SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — For the first time, Steve Nash is fed up enough to leave the Suns and continue his Hall of Fame career elsewhere next season.
A person very familiar with the mood of the rising unrestricted free agent relayed that distinct feeling to me shortly after the Spurs beat the Suns here Tuesday. He said Nash was pushed over the edge by management’s alleged apathetic pursuit of free agent Boris Diaw for the team’s final 18 games.
Nash confirmed his frustration yesterday on the Dan Patrick Show. “I’m not coming back to the Suns if there isn’t improvement,” he stated.
Why go public three weeks before the end of the season, while the 25-26 Suns are still in the playoff hunt, two games behind Houston, Denver and Utah (each 27-24) for the seventh and eighth spots?
If Patrick asked Nash that question, I can’t find his answer anywhere.
When you’re 38 and your limbs are running out of lubricant, it must be infuriating to be mired in mediocrity for a season. Still, despite the Suns doing nothing of consequence to upgrade, Nash internalized his dissatisfaction. Only after the team’s slim chance to make the postseason tournament was further reduced did he clear his throat and empty his lungs.
Nash wanted Diaw, short and snappy, and vigorously recruited him.
OK, so the recently bought-out Bobcat evidently is too soft in the middle for Paul Silas’ taste (Paul Simon remains undecided).
On the flip side, Diaw is a hardcore achiever at setting up the league’s leading assist assassin (11.2) and putting others in position to score. It’s a luxury the Suns conspicuously have lacked since Boris and Raja Bell were traded to Charlotte for Jason Richardson and Jared Dudley.
No disrespect to Grant Hill, but the veteran Frenchman is as close to being on the maestro’s savoir faire wave length as anyone he’s ever shared the ball with.
(I apologize to Brother Cyprian, my high school English teacher, for ending a sentence with a preposition).
Coach Alvin Gentry squawked last week about Nash not having an assisted living companion and overtly petitioned for one. Four shots, all blanks, in Wednesday night’s loss the Clippers is downright criminally negligent for someone Kobe Bryant recently stamped the league’s best shooter. He’s No. 7 (.537) in field goal percentage (.537), the lone guard in the top 16 before Dwyane Wade comes into play.
Why didn’t management make Diaw reappear?
A person with his hand on the Suns’ pulse, asserted Lon Babby was against revisiting the past, a message, if not in words, Diaw received loud and clear from agent Doug Neustadt following conversations with the team president and owner Robert Sarver.
Babby refutes my information. He says that the Suns simply got beat out by the (second best-in-the- West) Spurs, who had the long-time French national relationship of Tony Parker going for them.
“We spoke with Boris’s agent in a timely fashion to express our interest and were told he had decided to go to San Antonio,” Babby e-mailed.
Who knows, maybe the Suns would’ve signed Diaw? However, had it happened, it would’ve been begrudgingly. That was the impression Diaw got, my source contended.
“He did not want to be where he was unwanted (by the front office ),” the same source underlined.
In that case, there was no future in Phoenix this season or beyond.
At the same time, there’s the real possibility of a championship to be won by San Antonio, in addition to a playoff platform for Diaw to improve his stained image.
No longer willing to play it cute or stay quiet, an exasperated Nash now declares he’ll leave the settling Suns and enlist with a title contender if drastic home improvements aren’t made early in July.
How can they not be? The Suns have more cap room — $31,582,020 — than any other team. The Cavaliers are next, 295G behind.
If Sarver hopes to fill United Airlines Arena and its suites, keep sponsors and draft additional advertisers, he has no choice but to conscript a rising star or two. Or go young altogether, wish Nash good luck on the way out of the desert, and revamp that much quicker with the money saved.
When asked by Patrick about possibly linking with LeBron, Nash said he’d definitely listen if the Heat came-a-courtin’.
Surely he’s aware they’re capsized and luxury-payers for 2012-13.
Of course, you’ve got to believe someone who has earned monster money over the course of his career could make do on a mid-exception salary ($5M) for a year or two.
Of course, a better story would be Nash having to reconcile with his wife to make ends meet.
In any event, I realize it’s just idle radio chatter for the moment, but when all this shakes out, I trust Nash will come to his senses regarding the Heat.
If there’s one thing LeBron and Wade do not want is someone taking the offensive responsibility out of their hands. Yup, they’ll really enjoy having the spotlight taken off them as they move without the ball while Nash pounds the leather 90 percent of the time.
Yeah, that’s them.
That’s why Mario Chalmers is an ideal match, a defensively disruptive long-ball hitter whose steals start a fast break he can lead or finish, and has the ball enough to average three or four assists.
Miami does not need a point guard, an aging one at that whose coverage isn’t exactly deductible.
Nash’s specialty is conducting the pick-‘n-roll. He may be the best ever, more effective and efficient even than John Stockton. If his intent is to continue to wake up warm every day, and the Suns are ruled out, the potential teammate he should be talking up is Dwight Howard.
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So, offers column chondriac Richie Kalikow, “Magic Johnson maximized his business acumen and will be an owner of the Dodgers. On a related note, Antoine Walker has the financing in place to be the owner of a new baseball cap.”
For months, column contributor Sam Lefkowitz has bombarded me with e-mails arguing Carmelo Anthony is more valuable at the four than the three. As usual, he’s on to something long before me.
“Melo is virtually un-guardable at the four while taking away the opponents’ help defense. Plus, he rebounds better from the four, certainly better than Amar’e. What’s more, Tyson Chandler becomes a better player when Melo is at the four.”
FYI: Lefkowitz also has insisted forever the Knicks and Amar’e are better off when he plays the five.
Who does Mike Brown think he is, ordering NBA players around in the NBA? Did he not get the memo about this being a player’s playground? First, he benched Kobe for an extended time during the fourth quarter of a home loss to Utah. Then, after Andrew Bynum hoisted an insalubrious third quarter three at Golden State —in a game the Lakers squandered a big lead, then came back to win — he earned a nine-minute seat cushion. I haven’t seen so many stars get smeared since McCarthyism.
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Talks concerning Michael Heisley’s sale of the Grizzlies to Larry Ellison —unflustered by the cost of breaking long-term leases — appears to have hit a snag. Seems the Oracle Founder, not so long ago outbid ($415M) for the Warriors, wants to move the team to San Jose…and retire Dionne Warwick’s album. “You mean I may be packin’ again!” Gilbert Arenas exclaimed.
BTW: It might interest the citizens of Oakland to know Commissioner David Stern was in the next town Wednesday to inspect building plans and the site for the Warriors’ planned arena in San Francisco. All that’s left on their relocation is the impending official announcement.
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I’m ecstatic Danny Manning got the Tulsa job. I spent a lot of time around Danny and his family when he played for the Suns. Identifying this class act was easy. Can’t think of anyone I’d rather have coach my son. It’s awfully nice, too, to see that Danny received congratulatory phone calls from long-lost brothers Eli and Peyton.
And we should be taking Orlando seriously because? Proving last week’s three-dozen-point loss to undermanned Chicago was no fluke, Stan Van Gundy’s galoots stunk up the Garden. How is it possible for any team to allow an opponent to score 21 unanswered points, you ask? Van Gundy was waiting for Mike D’Antoni to help with in-game adjustments.
The reason there’s rampant speculation that the Blazers are for sale is because there’s rampant speculation Paul Allen’s cancer is back for the third time.
Column castigator Frank Drucker reports the pressure of the Final Four must be getting to John Calipari. “He just denied he’s interested in the Kentucky job.”