Realistically, Steve Nash’s three seasons with the Lakers could hardly have gone worse. All the hope that came with the team unexpectedly trading was dashed away nearly immediately once he started playing
games and his body began breaking down.
At a certain point for Lakers fans, it became pretty clear Nash was never going to find his old form in Los Angeles. That realization also happened to Nash, just maybe a little bit later.
On Tuesday’s episode of the “Mind the Game” podcast, Nash and LeBron James were joined by Steph Curry and the show opened with Nash sharing a story of how Curry made him realize it was time to retire.
For the most part, all of the details are pretty spot on from Nash here. This took place in the 2014-15 preseason. Nash played against the Nuggets on Oct. 6 in San Diego, then sat out the team’s second game against the Warriors on Oct. 9.
The two sides met again three days later and Nash did play…but the Warriors cruised to a huge 116-75 win. Golden State didn’t quite score 45 or 50 points in the first period, but it was a 39-point quarter, which probably felt like 50 points back in 2014.
And, notably, Steph had 25 points in 24 minutes, going 8-11 from the field and 4-7 from three. According to the Associated Press recap, 12 of those 25 points came in the opening two-and-a-half minutes.
So, yeah, that seems like the type of performance that would make a player want to retire.
Officially, Nash didn’t announce his retirement until March of the next year, but basically everyone knew that would be his last year in the NBA well before then.
Ultimately, Nash knew that, too. He just found out in a much more demoralizing way.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on BlueSky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
