By Jeff Faraudo
#WCChoops columnist | ARCHIVES
Years after Steve Nash left Santa Clara and was well into his Hall of Fame career in the NBA, former Broncos’ coach Dick Davey ran into his old point guard at a restaurant in Oklahoma City.
Davey decided it was time to finally hit Nash with a question that had been bugging him for a long time.
“You know Steve,” Davey asked, “you’d penetrate and always dish the ball with one hand.”
“Coach, let me tell you why I do that,” Nash replied. “When I penetrate and dish the ball to the guy in the corner it takes 3/10ths of a second longer if I do it with two hands than if I do it with one.”
Just like that, Nash confirmed what Davey had long suspected: “He’s a genius in the game as far as I’m concerned.”
I tracked down Davey, retired and living with his wife in Maui, to ask him how he thought Nash will fare as a rookie head coach with the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets.
You can probably guess where this is headed.
Nash, the former two-time Player of the Year in the West Coast Conference and two-time MVP in the NBA, has never coached. His team opens the regular season Tuesday at home against the Golden State Warriors.
In interviews before his exhibition debut on Sunday, Nash said he’s excited but acknowledged he faces a learning curve.
“Hopefully, I bring a lot of experience and acumen to the position from a different vantage point,” he said. “But as far as actually being a coach, I think it’d be impossible to judge me at this point.
“And hopefully you won’t judge me too quickly and too soon as I have a lot of growing to do.”
Davey was surprised when Nash decided to enter coaching but has no doubts he will succeed.
“He has an aptitude for the game that is second to nobody that I know,” Davey said. "That’s why I became a real good coach for a few years . . . because he coached the team.
“He’s the best I’ve ever been around for knowledge of the game, understanding how to play angles, all the little things that are hard to understand.”
But part of coaching, especially in the NBA, is dealing with strong personalities. And Nash’s roster features former MVP Kevin Durant and volatile point guard Kyrie Irving.
“They’re going to have a lot of respect for Steve, respect his knowledge and feel for the game. It will reflect on their game,” Davey said. “I have trouble imaging anybody not appreciating him and his attitude and his personality.”
TOPPING THE LIST: Nash has one edge on all of his NBA coaching brethren — he scored more points as a college player than any of them.
Nash is among four former WCC players who are head coaches in the league this season, joining fellow Broncos’ alum Lloyd Pierce (Atlanta Hawks), San Diego’s James Borrego (Charlotte) and Portland grad Erik Spoelstra (Miami Heat), who has won two NBA championships as a coach.
Here are the 11 NBA coaches who topped 1,000 points in their college careers:
1,689: Steve Nash, Santa Clara (Brooklyn)
1,577: Tyronn Lue, Nebraska (L.A. Clippers)
1,535: Rick Carlisle, Maine/Virginia (Dallas)
1,445: Steve Kerr, Arizona (Golden State)
1,371: Monty Williams, Notre Dame (Phoenix)
1,328: Billy Donovan, Providence (Chicago)
1,234: Doc Rivers, Marquette (Philadelphia)
1,179: Luke Walton, Arizona (Sacramento)
1,104: Terry Stotts, Oklahoma (Portland)
1,075: Scott Brooks, TCU/UC Irvine (Washington)
1,027: Erik Spoelstra, Portland (Miami)
By the way, Nash’s total even eclipses the collegiate scoring mark hoops icon Bill Russell, who posted 1,636 points in his three-season USF career (along with 1,606 rebounds). Russell went on to win 11 NBA titles with the Boston Celtics, two of them as a player-coach.
FASTEST START IN 52 YEARS: Twenty-five years after Nash delivered his last one-handed pass for the Broncos, Santa Clara improved to 6-0 with an 88-65 win over Fresno Pacific on Tuesday. It’s the program’s best start since the 1968-69 season.
Santa Clara plays San Jose State on Friday in Santa Cruz, but will have to remain perfect for another couple months to challenge the ’68-69 squad. That team, led by Dennis Awtrey and brothers Bud and Ralph Ogden, opened the season with 21 wins in a row, reached No. 2 in the national rankings and finished 27-2 after losing to Lew Alcindor and UCLA in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
ZAGS VS. THE BEST: Top-ranked Gonzaga returns to action Saturday vs. No. 3 Iowa at Sioux Falls, S.D., after canceling its past four games due to COVID-19 issues.
The Hawkeyes will challenge Gonzaga with versatile center Luka Garza, who averages 29.2 points and is a leading candidate for national Player of the Year honors.
Jim Meehan of the Spokane Spokesman Review wrote this week about seven games Gonzaga has faced national players of the year since 1995. The results has been mixed.
Here’s the rundown:
1995: Joe Smith, Maryland — Gonzaga won
2000: Kenyon Martin, Cincinnati — Cincinnati won
2004: Jameer Nelson, St. Joseph’s — St. Joseph’s won
2007: Kevin Durant, Texas — Gonzaga won
2011: Jimmy Fredette, BYU — BYU won
2018: Jalen Brunson, Villanova — Villanova won
2019: Zion Williamson, Duke — Gonzaga won
ANOTHER TOP-20 FOE: Yes Santa Claus, there is a Virginia. Gonzaga announced it will face No. 17 Virginia the day after Christmas at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. CBS will televise the 1 p.m. game that marks the Zags’ fourth matchup this season with a Top-25 opponent.
Like Gonzaga, Virginia has had four games canceled due to issues related to COVID-19, including high-profile matchups vs. Michigan State and Villanova. The Cavaliers (3-1) were knocked out of their perch at No. 4 after a 61-60 loss to USF on Thanksgiving weekend.
HONORING GREATNESS: After the top-ranked Stanford women beat Pacific 104-61 on Tuesday night, giving Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer an all-time women’s record 1,099th career victory, Tigers coach Bradley Davis had a big-picture reaction to the occasion.
"I am the son of a diplomat, so I think in those terms," Davis said. "And Tara’s the premiere ambassador of women’s basketball. To be a part of this moment, it doesn’t hit you right away because you are still thinking about missed rebounds and transitions and that kind of things. I think down the line, to be part of that moment, you’ll sit back and reflect on it.”
AZTEC CHALLENGE: No. 18 San Diego State (5-0) already has beaten the WCC’s Pepperdine, along with UCLA and Arizona State of the Pac-12.
The WCC will send two of its best against the Aztecs in coming days. BYU (6-2) visits San Diego on Friday before Saint Mary’s (7-1) and SDSU collide on Tuesday at San Luis Obispo.