hurt and embarrassment felt by innocent family members caused by abject selfishness, have we learned nothing from Tiger Woods? Or even Richard Nixon, for that matter?

Delete or shred and you don’t have to deny and deny. Had Parker been messaging Rosemary Woods, the public wouldn’t be looking at him (or Brin) as such a slimeball.

It’s bad enough to communicate behind your spouse’s back, but even more insulting to pursue a relationship so incompetently. If you don’t even take the meager step to contaminate the crime scene, you really must not care.

“This is really upsetting,” lamented a single (plain) friend of a friend. “If a man can’t be faithful to someone who looks like Eva, how I am ever going to find a man I can trust?”

I told her she was looking at it all wrong. “If you marry a Frenchman who’s also an NBA player, and you have a long-distance relationship, you are pretty much playing monogamy Russian roulette. I mean, what are the odds?”

As lopsided, as well as TMZ’s initial report, I submit. Parker was not first to file for a split. Disrespected woman cannot be beaten to divorce court. Everyone knows Parker simply would have surrendered.

Meanwhile, Spurs fans can’t stop rumor-mongering. Wound-up Gregg Siegel exclaimed, “This has to be the most exciting off-the-ball news for us since Walter Berry was riding shotgun with Mike Tyson during his infamous pre-dawn fistfight with Mitch ‘Blood’ Green outside Dapper Dan’s in Harlem!”

Spurs publicity director Tom James must be longing for the Dennis Rodman-Madonna era.

Just for the record, I did not purposely come here to snoop, dog or invade Nash’s privacy. Yesterday afternoon, Joe Caldwell, a treasured friend from our ABA attachment in the early-to-mid-’70s, had his Arizona State No. 32 retired before the school’s home opener against UAB.

The 6-foot-5 gold medallist in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was the highest-drafted Sun Devil (No. 2 by the Pistons in ‘64), and his points (1,515) are the third highest (to Byron Scott and Seabern Hill) for a three-year player. However, it was the strong-armed guard’s paralyzing coverage that put him on a pedestal.

Ask Walt Frazier who was the most unyielding defender he ever faced. I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t list Pogo Joe one or two.

A charter member of Arizona State’s Hall of Fame (‘75), Caldwell got downright emotional nonetheless when coach Herb Sendek notified him of his latest honor.

“I was speechless,” Caldwell said. “It took a few minutes for my tongue and mind to find the words to thank him.”

It’s people like Pogo Joe, who returned to ASU three decades later to get his degree, who make me thank God for my life as a sportswriter.

peter.vecsey@nypost.com