Steve Nash - Player Profile

Player Profile

Nash is most noted for his playmaking, ball-handling skills and shooting. He led the league in assists for five years, averaging 11.5 assists per game in 2004–05, 10.5 in 2005–06, 11.6 in 2006–07, 11.0 in 2009–10 and 11.4 in 2010–11 and won the 2005 and 2010 NBA All-Star Skills Contests. As of the end of 2011–12 season, he had a 90.4% career free-throw shooting average (second best in NBA history) and a 42.9% career three-point shooting average (eighth-best in league history), and ranked as one of the top 10 players in league history in total assists, assists per game, and three-point field goals made. In addition, he is ranked third (starting from 1986–87) in regular season point-assist double doubles. In the 2005–06 season, Nash became the fourth player in NBA history to shoot 50% or better from the field, 40% from three-point range (43.9), and 90% from the line, joining Larry Bird, Reggie Miller and Mark Price in the 50-40-90 Club. This was a feat he would repeat in the 2006-07, 2007–08, 2008–09 and 2009–10 campaigns. Only 11 times has a player shot 50-40-90 in an NBA season while also achieving the NBA league minimum number of makes. Nash (five times) and Larry Bird (three times) are the only players to have accomplished this feat more than once. A two-time NBA MVP, Nash is only the second point guard (along with Magic Johnson) to win the MVP award multiple times and the third guard in NBA history to earn back-to-back MVPs (joining Johnson and Michael Jordan). Only nine other NBA players have won back-to-back MVP awards: Johnson, Jordan, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Tim Duncan, and LeBron James. On 11 May 2006, ESPN.com rated Nash as the 9th-best point guard of all time, and in a survey by nba.com in 2007, Nash received 85% of the votes by the league's general managers as best point guard in the league. In a similar survey in 2009, Nash was rated as the best passer of the ball and the player possessing the best basketball IQ. Commenting on Nash losing out to former teammate Dirk Nowitzki for the 2007 NBA MVP, Boston Celtics centre and Hall of Famer Russell stated: "I think, on the world stage, he's one of our great athletes in all sports... I'm a big fan. The two MVPs he got, he deserved. Part of the reason that he's so good and so effective is that the guys like playing with him. He creates an atmosphere where they win games."

In terms of specific skills, Nash is particularly effective playing the pick and roll, notably with Nowitzki when he was at Dallas and later with the Suns' Amar'e Stoudemire and Shawn Marion. When Nash returned to Phoenix in 2004, he helped the Suns improve from a 29–53 record in 2003–04 to 62–20 in 2004–05, reaching the Conference Finals for the first time in 11 years, earning him his first MVP award. The next season, he led the Suns into the Conference Finals, despite the injuries of all three big men (Stoudemire, Kurt Thomas and Brian Grant); further, Nash was responsible for seven of his teammates attaining career-highs in season scoring. With Nash operating at the point, between the 2005–06 and 2009–10 seasons, the Suns led the league in field goal percentage.