Steve Nash, MVP
Last night Steve Nash was declared NBA MVP. This is a truly momentous, precedent-setting occasion for Canadian pro sports that surpasses (in my estimation) Larry Walker's National League MVP in 1997. Unlike hockey (played by a few nations) or baseball (played by even less), basketball is truly a global game.
Anyone who can average a double-double day in and day out earns props, but anyone who's seen Steve Nash play knows he's a dynamo on the court. His presence electrifies the crowd, and his selfless style of play and elevates the game of those around him. Nash single-handedly turned the Suns around this year; take away Steve Nash, and the Suns are a mediocre team at best. Nash anchored the Suns up-tempo style and was a mainstay on the nightly highlight reels with his flashy drop passes and behind-the-back dishes to Amare Stoudamire's jams. And of course, every fan recalls the awe-inspiring off-the-head pass from the NBA dunk contest!
What's remarkable is that a frozen hockey haven with more Tim Horton's than basketball hoops has produced basketball's most dominant player today. What's all the more remarkable is that a slender, self-effacing 6'1" point guard from Victoria, BC has mastered a sport dominated by towering, surly African-Americans - many of whom honed their game in the inner-city 'hood. This is a guy who needed his high school coach to ship videotapes so he could win a scholarship to play in the NCAA. Even more remarkable, solar eclipses are more frequent than point guards winning the MVP title - and the last one to win it was some guy by the name Magic. That's sound company.
Of course, Nash was at his prototypical self-effacing best; in an interview he claimed he honestly would have given the MVP honour to Shaq. What a guy. This sounds cliche but this humble, squeaky-clean Canadian kid truly is an ambassador to the sport. And if there's anything the NBA could use it's an image overhaul.
So this is a proud moment not only for Nash, but for all of Canada. But above all let's remind ourselves: it was James Naismith - a Canadian - that invented basketball. This is our sport.
[What's also interesting is that per capita BC's left coast has produced some of Canada's best professional athletes - Larry Walker, Rich Harden, Jason Bay... Something in the water there?]
Anyone who can average a double-double day in and day out earns props, but anyone who's seen Steve Nash play knows he's a dynamo on the court. His presence electrifies the crowd, and his selfless style of play and elevates the game of those around him. Nash single-handedly turned the Suns around this year; take away Steve Nash, and the Suns are a mediocre team at best. Nash anchored the Suns up-tempo style and was a mainstay on the nightly highlight reels with his flashy drop passes and behind-the-back dishes to Amare Stoudamire's jams. And of course, every fan recalls the awe-inspiring off-the-head pass from the NBA dunk contest!
What's remarkable is that a frozen hockey haven with more Tim Horton's than basketball hoops has produced basketball's most dominant player today. What's all the more remarkable is that a slender, self-effacing 6'1" point guard from Victoria, BC has mastered a sport dominated by towering, surly African-Americans - many of whom honed their game in the inner-city 'hood. This is a guy who needed his high school coach to ship videotapes so he could win a scholarship to play in the NCAA. Even more remarkable, solar eclipses are more frequent than point guards winning the MVP title - and the last one to win it was some guy by the name Magic. That's sound company.
Of course, Nash was at his prototypical self-effacing best; in an interview he claimed he honestly would have given the MVP honour to Shaq. What a guy. This sounds cliche but this humble, squeaky-clean Canadian kid truly is an ambassador to the sport. And if there's anything the NBA could use it's an image overhaul.
So this is a proud moment not only for Nash, but for all of Canada. But above all let's remind ourselves: it was James Naismith - a Canadian - that invented basketball. This is our sport.
[What's also interesting is that per capita BC's left coast has produced some of Canada's best professional athletes - Larry Walker, Rich Harden, Jason Bay... Something in the water there?]
posted by Sen | 5/09/2005 09:05:00 AM
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6 comments
6 Comments:
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Smiley
a few comments
5/09/2005 10:02:00 AM1) hockey is a global game. in case you dont know this the following nations have national teams: thailand, armenia, turkey, luxembourg, south africa
i assume baseball also has a handfull of oddball nations playing the sport
2) steve nash is 6'3 tall. its funny how a 'short' basketball player is still a pretty tall man when compared to the general population
3)although naismith is canadian, b-ball was invented in the US and first played by americans...this is definitely not 'our' sport
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Sen
#1 - Are we talking about ice hockey? Because Pakistan is competitive in field hockey.
5/09/2005 11:29:00 AM(Ice) hockey is still confined to a very area. There are like 7 countries that can field competitive teams – Canada, USA, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic & Slovakia. And – face it – ice hockey will never penetrate parts of the globe that never sees snow! Meanwhile, second to soccer, basketball is the second biggest sport and growing huge globally. Argentina beat Italy for the gold medal! Look at FIBA.com.
#2 – ya it’s all relative; 5’4” is tall in the Andaman Islands.
#3 – dunno about the prairies, but I know basketball following is growing big-time in Ontario; I believe the Raptors draw a bigger TV audience than the Leafs in the under-25 crowd! And Nash will inspire and spawn more Canadian hoopsters.
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James
For your information, baseball is more global than you think... I can MLB players from countries like Columbia, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Austrailia..... that's 5 continents!
5/09/2005 09:41:00 PM-
Smiley
1) yes i'm talking about ice hockey...there is such a thing as artificial ice you know, pretty much every ice surface ive skated on is artificial and not natural ice (i.e. outdoors). also when gretzky was traded to LA, the number of rinks in california increased ten-fold
5/10/2005 08:38:00 AM2) yes basketball is getting huge in the TORONTO area, probably because all the fobs love it. ergo, it not growing out west (maybe vancouver) and hockey is exponentially more popular
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Smiley
PS - all those countries I listed participated in IIHF (international ICE hockey federation) tournaments
5/10/2005 08:40:00 AM-
Sen
James: 5 continents? I only counted 3.
5/10/2005 01:30:00 PMSmiley:
#1 - I know, I’m saying that ice hockey will NEVER grow in the globally to the extent basketball has... particularly in the developing world due to all the infrastructure involved. You need to build rinks, maintain the ice etc. And how about all the padding and equipment involved – it’s expensive for those in the third world. And I simply can’t see impoverished people in warm climates picking up ice skates and building ice rinks.
On the other with basketball - a few hoops and you’re set. The game itself is flashy and there’s a lot more international appeal.
The only region where I see hockey potentially taking off outside of Europe is Japan, Korea or China - these countries already dominate speed-skating.
#2) - I can’t say anything about the West – never been there. But true, most of the fobs I knew in TO were far more crazy about bball than hockey.
Maybe this is worthy of a blog post.
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