Yesterday, legendary point guard Steve Nash announced his retirement 18 years in the National Basketball Association. Nash, who last played for the Lakers in the 2013-2014 season was out for the season with a bad back. The Lakers wanted Nash to report to the team to help out their younger players like Jordan Clarkson, but Nash refused. There were talks about the Lakers buying Nash out of his contract, and if that would have happened, the Cleveland Cavaliers would have signed Nash, according to ESPN’s Marc Stein.
League sources told ESPN.com earlier this month that LeBron James‘ Cleveland Cavaliers — who happen to have two of the biggest Nash admirers on Earth in their front office, in David Griffin and former teammate Raja Bell — let it be known to longtime Nash agent Bill Duffy that they would love to give the old man a whirl as a short-minute backup to Kyrie Irving if Nash wanted to seek a buyout from the Lakers after the trade deadline passed with no deal. – Marc Stein
“I think I can [still] have a great game,” Steve Nash said. “But I can’t do it more than once or twice a month.”
Nash also talked about when he was traded to the Lakers back in 2012, where he also dawned on Sports’ Illustrated’s 2012 NBA Preview alongside Dwight Howard with the title being, “Now This is Going to be Fun”
“I had incredibly high hopes coming here.”
“I wanted to do great things in this city,” he said. “And it didn’t happen. But a big part of why I came here was because I wanted to be in the fire. I wanted to be judged. I wanted to be under pressure in my last chapter. I didn’t want to fade off.
“And in some ways, I got bit by that. But that’s what I wanted. That is the way to end your career. [playing with] the most risk and the most reward. I accept it. It’s been a great experience, regardless of the noise out there.”
“Lakers fans have been unbelievable to me in person,” Nash said. “I’ve never had a Lakers fan or a person in Los Angeles say a negative thing to me in two-and-a-half years. The opposite. People have been so supportive, so respectful.”
“I actually feel like I’m doing great,” Steve Nash said. “The saving grace for me is that the mornings I wake up and say, ‘I want to play today. Can I still do it?’ it takes me about 30 seconds to realize, ‘You can’t do it.’ So the answer was made for me. I just cannot do it anymore.
“I had to just be honest and accept the fact that I can rehab this way for the next 10 years, and I’m not going to be in a position to help the team. So that saves me. That makes it bearable. That’s made me, in some ways, kind of move past it.
“There is going to be a transition here where I’m gonna have to become someone else, do something else, and that’s going to be tricky. I don’t want to underestimate that. But I feel pretty good about it.”
“In preseason, I did everything right,” he said. “I had a good camp. I came in maybe in the best shape on the deal. I played one preseason game and felt decent. I thought maybe I could get better from here. The next morning, I woke up, and I was a mess. … I just had to come to the realization that if I’m lucky, I’d play in 10 games this year.
“I don’t hide from that [playoff woes] : I didn’t win a championship,” Nash said. “If that forms people’s opinions of my career or legacy or value, that’s their opinion. That’s not my responsibility.
“I don’t get caught up in legacy or where I fit in [when it comes to the point guard position]. If I leave anything behind, I hope it’s that I was a great teammate and a great competitor. If a championship is a huge component in your [definition of] success, that’s fine. But it doesn’t affect how much I enjoyed my career. I’ll always be disappointed I didn’t win a championship, for sure, but there’s a lot more to life as well.
“I lost the [last] battle, but I fought the battle. That’s what matters most.”
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