Is there a direct analogue to Steve Nash? I was watching Mike and the Mad Dog yesterday and they spoke with Bob Ryan who compared him to Bob Cousy before Mike said that he thought Nash was the best point he'd seen since Magic, although it's impossible to compare the two of them. Jason Kidd has had some great years, this one included, but could never shoot as well as Nash nor have any of the other points that piled up assists over the years. John Stockton had everything but the flash and sizzle of Nash, something he's proud of I'm sure but also something that made him a lot less fun to watch.
Jack Cobra of 3 Man Lift thinks that he's found the most comprable player to Nash. The thing is it isn't a basketball player.
From 1992-1995, Greg Maddux was the best pitcher in baseball. It wasn't just the fact that he won 4 straight Cy Young Awards or that his team was going to the playoffs often ('93-95). It was for his ability to master the baseball itself, a baseball game, and the strike zone. It was something that I, at 14 yrs of age, had never seen before. Luckily, at that time all of the games Maddux pitched in, Chicago Cubs ('92) and Atlanta Braves ('93-95), were on television in my area. Every fifth day I would watch Mr. Maddux work his way through another lineup of flummoxed hitters and be amazed at his prowess. Hitters would walk away from the batter's box shaking their heads wondering what had just happened.
It would be easy for me to compare the statistics and major awards that both of these players have won (or will go on to win this year), but that would shortchange what exactly these athletes have done. They have become 'Masters of Their Trade' in a way that has rarely, if ever, been seen before. I think that I'm seeing Nash do the same thing now that I saw Maddux do back then.
If there's a problem with the comparison I think it's that Maddux succeeded so much because of his deception and guile while Nash is just outplaying everyone in the league. Maddux mastered the ability to make people look foolish because they were expecting something else. What Nash is doing is even more impressive to me. Everyone knows just what the Suns are going to do every night and Nash still beats them. He beats them downcourt, he beats them by making the right pass, even if it isn't the flashiest one, and he beats them by sticking his shots. I actually think he's more like a fastball pitcher who throws a pitch right by a hitter and then does it again and again rather than a paper cut specialist like Maddux.
I said it last year on a comment on another blog, but I'll say it again: the real comparison is Nash to Wayne Gretzky. Nash has a similar three-pack to Gretzky: outstanding shooter, pin-point passer, and phenomenal court vision, the ability to see the whole floor, find the open man, and anticipate where players, both from his own team and the opposition, are going to be.
Steve is a Canadian, remember. He's of an age where he would have grown up watching Gretzky, in an era when all Canadians where watching Gretzky with joyful amazement. Gretzky was the Michael Jordan of hockey, he transformed the game, and did things no one had seen before.
I don't like the comparison to Greg Maddux, because Steve Nash's body is constantly in movement, whereas Maddux pitched like a poker player: he looked phlegmatic and sleepy, a bit pudgy and non-athletic, which I'm sure made his mastery all the more tear-your-hair-out frustrating to the hitters.
Posted by: hector | January 30, 2007 at 02:27 PM