Try to Guess These Big-Time Ballers Before They Were NBA Stars
Take a look at what some of the best NBA stars of the court were like before they became big-time ballers... By Brett SingerSchool Years: Nash’s status as an NBA “nice guy” can perhaps be traced back to this photo. He wasn’t perfect, though; his parents sent him to St. Michaels University School on Vancouver Island because they were concerned about his grades.
Snakkle Snippet: Nash’s high school basketball coach Ian Hyde-Lay knew he had a “diamond in the rough,” but since St. Michaels isn’t exactly an NCAA Division I feeder school, Hyde-Lay had a hard time getting anyone to take a look. They approached 30 or 40 schools, says Hyde-Lay: “Indiana, Virginia, Florida State, Maryland, Arizona, Washington. Almost all of them just blew it off. He’s got a shoebox full of letters saying thanks but no thanks.” Check out this really cool link to his high school coach talking about Nash here: He ended up at Santa Clara.
Now: At 37, Nash “leads the league in assists (again) on a mediocre team that won’t make the playoffs,” says Bleacher Report‘s Vin Getz. It’s hard to imagine anything really bothering him, though. In 2006, when Nelly Furtado included his name in her song “Promiscuous” (“Is your game MVP like Steve Nash”), he simply responded that he was “flattered” to be mentioned in the song, adding that he was “completely in love with my wife and two little baby girls,” according to Page Six. It probably helped his home life that Furtado quickly acknowledged that she was only giving Nash a shout-out because they were both Canadians.
Nash is also a budding film director. With Ezra Holland, he codirected the short film Into the Wind for ESPN’s 30 for 30.