Steve Nash no longer waited until he fully recovers from his ailing back to announce his retirement from the game of basketball.
Acknowledged as one of the best point guards to play in the NBA, accentuated by two season MVP awards in 2005 and 2006, 41-year-old Steve Nash announced his decision to hang up his sneakers on March 21 with his team, the Los Angeles Lakers, still have 15 games remaining to end the very forgettable 2014-15 season.
Nash was acquired by the Lakers in a sign-and-trade deal with the Phoenix Suns during the offseason of 2012 for four draft picks. The MVP point guard eventually signed a three-year deal with the Lakers beginning in the 2012-13 season, notes MSN News.
His acquisition gave the Lakers a formidable core unit composed of Kobe Bryant, Metta World Peace, Pau Gasol, and Dwight Howard, who was also acquired by the Showtime franchise during that offseason but played for the purple and gold team for only one year.
Despite the hype and the expectations on a very strong Lakers team with the five high-calibre players around to go all-out to nail the club’s 17th championship, the Lakers was a mediocre team during the 2012-13 season and a dismal team from 2013 up to the current season.
In fact, the Lakers are now well on its way to setting marks for the worst season in franchise history in back-to-back seasons.
No show in the current NBA season
Steve Nash, who played for 18 years in the NBA, did not play a single regular season game in the current NBA season. After playing only two pre-season games for newly-installed Lakers head coach Byron Scott, Nash was ruled out for the season with a back injury.
It was an unfortunate ending to an otherwise glittering basketball career. Steve Nash would surely be a shoo-in as an NBA Hall-of-Famer in the not-so-distant future.
In agreeing to play for the Lakers starting in the 2012-13 NBA season, Nash revealed that he actually turned down lucrative offers from other teams. He said that he picked LA over the other teams because he wanted fire in his career and would like to play high risk and reward his last chapter in the NBA.
But as it turned out, it was during his career with the Lakers that his injuries started nagging him, which has something to do with the age of the South African basketball player. He remembered that in just his second game with the Lakers, he broke his leg and he has never been the same again.
Not meant to be
The partnership between Steve Nash and the Lakers appears to be not written on the stars as the MVP point guard only played a total of 65 regular season games for the Showtime franchise since the 2012-13 NBA season under two different coaches.
He played 50 games during the 2012-13 season and only 15 games last season. He has not played any regular season game under first-year head coach Byron Scott this year.
But in terms of personal record, he is third in the list of NBA assist leaders with a total of 10,355 dishes during his 18-year career.