I wondered why I always liked Nash, other than the fact of his nationality of course.....
"Soft" interview with the only player brave enough to wear an anti-gulf war Tshirt.
Nash Displays Polished Look: On the Court, of Course
In a league mired in isolation offenses and plodding defenses, the Suns frenetic fast break with point guard Steve Nash at the helm has been nothing short of revolutionary.
Steve Nash has been doing some light reading on the road, studying a playbook of sorts that outlines team concepts like discipline and sacrifice for the common good."I'm actually reading the Communist Manifesto," Nash said with a smile after a recent practice.
Nash's eclectic tastes range from Pat Conroy to Dickens to Kant. "I don't know if guys notice, which is good," he said. "I just want to be one of them."
So people won't think he is sympathetic to alternative causes, Nash explained that he picked up the manifesto, "only because I was reading the autobiography of Che Guevara and I wanted to get a better perspective."
"Che: Self Portrait" (Ernesto Che Guevara)
As a member of the Canadian Olympic team at the Sydney Olympics, Nash decided to give his teammates a boost. Nash had portioned roughly $3,000 for each of his teammates and asked Coach Jay Triano to give it to the players anonymously so they could go on a shopping spree in Hong Kong."He was just being respectful of amateur athletes in Canada," said Triano, a Toronto Raptors assistant coach.
Triano had arranged for Nash to fly first class and have his own room at the Games. But Nash was appalled. "If I don't have a roommate, I'm not going to go," Triano recalled him saying. "If you have to buy a first-class ticket, give it to one of the big guys. Steve sat in a middle seat for the whole 17-hour trip."
In Phoenix, Nash has been a mentor to the youngest team in the league. He has helped make Stoudemire "more accountable," Colangelo said.
Nash has also helped his Brazilian backup, Leandro Barbosa, feel more comfortable by speaking Spanish and watching soccer games with him.
Steve Nash:
His curiosity about politics sparked his concerns about an imminent Gulf war. A high-school friend with whom he's stayed close is involved with a Vancouver-based activist organization called the UBC Coalition Against War On the People of Iraq. She's been sending him stories and books to read, and he's found a lot that resonates with his own "borderline pacifist and humanitarian" leanings. "I don't want to single out the United States, because we're not perfect in Canada either," he says. "I think war is wrong. You'd think we'd have evolved to the point where we'd stop shooting one another. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, but that's what I hope.
