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You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in NBA circles who has a bad word to say about Steve Nash, the basketball player. Over the course of an 18-year NBA career, Nash won two MVP's, made four appearances in the Western Conference Finals, led the league in assists per game five times, and played in eight NBA All-Star Games. Even more importantly, Nash, head coach Mike D'Antoni, and the Seven Seconds or Less Phoenix Suns ushered in a beautiful and exciting era of basketball. As for Steve Nash, the head coach… well, those results weren't always as beautiful.
Steve Nash was hired to be the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets in September 2020, but by November 2022, that partnership had ended. And to be clear, no matter what anyone wants to say, it wasn't for lack of success. Nash was 94-67 during his stint as the head coach of the Nets, and made the Playoffs in each of his two full seasons with the team, including an Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 2021. No, Nash and the Nets parted ways because of chemistry issues he had with the team's star players, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
Given the sort of chemistry Steve Nash had with countless teammates throughout his career, it came as a bit of a surprise that things didn't work out with the Nets, but Durant and Irving are two of the most polarizing personalities in the NBA today, and Nash clearly wasn't prepared to handle those personalities from the coach's seat on the bench.
“I hadn’t planned to coach, but there was a unique situation in Brooklyn that knocked on my door,” Nash said over the weekend at Goran Dragic's retirement celebration, per Cesare Milanti of EuroHoops.net. “It was a quick transition. You deal with a different dynamic. A lot of it is managing personalities, between front offices, players, and agents. That’s a huge component of my job. All the dynamics, personalities, and power that the players hold nowadays.
Steve Nash retired before the Player Empowerment Era had fully taken off, so perhaps he was unaccustomed to seeing star players yield their power so regularly and so recklessly. It doesn't help that his two stars, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, have been two of the most demonstrative players in the league in that regard.
Lessons learned from Steve Nash's Nets tenure
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Steve Nash hasn't returned to coaching since parting ways with the Nets nearly two years ago, and from the sound of it, we shouldn't necessarily be expecting that he will be returning to the bench any time soon. It turns out, the experience of coaching wasn't exactly what Nash expected it to be.
“I was surprised when I coached, you’re not in the team that much,” Nash said. “You have five minutes with players before the game, at halftime, and after the game. Those are the only times when you address the team. I wanted to connect with every player individually. It’s important to build a culture and an environment where people believe and see them be their best.”
Steve Nash is now 50 years old, has a wife and kids and various business interests, and those are the things that matter more to him now than ever before.
“Coaching was a great experience, I didn’t want to be a career coach. I don’t think coaching was about to be my career. I’m coaching my kids, teaching them life. I earned the opportunity to choose, and that’s rewarding, There are always projects, affiliates, and partnerships. I always have something going on, I’m focused on my family,” Nash continued.
The good news for Steve Nash is that he didn't need his time with the Brooklyn Nets to be a success in order for his NBA legacy to be secure.
