Steve Nash retires

[LongTimeListener]

I'll avoid the rabbit hole and touch on JC's point. What precisely has he done for basketball in Canada? I believe there'd be a Toronto Raptors whether there was a Steve Nash or not. Whether there'd have been a Vancouver Grizzlies without him is moot because there is indeed no Vancouver Grizzlies. Has there been a flood of Canadians on NBA rosters? Not as far as I know. If there has been a boom in ratings that can be largely attributed to him, I would concede that as an impact.

There is a huge influx of Canadian players in the NCAA, I think there were like 50 a couple years ago, and most people believe Andrew Wiggins was the tip of the iceberg in that talent making its way to the NBA (along with some others such as Stauskas). Those guys would have been between 5 and 10 years old when Nash burst on the scene.

I think it's fair.

 

[dooley_womack1]

OK, so perhaps being ultimately responsible for an influx into college ball and a 2 or 3 percent presence in the NBA. Compare that with leading to the founding or survival of perhaps 20 percent of a league's teams. Point is, Nash's impact can be fairly stated and can be impressive without trying to make it Gretzky-esque.

 

[MisterCreosote]

Not getting the idea of Nash not being on par with Isiah, or in fact significantly better. Nash is a two-time MVP and Isiah never sniffed that. By the time the Pistons got great, I don't know if Isiah was even in the top 10 among guards. Very efficient and the linchpin of that team obviously, but not as great a player as suggested.

There's no shame in being one of the 10 point guards of all time.

But as long as we're on the subject, along with Nash, I'd also probably put Gary Payton and Chris Paul ahead of Isiah, too.

 

[JC]

Maybe the most dominant player to ever play the game. So sad he was done at 28.

 

[LongTimeListener]

OK, so perhaps being ultimately responsible for an influx into college ball and a 2 or 3 percent presence in the NBA. Compare that with leading to the founding or survival of perhaps 20 percent of a league's teams. Point is, Nash's impact can be fairly stated and can be impressive without trying to make it Gretzky-esque.

You are totally correct there. I blame the required Internet style of best-ever-ism for any exaggeration.

 

[JC]

I'll avoid the rabbit hole and touch on JC's point. What precisely has he done for basketball in Canada? I believe there'd be a Toronto Raptors whether there was a Steve Nash or not. Whether there'd have been a Vancouver Grizzlies without him is moot because there is indeed no Vancouver Grizzlies. Has there been a flood of Canadians on NBA rosters? Not as far as I know. If there has been a boom in ratings that can be largely attributed to him, I would concede that as an impact.

The last two number one picks are Canadian and there are Canadians all over Div. 1 basketball. Prior to Nash this never happened. The popularity of the game is significantly higher alll across the country.

 

[JC]

You are totally correct there. I blame the required Internet style of best-ever-ism for any exaggeration.

League wide there is no comparison but I'm not sure that's what's being said here.

 

[Stoney]

I'll avoid the rabbit hole and touch on JC's point. What precisely has he done for basketball in Canada?

Those who follow basketball recruiting might have an answer for you. The change in basketball talent level coming from Canada today compared to a couple decades ago is nothing short of staggering. The country went from a talent wasteland to a relative hotbed, now churning out a constant stream of high D1 and NBA caliber players. In the 90s a Canadian player was a rare novelty, now they're everywhere.

I'm guessin that Nash making the game more popular up there just might've had something to do with that transformation.

 

[Ric Flair]

This not a shot at Nash at all, but I believe Vince Carter had a bigger impact on Canadian Basketball than Steve Nash.

 

[JC]

Now that makes for an interesting debate.

 

[da man]

Nash is solidly in the second tier of great NBA point guards - on par with, say, Isiah Thomas and Clyde Frazier, but a step below Magic, Stockton, Kidd and Oscar.

And, he's got at least a few years left as the greatest Canadian basketball player ever, before falling to second behind Andrew Wiggins.

You forgot Cousy.

 

[Gomer]

This not a shot at Nash at all, but I believe Vince Carter had a bigger impact on Canadian Basketball than Steve Nash.

Vince certainly inspired a lot of kids in the Toronto area, but if you're talking Canada-wide I'd argue Nash means more.

Certainly they both can take some credit.

 

[Fly]

Maybe some think Canadian hoops still is Leo Rautins and everyone else.

 

[sgreenwell]

This not a shot at Nash at all, but I believe Vince Carter had a bigger impact on Canadian Basketball than Steve Nash.

As you would say - woooooooo! But yeah, as Gomer said, it's probably both of them that contributed to the upswing in basketball's popularity in Canada. Well, them, and I'd add in how much easier it is to catch NBA games in the past 20 years. In Simmons' 5,000 page basketball book, he talked about how tough it was even now to find footage from certain 1970s and even 1980s era games. The NBA on TNT started in 1988, the playoff broadcasting got a lot better in the 1990s, and by the 2000s you had regular season games shown on ABC. I'm positive that all probably had a "trickle up the border" effect. (Along similar lines, I can't remember if it was Bill James or one of the Baseball Prospectus' annuals that noted that the Braves and Cubs got a big revenue boost in the 1990s because they had nationwide / large regional cable networks broadcasting their game.)

 

[Starman]

Those who follow basketball recruiting might have an answer for you. The change in basketball talent level coming from Canada today compared to a couple decades ago is nothing short of staggering. The country went from a talent wasteland to a relative hotbed, now churning out a constant stream of high D1 and NBA caliber players. In the 90s a Canadian player was a rare novelty, now they're everywhere.

I'm guessin that Nash making the game more popular up there just might've had something to do with that transformation.

IMO it really has more to do with the rise of AAU club competition and the decline of US high school basketball as the primary venue for college scouting.

When HS game play was the biggest factor in college scouting, the lack of competition in Canada was a huge disadvantage -- probably by a power of 10 or more.

Now of course nobody gets recruited on the basis of HS team play, everybody is recruited off their performance in AAU club play and all-star camps, and 90 percent of all Canadians live within 100 miles of the border, so most of the recruitable hoops players will play on US-based AAU teams anyway.

 

[old_tony]

No, but I think the the comparison is what Nash did for basketball in Canada to what Gretzky did for hockey. The better player is obviously not up for debate.

Both were great, great players. I feel bad for Nash that he was so incredible and couldn't win a title. But if we're talking about who did more in Canada for the game they played, I would argue that hockey really didn't need much done for it. It was already the nation's biggest game by far. Although Gretzky was a transcendent player, I think the game would still be as big as ever in Canada even if there'd never been a Gretzky.

 

[JackReacher]

I would argue with the notion that Nash was better than Isiah.

And that would be such an annoying debate. But, without reading ahead, I'm assuming the rest of this thread is dedicated to just that.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

And that would be such an annoying debate. But, without reading ahead, I'm assuming the rest of this thread is dedicated to just that.

It won't be.

Nash was one of the most efficient, smart players I've ever seen. It's the cliché of making everyone around him better, but that's exactly what he did.

 

[X-Hack]

Maybe some think Canadian hoops still is Leo Rautins and everyone else.

This guy was pretty good too. As a grade-schooler in East Lansing in the late 1970s, I always pretended to be him when everyone else was pretending to be Earvin Johnson, Greg Kelser or Jay Vincent.

 

[da man]

Maybe some think Canadian hoops still is Leo Rautins and everyone else.

I loved that Syracuse team -- Rautins, Erich Santifer, Tony Bruin and one of my all-time favorite players, Gene Waldron.