Nash to Play 1000th Game

[Sun Tzu]

Has it really been 14 years since Suns fans booed the team's 1996 first-round draft pick, a skinny Canadian point guard from Santa Clara?

 

The draft-day crowd was disappointed because fans wanted the team to selected John Wallace, a 6-foot-8 forward from Syracuse who ended up going three picks later at No. 18 to the New York Knicks.

 

On Sunday, Steve Nash - that Canadian point guard - will play in his 1,000th career regular-season game when the New Orleans Hornets visit US Airways Center.

 

As for Wallace? He has been out of the NBA for six years.

 

"Geez, that's lot of national anthems, and in his case a lot of Canadian and U.S. anthems," Suns coach Alvin Gentry mused. "I just think he's a guy who's really taken care of himself. He's a guy who has not missed very many games, and I'm glad of that because we haven't played real well without him."

 

When Nash came into the league with the Suns there were worries about his durability because he had a bad hamstring at the time of the draft.

 

And later, when the Suns made him an offer in free agency in an effort to lure him back to Phoenix from Dallas, he gave Mavericks owner Mark Cuban the chance to match the offer. Cuban declined, later explaining that he worried whether Nash's body would hold up because of the way he plays.

 

Even now, Nash must work hard at keeping his body fine tuned. Yet here he is still rolling with 999 games on the tread.

 

"I'll have to throw a party," Nash said, smiling.

 

Nash said he went through an "evolution" for different reasons throughout his career, learning how to change his body and maintain it over the course of the yearly 82-game grind.

 

"Coming into the league I was never a natural, physical kind of a explosive athlete like most of my colleagues, so when I got into the league I elevated that a little bit," he said. "When they changed the rules to less hand-checking, I had to change my body again.

 

"And as I got later on in my career I had to change again, as far as my habits and knowledge and understanding of what it takes to be able to play and maintain through a lot of ballgames."

 

Nash said he wasn't as worried about his body breaking down as Cuban evidently was.

 

"I had a couple of years early on in Dallas where I had a couple of injury issues, but after that I've never really had injury issues," he said. "I never thought it was going to be a problem for me. He may have."

 

One concession Nash made, though, was giving up playing for the Canadian national team, which he led to the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

 

"I think that would have been too much to ask," he said. "I mean, our season is too much to ask, especially if you hold a lot of responsibility with your team.

 

"You know, inside my 30-some-odd minutes a game, I have a lot of mileage in there the way we've played the last five years and with what's been expected of me.

 

"I wouldn't have had it any other way, but if I had played for the national team in the summer . . . I don't think you can keep it up mentally and physically. Everything is just too much. And it would have been less (beneficial) for both parties."

 

At 36, Nash said he can't ever see himself letting his body go.

 

"I can't sit still, so I'll always end up being in pretty good shape," he said. "I'll probably come back here in 10 years and you guys will be like, 'Who's that fat guy walking around?' "

 

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/suns/articles/2010/03/13/20100313suns-nash-1000th-nba-game.html

 

Congrats Nash !

[ChosenOne]

and he has a bad back.

 

Way to go Nash.

[Sun Tzu]

Hopefully Nash comes out and plays and drops 50 and gets 50 assists