Steve Nash is a 32-year-old freak of unparalleled audacity. His upward climb defies the customary parameters of the NBA. He is becoming ever more efficient with age, and no one thinks it is because of the cream and clear. He is built like the neighborhood runt, nondescript, right down to his previously spaghetti-like hair. Yet Nash is in position to claim his third consecutive MVP award, and there really is no one else in contention at this point in the season. He is having a career season, absurd as that is. He is shooting 90.4 pet from the free throw line, an unthinkable 49.5 percent from 3-point distance and 51.7 overall. The NBA intelligentsia is all atwitter over Allen Iverson's change of address, as if the Nuggets suddenly have bolted into championship contention. All this commotion is dispensed in honor of someone lugging around a 41.3 shooting percentage.
So where does that put Nash, besides a basketball galaxy far, far away? Even as the NBA's two-time MVP, Nash never has been universally embraced, mostly because his sleight of hand cannot be appreciated by the ordinary eye. He has been almost a begrudging two-time MVP, with many observers not sure how he does it, just that he does it. After he claimed his first MVP, Shaquille O'Neal's hometown columnist trotted out the tired notion that Nash was aided in the voting because of his whiteness, as if anyone in this nation has a special affinity for a soccer-playing Canadian who hails from that basketball power known as Santa Clara. Nash lacks a charismatic personality, which is equally hurtful to the image. His exchanges with the media can put an insomniac to sleep. There is no bravado in him, no compulsion to be disdainful of others, in the manner of Kobe Bryant's tepid assessment of Gilbert Arenas' 60-point number on the Lakers.
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