Canada's Steve Nash officially retires after 18 years in NBA, leaving matchless legacy

A true point guard is a conduit, through which the collective energy of a basketball team can flow, and the one-of-a-kind Steve Nash has been that for the profile of basketball in Canada over the past two decades.

Between Andrew Wiggins and Nik Stauskas, burgeoning interest in the Toronto Raptors, the something like 28 Canadians playing in the NCAA men's tournament and Ryerson University pulling off a successful CIS Final 8 last week in downtown Toronto, basketball is more maintstream in this country than it was even a decade ago. It's just too inveigling, with the 41-year-old Nash announcing his NBA retirement on Saturday after sitting out this season with the L.A. Lakers due to a bad back, not to give in to the great man theory of history and see him as the catalyst for the change.

Prior to Nash starring at Santa Clara and breaking into the league with the Phoenix Suns in 1996, basketball was played everywhere in Canada, yet there almost a denial of its appeal and of the country's rich history of hoops in between James Naismith and the NBA putting two teams in Canada. There was always an out. Too American, too urban, too indulgent of me-firsters, too many soft fouls. The unsaid was it too much of a threat's hockey's privileged position, since it occupies most of the same months on the calendar.

The Victoria, B.C., native opened so many eyes in places both high and low, with his way of making his teams greater than the sum of their parts by understnanding the game's flow and geometry (as Jalen Rose put it last year: "This guy will get you 20 points and you don’t even have to dribble") and, at a whippet-ish 6-foot-3, accumulating endless bumps and bruises while driving into a thicket of taller and brawnier centres and forwards.

It's hard not to draw a line from Nash winning consecutive NBA MVP awards in 2004-05 and '05-06 — which outranks Wayne Gretzky being a 10-time MVP in the NHL, given that basketball is a truly global sport and the NBA has fewer jobs than hockey — to hoops trending in the country. It mattered that the country's first NBA superstar was relatable to the middle-aged person in marketing, the kid on an outdoor court in Toronto who knows one's game speaks louded than the boxes people are placed in, or someone in Edmonton who found an itch to broaden her/his sporting tastes.

And, of course, Nash could play. The career numbers are self-explanatory: third all-time in assists after John Stockton and Jason Kidd (eerily, with one more than Mark Jackson, of the Toronto Raptors first playoff teams). One of only six players in the league's history to have 50/40/90 shooting line over an entire season.

A NBA championship ring and an Olympic medal (Nash whipped an undermanned Team Canada to fifth at the 2000 Sydney Games) proved elusive. More often than not, though, people who change a sport don't get the gold ring.

Nash, if presented with this hypothesis, would likely point out basketball's profile in Canada has been increased by social media making it easier for the fans to find each other and spread enthusiasm to the unconverted. The Raptors' arrival has helped. So has Canada being a diverse, welcoming country. So has basketball, by nature, being the team sport that is inclusive game, notwithstanding the premium on height and athleticism in its upmost echelons. Almost, anyone, female or male, can join in a pick-up game or rec league with relatively little judgement. The outsider can go from shooting alone to joining in.

Perhaps it's a little rich, and does a disservice to every coach and volunteer in nooks and crannies nationwide who's teaching the sport to make Nash the face of the sport's growth in Canada.

In his career span, though, the progression has gone from, as St. Francis Xavier University coach Steve Konchalski put it to the Ottawa Citizen this week, "‘Wow, there’s a Canadian on your team! What’s that all about?" to  it almost seeming routine to see one of ours in the NBA, WNBA or the NCAAs. Nash provided an example that was as aspirational as inspiritional, sure as shooting. And, given his career arc, he's likely to keeping paying forward.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.