Steve Nash has said for a while now that he wants to retire as a Phoenix Sun. He has a great deal of loyalty to the organization, his teammates and the fans, but now the 38-year-old point guard is changing his tune a little bit.
“I am not going to come back to the Suns if there isn’t an improvement, if they’re not ambitious, if they’re not looking to upgrade the roster seriously,” Nash said. “I think they are. I think they will have a lot of flexibility in free agency.”
This is starting to become a trend. Franchise players essentially telling their teams to get better or they’re out. Dwight Howard was using his departure as leverage against the Magic to bring in some better players and now it looks like Nash is doing it too.
I don’t blame him. Nash only has a couple of years left. Who would want to spend the end of their career missing the playoffs? This goes double for Steve Nash, who is still looking for that first championship ring.
“It’s not necessarily my style to chase a championship,” Nash said. “But at the same time, if the right situation afforded me the opportunity to get a championship or play in the Finals, I would definitely consider it strongly.”
There are a lot of Nash fans out there, including myself. No one is going to hold it against him if he wants to leave to play with Miami or New York for one last shot before he retires. I think even Suns fans would have to realize that Nash has given some of his best years to Phoenix. They were even close a couple of times, but if the Suns can’t surround him with championship-caliber players, it’s time to let him go.
Now, the Suns do have a lot of cap room to work with in the offseason. We could see a totally different Phoenix team next year, maybe even a contending team. If they’re smart, they’ll be as aggressive as possible and give Nash one last chance to ride off into the sunset a winner.
