Steve Nash Internet Day!

In a perfect world Steve Nash's 10 points in the final 3 minutes of last night's game in Dallas would have once again been the crowing glory on a great team performance. Instead his two clutch three's in the final 50 seconds only served to make the final score look more respectable and make his peers look a tad bit more mortal.

At 35 Nash is having the best statistical season of his career putting up eye-popping numbers that exceed those that won him two MVP's. While a bit stagnant over the past five games, the Suns offense still leads the league in efficiency as has been the case for every Nash-lead team over the past nine seasons.

For those who love and appreciate the NBA, Nash personifies all that is right in our world and he's shocking us this season by getting even better. He's more assertive as a leader, more accountable as a defender and as lovable as ever as human being. We owe Steve Nash a debt of gratitude for playing a major role in making the game what it is.

In true Internet fashion will not wait to find out if we are witnessing the final spasms of his great career or simply another step on his improbable climb to unbelievable heights. We honor him today while at the peak of his prowess for what he's brought and for what he might yet bring.

Today NBA writers from around the globe will join us in celebrating this quiet Canadian assassin. Throughout the day we will collect and share those musings starting with these from past days and far away places.

[Note by Phoenix Stan, 12/11/09 9:03 AM MST ]

• Steve Nash Day Contest Winners! - Bright Side Of The Sun
• Steve Nash: The Samson of His Time? - Bright Side Of The Sun
  More Hair=Better Steve Nash, It's Science.
• Thoughts on Steve Nash - Bright Side Of The Sun
  True story: Back at the end of the 2003-2004 NBA season, Erick Dampier and Steve Nash became free agents. Erick Dampier was coming off a never-to-be-matched-again career year in Golden State averaging 12.3 ppg and 12.0 rpg. He looked like a beast of a big man who had finally broken through. Steve Nash was a good-but-not-great point guard coming off a fairly average year with the Mavs averaging 14.5 ppg and 8.8 apg. I desperately wanted one of these players on the Suns. It was not Steve Nash. And when the Suns did sign Steve Nash to a 6-year $63 million deal I nearly lost my mind.
• The awesomeness that is Steve Nash - Bright Side Of The Sun
  Do you fully understand the awesomeness that is Steve Nash? It took a close encounter for this blogger to come to grips with it.

[Note by Phoenix Stan, 12/10/09 11:09 AM MST ]

• Court Surfing - The Score
  In addition to being able to play basketball much better than any of us, Steve Nash might be smarter than we are, too. He's also very likely to be wittier, more clever and fun. He has the ability to captivate a room, sometimes without trying. He's the guy you'd want to be your best friend, hanging out in a bar while watching basketball or soccer or anything else that allows you to drink beer, cheer at the screen and smile. He does all of this, while looking like the guy next door. Oh yeah, he's Canadian, too.
• Steve Nash’s Renaissance in the Desert | Hoops Addict
  We watched Phoenix struggle to improve defensively and try in vain to incorporate the likes of Shaquille O’Neal. Some of the blame justifiably went to Nash. But we’re seeing a renaissance in the desert this season, and once more seeing Nash’s greatest asset: a genius for getting the best out of teammates that would not otherwise be stars. Best of all, we’re getting to see him do it with a love for the game that’s highly visible. Somehow the love many of us had for basketball as kids hasn’t escaped from Nash.

[Note by Phoenix Stan, 12/09/09 2:47 PM MST ]

• Steve Nash Internet Day - Clips Nation
  I first saw Steve Nash play basketball when he was a 19 year old freshman at Santa Clara University, during the WCC tournament in March of 1993. The tournament was held in San Francisco that year, and my dad and I flew up to watch our beloved Pepperdine Waves compete. This was before Gonzaga had become a perennial power, and at the time Pepperdine was the dominant team in the conference.
• No Game Is an Island: Old Friends » The Two Man Game
  The Seven Seconds or Less system is as much Nash’s as it is Mike D’Antoni’s, and though Pringles is coaching in the Garden these days (where the grass isn’t quite greener), Alvin Gentry has made it his mission to return the Suns to their roots. Watching Phoenix this season has been a treat, and even though having a competitive Suns team isn’t great news for the Mavs in terms of the playoff race, it’s terrific that Dallas again has another foil.

[Note by Phoenix Stan, 12/09/09 1:19 PM MST ]

• Basketball Prospectus | (the ball might, but the numbers don't lie)
  What that study lacked was a way to measure Nash alongside his peers. It was possible that Nash’s passing did in fact make his teammates better, but that this was common for point guards. Now, thanks to the regularized adjusted plus-minus offered by hoopnumbers.com, we can make this comparison. In addition to the standard overall, offensive and defensive plus-minus numbers we’ve seen in the past, hoopunumbers.com offers breakdowns of how players impacted their team’s performance in each of Dean Oliver’s Four Factors using the 2006-07 through 2008-09 seasons. When it comes to shooting (as measured by effective field-goal percentage), the leader by a mile is Nash.
• Suns Player's Section - Nash Intro from Suns.com
• Happy Steve Nash Internet Day!| Valley of the Suns
  How often do we in life perform an act for the pure sake of getting credit for that act, such as giving to charity purely for the recognition of doing a good deed. Or how often do we help somebody at work because we want to be seen helping that person rather than helping them purely for the sake of helping them, no strings attached? On this very Steve Nash Day we should all think about doing fewer things to boost ourselves and doing more thing to be like Steve Nash.

[Note by Phoenix Stan, 12/09/09 8:53 AM MST ]

• Basketbawful
  Human words cannot possibly do this picture justice.
• Steve Nash: The Guy Who Rescued The NBA? - SB Nation
  But there was also Nash really bursting onto the scene. He was the counterculture leader, the quarterback of the electrifying Seven Seconds Or Less offense. He was the model teammate, the model superstar and the model, well, role model. He was a far cry from some of the previous "faces" of the league that came across as arrogant, uncaring and spoiled to many.

[Note by Phoenix Stan, 12/09/09 6:30 AM MST ]

• KTAR.com - Green: Nash has brought excitement
  How far will the Suns go, now, with Nash? That remains to be seen. But where he took them in the past was thrilling, where he has them now is entertaining, and I'm excited to see how the rest of his career in Phoenix plays out.
• The Making of a Master Point Guard: How Exactly Does Strength Matter for Great Point Guards? - Swish Appeal
  When I asked the women’s basketball coaches in Seattle for Thanksgiving tournaments last week what makes a great point guard, most of them gave the standard list of attributes that might now seem so cliché as to minimize the complexity of playing the position. Beyond just possessing skills and speed, it comes down to having what many people would summarize as being a "floor general", which not only requires basketball skills, but also interpersonal skills.
• Nash Pushes It Down To The Wire
  We haven't given enough attention to Steve Nash so far this season. Sure others have been noting his brilliance - and shouting loud bravos to his on court leadership - but we have been holding back the applause.

[Note by Phoenix Stan, 12/09/09 12:01 AM MST ]

• Nashing it up
  Here's a haiku dedicated to Steve Nash from Japan
• How Steve Nash Stole Christmas | The On Deck Circle
  Steve Nash, the greatest basketball player in Canadian history, also happens to be the man who has done the most damage to Canada’s sole franchise, the Toronto Raptors.
• Steve Nash Internet Day
  Steve Nash deserves the praise that he gets -- today we celebrate with a couple of photoshops
• The Official Phoenix Suns Blog " Blog Archive " Nash Gives Thoughts About Giving Back
  A lot of professional athletes believe that they are obligated to give back to the community because of everything the community has given them. Steve Nash believes differently. He doesn’t believe that just athletes are required to donate their time and money; he believes that every person is obligated to give back.

and in his own words...

• Are Obligated " Are Athletes Obligated?
  "I agree with Mia that sport and notoriety increase our capacity for impact. I’d take it one step further, though — it’s not that I think athletes are obligated to give back, I think people are obligated to give back. We do this because of personal experiences and passions, and we just have the bigger platform because we’re athletes" - Steve Nash