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Pick Steve Nash
5/17/05
by Clay

If you didn't already recognize him, raise your hand if Steve Nash would be your first choice in a pick-up basketball game on any court in the country from San Diego, Calif. to Portland, Maine. If your hand is up right now, you're a liar.

Deadly Hippos doesn't necessarily have the most athletic readership, but I'll be honest with you: There's probably a bunch of readers out there whom I would pick for my team right now before I would have picked Steve Nash. Put it this way: If White Men Can't Jump were remade and Nash played Woody Harrelson's role, the hustle would still work ... and maybe even better thanks to Nash's haircut.

Steve Nash is the least imposing double league MVP in NBA history. He's a whirling dervish of flopping hair and feet that rarely leave the floor, a perpetual hand licker and persistent hair tucker and a man who shoots from more awkward angles than Mission Impossible 3's Ethan Hunt.

Nash also is the most exciting player to watch in the NBA Playoffs. You're welcome to disagree with me, but you're also welcome to be wrong. Watch Nash at any point in this years' playoffs and he will constantly reinforce what you do not see. That sounds paradoxical, but it really isn't. It's because just about everyone I know who watches basketball consider themselves to be the greatest couch point-guard who ever lived.

We all see open players who don't get the ball rotated to them, post players with great position who have absolute lay-ups if only they could receive the entry pass and spectacular assists that seem so simple it's a wonder they never occur. (As an aside, if you're like me, you also have at least one friend who believes the alley-oop is always open. "Aww man," he'll say, slamming your couch. "He had him on the oop." This same friend will consistently throw incomplete alley-oop passes in his church rec league games even though none of you can jump higher than George from Seinfeld.) Even if your assist-to-turnover ratio in JV basketball was 1:10, you can see things on the court from your couch that make the game seem simple.

Nash sees things on the court you can't hope to see even with the benefit of a full-screen shot of every player in your home and the ability to pause live action. As Nash slithers into a crowd of giants, pause the DVR (if you do not have a DVR, reconsider your life's priorities) and channel your inner point guard. Do you see any pass or angle that's likely to end in a sure-fire basket? Neither do I. Yet, make the game move again by a few frames and there's Nash dishing to Shawn Marion for a lay-up, bouncing a pass to Boris Diaw for a thunderous dunk or somehow finding Raja Bell or Tim Thomas open on a wing behind three giant defenders all clamoring to take the ball from him. Swish.

Yet another successful possession for a man who sees more on the court at full-speed than any couch point-guard with the godlike ability to rewind, fast forward, pause and replay live action. Nash is like a chess grandmaster who checkmates you before you even realize you're in danger. He's essentially a full-speed point guard who can only be appreciated in super slow-motion.

There's more. Nash is Jason Kidd with a jump-shot, Tony Parker without a French rap album and Dwyane Wade without an awkwardly spelled first name. He's an exceedingly rare NBA player who makes every other player on his team better by his mere presence on the floor. If Shawn Marion is The Matrix, then Nash is The Architect. Put simply, if your life was suddenly at stake depending on whether or not you scored in an NBA game, is there anyone else in the league you'd trust more to get you a decent shot? Please be quiet, Lakers fans, Kobe Bryant still wouldn't pass to you.

Incidentally, the "which point guard would you trust if your life depended on it" scoring debate is great for long road trips. It's even better when Knicks fans feel compelled out of a sense of misguided loyalty to choose Stephon Marbury. Even with all these superlatives that don't do his game justice, Nash still looks like he's in the middle of the wrong profession -- sort of what I would look like if I suddenly stepped into an Ultimate Fighting Championship ring or if I picked up the signaling button after qualifying for Jeopardy!. So we decided to have some Deadly Hippos fun with Nash's appearance and come up with 12 jobs he should have instead of his current position with the Phoenix Suns. Should you have any additional suggestions, we'd be happy to hear about them. Without further ado:

1. Jet-ski renter at the beach.

2. European backpacker who knows all the cool hostels.

3. One of those guys that works at the rock-climbing wall in your gym.

4. Jamba Juice store owner.

5. Professional Ultimate Frisbee player.

6. One of those guys who always seem to be standing alongside Tony Hawk watching him do skate-boarding tricks.

7. Latin American freedom fighter who always wears a Che Guevara shirt and carries a bazooka.

8. One of LC's former boyfriends from Laguna Beach.

9. Lead singer for a band with a name like The Alamo's Underpants.

10. Guy who shows up selling bongo drums and hacky sacks at the flea market each week.

11. Ski instructor who uses powder as the subject of half his sentences and wears ski goggles to the bar in the summer.

12. High school English teacher who carries around a dog-eared copy of Wordsworth poems and whom every female student is in love with.

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