< ><B>\'Bring Me The Head Of Nash\' </B></P><><B>Legend Of Stevie-As-A-Mav Must Die </B></P><>By Mike Fisher -- DallasBasketball.com </P><><B>Steve Nash is dead. </B></P><>Well, OK, he\'s not dead. But for the benefit of the Mavs in this Round 2 series, he -- or at least all the warm-and-fuzzy deification of him -- needs a stake in him, needs some cement shoes, needs six feet of dirt blanket. </P><>Is MVP Stevie a nice guy who provided Dallas with some devoted play and some terrific memories? Yup. Is the fact that he developed ties with everybody in Dallas, from owner Mark Cuban to superstar Dirk Nowitzki to equipment manager Al Whitley, hired here in part because of his boyhood chumship back in Canada with Nash, a lovely sidebar? Yup. And should Dallas honor all that? </P><>Nope. Once Game 1 is on, and especially once you lose it, 127-102, as the Mavs did Monday, you don\'t honor the enemy. </P><>I first referred to Nash as \"the enemy\'\' in July, both on DB.com and on the radio, when Nash ditched Dallas for Phoenix. I got hammered for it, then, and might now, so I\'ll explain: I don\'t wish a pox on Nash\'s house. No war, no pestilence. I don\'t want Pat O\'Brien to ring his wife on the cel phone. I simply want the facts of Nash\'s departure on the record, and want it agreed upon that <B>once you play AGAINST my team, I am AGAINST you</B>. </P><>The facts: Nash, a free agent last July, announced that he didn\'t \"need to break bank\'\' and that he wanted to stay in Dallas. The Mavs offered him, according to owner Mark Cuban, \"9mm dollars a year for 4 years, with a 5th year with half guaranteed, but he could get the 5th year fully guaranteed by playing enough games and minutes the year before. I was guessing we would end up doing 60 games and 20 minutes per game to get there. I thought it was very fair.’’ Or, Cuban told Nash, he could get \"10mm a year for 4 years straight up.’’ </P><>The offer was generous, and fair, and yes, maybe reliant somewhat on a belief that Nash truly wanted to stay here. Of course, it was also based on the belief that Nash wasn\'t worth max-out money because of his age and supposed fragility. </P><P>Phoenix disagreed, and cornered Nash into an offer that he saw as not allowing him to bounce the idea back off Cuban. Then came the signing, the potshots back and forth, and the Suns\' brilliant season, led by Nash\'s MVP success. </P><P><B>That\'s the whole history here -- and history it is. </B></P><P>So let\'s dispense, please, with the huggy and the kissy. <B>The Dallas Morning News\' front-page -- front of the NEWS section -- story on whether Nash and Nowitzki and Michael Finley would hug each other before Game 1\'s tipoff or whether they would actually make out with one another (why not some heavy petting, too, DMN?) was nauseating.</B> </P><P>Nowitzki was apparently seduced into commenting, and said, \"a hug. ... a manly hug.\'\' Finley had the better idea: \"As much as I like Steve and love him as a teammate and friend, it\'s business when you get in between the lines. So I didn\'t want to be too happy and jolly and hugging and kissing him before the game.\" </P><P>Well, grand. Once we dispense with the crap like 1) Bill Walton claiming Nash is such an underdog that he’s “only 5-9’’ and 2) The Miami Herald muddying the waters by wondering if Nash’s whiteness won him the MVP over Shaq and 3) the TV shots of the humble Nash’s two six-month-old daughters wearing “My Dad Is The MVP’’ t-shirts (Steve’s humble but the babies are braggarts?), we get to the point: </P><P>Nash is a brilliant point guard, the game’s best, running the Phoenix Suns, who might be the league’s best. In just 31 minutes on Monday, he tallied another double-double, setting up Amare Stoudemire for many of his 40 points. He served up for the Suns 127 points, 36 points on 3-pointers and 54 points in the paint.
Said Nash: “We just tried to do what we do. … It feels great.’’ </P><P>If you are a Sun, it should. If you are a Mav, it should not. Dallas would be advised to work up some healthy anger over all this. Dirk needs to use it as emotional fuel (some of that justifiable venom Nowitzki aimed at lackluster teammate Erick Dampier on Monday could be useful, too, if directed at the real enemy). The Mavs, as a team, need to be embarrassed by what happened Monday, and some of the Nash-related storylines that led up to Monday. </P><P>And they need to make certain they’ve got the black hats and the white hats on the right gunslingers, that they know which guys are the G-men and which guys are the mobsters. </P><P><B>Therefore, Steve Nash needs to sleep with the fishes. Steve Nash needs a necktie with a tree branch attached. As far as Round 2 and the Phoenix Suns are concerned, Steve Nash needs to die. </B></P> |
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