ADAM GREEN

Steve Nash is paving the way for his exit out of Phoenix

Mar 30, 2012, 10:46 PM | Updated: Mar 31, 2012, 12:11 am

It appears Steve Nash is preparing for an exit.

A free agent at the end of this season, the Suns have,
publicly, expressed hope a desire to keep
the former league MVP on Planet Orange after this season.

Still playing at a high level, Nash is the quintessential
Phoenix Sun, the face of the franchise and the team’s best
player. Even though they should begin the
rebuilding process around young players, it makes sense on
some levels for the organization to want Nash back for a
few more years.

But what about the player, does he want to come back?

According to Nash himself, only if the Suns make some
serious improvements this summer, because he’d rather not
spend his final days in the NBA playing for a lottery
team, which is what the Suns are right now.
“I definitely do want to win,” Nash told
FoxSports Radio’s Dan Patrick.
“I’m not going to come
back to the Suns if there isn’t an improvement. If they’re
not ambitious and they’re not looking to upgrade the
roster seriously — and I think they are.

“They’ll have a lot of flexibility in free agency. I think
I’ve been standing pat so they could do some things this
summer. I think they’ll become a definite possibility for
me, but I do want to win and I do want to consider all my
options.”

A player not wanting to play for a winner would be
news, so Nash’s words should not really come as a shock to
anyone.

Except for the fact that the timing of his statement is a
bit curious.

The Suns, after all, can no longer make improvements to
this year’s team. And, if the New
York Post’s Peter Vescey
is to be believed, this fact
infuriates Nash. Regardless, the roster you see is the one
that will continue to fight for a playoff spot, though
they will be doing so short Grant Hill, who had surgery
Friday to repair a torn meniscus.

But again, Nash’s comments are not about this year – not
really. No doubt the last two seasons have been a drain on
him, because there is no doubt being on the losing end of
the scoreboard more often than is not a lot of fun.
However, there was little Nash could do about it before –
short of asking for a trade, which he was not going to do
– so he had to tough it out, continuing to battle every
night in the hopes that things would somehow improve.

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