Steve Nash wasn't a 2 time MVP until he got with MDA. All of Nash's stats increased under MDA and Nash gives MDA credit for helping him reach his full potential. Trust me there's very few things I don't know about how MDA and Nash worked together. MDA really had a perfect pairing with Nash. Why do you think they went after Nash in the 1st place?
Yet if anyone was never going to forget about Nash's greatness, it was the man who was with him during the highest of highs and the lowest of lows: coach Mike D'Antoni.To say D'Antoni spent six seasons as Nash's coach while with the Phoenix Suns and the Lakers doesn't do it justice. They were as compatible a player-coach combo as the game has ever seen – a quarterback and his offensive coordinator, as Sports Illustrated's Jack McCallum wrote in his book about those Suns teams, "Seven Seconds or Less." Theirs is a mutual admiration society born out of their shared glory in Phoenix, where the Suns' electric style from 2004 to 2008 may not have led to a championship but made a lasting mark on the league nonetheless.
D'Antoni, who is hoping to get back into the NBA and is expected to be a candidate for the Denver Nuggets position this summer, reflected on Nash's career in an interview with USA TODAY Sports.
Q: So we've known this was coming for a while now, but what was it like to see it finally, officially, come to an end for Steve?
A: "Well I think like you said, it brought up a lot of memories – a lot of good memories, and what's right about sports and basketball and people. We had an incredible four years together, some of the best moments that I've had, and I'm 63. So to be able to go back this week and relive them a little bit, and think about things, and see also just the outcome of that chance (where) he came to us that is great. It's great. It's great memories … There were a lot of tough times, where we lost and almost got there and all that. But you know what? Hanging out with him and trying to create something is what remains, and it was super."
Q: What was your relationship like with Steve when he signed in 2004? And then what was your approach to creating the relationship that (writer) Jack McCallum once described as the quarterback-offensive coordinator type relationship (in his book on the D'Antoni-Nash Phoenix Suns titled "Seven Seconds or Less")?
A: "I didn't know Steve at all. I'd run into him, like everybody else in the NBA. You run into him, say 'hi.' And he's really a pleasant guy, so you think you know him even though you really don't. But I think the first step was just the incredible luck (where) we were able to bring him back to Phoenix. A little bit of everything. We definitely targeted him as our No. 1 guy, and yet at the same time we didn't think that (he would come). Steve is very loyal, and he really wanted to go back to Dallas, but it didn't work out with them for whatever reason, and so we were able to latch onto him. And from there, he fit in to what we envisioned, how we wanted to play, and he just took it to the best level that he could at that time. And like everything, we were extremely lucky to get someone like him, because his philosophy of how he wanted to play in the sense of being supportive – he was a great teammate, and creating an atmosphere that we're always as coaches trying to seek, where you're building the bonds and the relationships where it really goes above winning and losing and it goes into the unit, the team. He maximized all that."
Q: Did you know all in that he would be all-in when it came to that approach? I can't imagine it was a tough sales job when you told Steve what you wanted to do.
A: "Well you know I think we both kind of pushed the envelope a little bit. It was so new back then, and everybody was really against it. Other coaches around (were against it). We were kind of going against the wind and against the prevailing philosophies. So being a newer coach here, and having a team, thank God I had the backing of the Colangelos when we first started. And we just kind of pushed it together, in the sense of, 'Well maybe we can do that. Maybe yeah, let's go.' I kept gaining more confidence in him, and vice versa. And we were able to play off each other.
"To be honest with you, we could have even pushed it further. I think that just being first in the water, we didn't go to the deep end real quick. It took a while to get to the deep end. But we could have been more, a little bit better approach at that if we had the analytic backing that they're showing you today. We could have been more creative. But being the first out, I'm proud of how it went."
Q: So five seconds or less, then?
A: "Yeah, really. But he was the perfect partner. And his version of the game, and how he wanted to play, and how he wanted to treat his teammates, his team. And it was perfect. It went exactly the way that I thought it should be done. It was what it was, and we were extremely proud of it."
Q: I'm going to steal another passage from Jack's book. The expression "Sputare sangue" – the "spit blood" Italian saying that he writes about that one of your old coaches, (former Milan coach) Dan Peterson, had put in you and something that you and Steve had in common. In terms of Steve's career, do you feel like that part of who he was and the way he competed might get lost sometimes? We focus so much on the fancy passing and the shooting and the shooting and all that, but we forget that when it comes to being a competitor, this guy was just something else.
A: "Right. I agree with you 100 percent. I told people the other day that everybody could see him coming down and how we played and the ball whipping around, and it's pretty and very cosmetic. But what they didn't see was his spirit in the weight room with the other players, when times were tough on the bench, in the locker room, when plays would go bad and we were ready to have a "OK guys, we've got to play better defense" or whatever it is kind of meeting, he would just stand up and say, 'Listen, my fault. I didn't play well enough. We'll do better.' So he took responsibility. They didn't see the little things, how coach-able he was, how we could explore different things together, how he taught me things and I could teach him stuff. Just an easy back and forth and trying to get the most out of what we had, and I thought for the most part we did. And a lot of that is his character, his competitiveness, and just what he brought to the game."
7/17/2015 2:22 PM