Saturday, May 07, 2005
The Monster Nash - Part Deux
In non-hockey news, it seems that another Canadian NASH has made headlines for great play.Victoria's Steve Nash, according to this ESPN.com release, will be named the National Basketball Associations MVP over Shaquille O'Neal - Only the 4th point guard to receive that honour.
Why do I even care?
Well, once upon a time, Vancouver used to have an NBA Basketball Team (The Vancouver Grizzlies). Although you'd be hard pressed to even know an NBA team once existed in this city (since people rarely ever talk about it), Steve Nash is as close to a 'local' product (Victoria is just a ferry ride away) as we've had enter the NBA, and he has a lot of fans here.
Any time fans ever talk about the old Grizzlies (maybe once a year), the same question pops up: "Would we still have basketball in Vancouver had the Grizzlies drafted Steve Nash?"
Of course, the Grizzlies declined to take the Division I product, who then went to Phoenix with the 15th overall pick in 1996. The Grizzlies chose Shareef Abdur-Rahim, a decent forward with the personality of cardboard, with the 3rd overall pick and refused to trade up from their 22nd overall pick...instead picking up Roy Rodgers (a guy who could catch a few rebounds and not much else).Oh, what could have been...
