NBA: Why This Is Steve Nash's Most Impressive Season to Date

Steve Nash's game has never been predicated on speed. His style is not the end-to-end stuff you see from John Wall, or the now-you-see-him now-you-don't blow-by quickness Derrick Rose exacts with ruthless efficiency.

Heck, even Jimmer Fredette could probably beat Nash in a foot race.

But none of those three can say, at this point, that they enjoyed a career as lengthy, as fruitful and as incredible as Nash's. They're still young, yes, but if they are as productive as Nash has been when they're in their 30s, it will be something indeed.

Two Most Valuable Player awards won during that decade of life go an awful long way to making a stirring argument.

Quite simply, the 38-year-old point guard who was born in South Africa but raised in Canada defies belief. It appears to come naturally to him. After all, he's done it for about eight years' running now.

You might not believe it unless you see it, as if you were some born-again version of Doubting Thomas.

After all, how can a 6'3" guard, one who is forced to lie down during breaks from the action, gaze fixed firmly on the rafters above him in order to give his ailing back some small respite, somehow, someway be averaging 12.5 points, 10.7 assists and 3.0 rebounds a night—all in just 31.6 minutes a night?

To put that in perspective, Nash is second in the league in assists per game, trailing the Boston Celtics' Rajon Rondo's 11.6 dimes. But Rondo plays nearly six more minutes per contest than Nash (36.9 minutes).

And you could make the case that with the (albeit aging) Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett around him, Rondo has a bit more star power scoring to work with than, say, Nash. One look at the teams' records says enough in that category. The Celtics are in the playoffs, the Suns are not. Ergo.

Yes, the points per game (12.5) are Nash's lowest output since the 1999-00 season, when he averaged 8.6 with the Dallas Mavericks. Yes, the assists are his lowest since '08-09.

But to say that Nash is diminishing is to do his remarkable story a disservice. In many ways, he's just as agonizing a match up for opposing defenses as he was back in the middle portions of the last decade, when he won those back-to-back MVP awards (2004-05 and 2005-06.)

He's still got the game; yes, the one that makes the haters cringe as they shout at their TV screens vitriol such as "I could guard him out there!"

It's true that Nash often looks as if he's playing in slow motion, even as if his feet were stuck in molasses at times.

But somehow, someway, he keeps sinking those mid-range jumpers. Somehow, he keeps finding his teammates in stride with inch-perfect passes. Lame, he is not.

Even with his contract up now that the season has ended, and much debate about whether he'll stick around in the southwest and fade off into the sunset for retirement or pursue a ring elsewhere, Nash showed absolutely no sign of being distracted during the entire 66-game campaign.

There's something to be said about that kind of commitment.

There has been no Dwight Howard-esque embarrassing escapades with his head coach. Nash has never made headlines for looking as if he wanted to be anywhere but, well, where he's been since he returned to the Suns back in that historic '03-04 season.

Watch him during a game, and you'll get some insight into what the term "consummate professional" means.

There he is, the first off the bench...well, floor, when his teammates come over for a timeout, high-fiving and congratulating them as if he were on a 10-day contract trying to make it on the roster.

There he is, flying over to a fallen teammate who's just succumbed to a hard foul, legs churning and pumping furiously despite his fatigue, to show his solidarity. Those kinds of acts make a difference; they make a big difference.

He is the quintessential point guard (and as should be the case in regards to that position historically predicated upon passing), he is the consummate teammate.

He was the most efficient player on his team, as diagnosed by the site 82games.com, showing that he wasn't simply a circus act unwilling to accept his inevitable retirement.

Nash's simple rating of plus-10.6, and his efficiency rating of plus-5.4, while not in the upper echelon of the league, are still far and away the best on the entire Suns team. (Marcin Gortat is second in both simple rating and efficiency rating with a plus-7.9 and plus-2.3, respectively.)

It's the kind of statistical reference that will make Nash a coveted prospect on the free agent market this summer. Like Jason Kidd has shown with the Dallas Mavericks, there is a definite need for savvy point guards in this league—no matter their age.

Kidd got his title last season. Will Nash get his in 2012-13?

We can only wait and see.