Steve Nash Seeks Larger Role With Canada’s National Team


Steve Nash might not be suiting up for his country’s national hoops team anymore, but he says that he’d like to be more involved with the organization’s decision-making process. From the Globe and Mail: “This is my country, and this is my program that I spent 13 years in, and I’d like to be a bigger part of it.’ The declaration by a multimillion-dollar NBA all-star point guard, Steve Nash, sounds sincere and convincing. But as Canada’s men’s team sits on the Olympic sidelines for the third consecutive Summer Games, it’s time to reassess the system that produces would-be Olympians. ‘I wanted to consider playing this summer. But the truth is I was rehabbing an injury all summer and couldn’t have played regardless,’ Nash said Tuesday as he pressed the buzzer at Toronto’s stock exchange to kick off trading. The spectacle was planned for the launch of a new ‘functional beverage’ called Liquid Nutrition. Advertising says it’s infused with vitamins and supplements, which sounds like everything an Olympics-bound sports team needs – with the exception of providing an actual berth in the Games. A spot in the 2016 Games at Rio de Janeiro is the best Canada can hope for after missing out this year. The allure of playing for the maple leaf needs to be revitalized, Nash said. ‘If I were 110-per-cent healthy and knew [because of the NBA work stoppage] we weren’t going to go back to work until November or December; if they’d called me up and said ‘Here’s what we’re doing,’ I’d love to have played,’ he said. However, the attraction isn’t there for NBA-calibre players who can make millions of dollars as pros instead of risking their health for the national side. Besides, Nash cannot meet qualifying standards on his own, he said. ‘My time with the national team is among the best memories and times of my career. It would have been great to play, but being hurt, it wasn’t even a consideration,’ the two-time NBA most valuable player said.”