Some things, v1.19:

Anytime Nash is town there is a lot of things, but on this occassion I'm going to go with one big thing: my take on the Nash patriot/traitor debate, such as it is. I kind of got rambling, so you might want to get a coffee first, or something.   

Gretzky did it. Lemieux did it. Yzerman too.

They played for Team Canada at stages of their careers when some time off or some more time on the trainer's table might have served them and their organizations well.

But they suited up, skated out and will always be able to hold their heads high among those who think national colours are the most important uniform an athlete can wear.

Yesterday, in places where the debate is always waiting to rear its head, Steve Nash was getting the business, on the Internet on sports radio. Even here at From Deep, judging from some of the comments the last few days.

‘Why didn’t Canada’s basketball ambassador play last summer with a chance to earn a spot in the Olympics on the line?’ ‘Why won’t he play this summer when Leo Rautins's men’s team plays in a last-chance qualifying tournament for a spot in Beijing?’

Not that Nash noticed. Having played Tuesday night in Indianapolis with the Phoenix Suns, Nash got to Toronto late and got to sleep even later, as is his habit after games, his metabolism all revved up from another all-out assault on basketball physics.

Talk? He’d rather nap, which he does most afternoons on the road the day after finding new and creative ways to thread the ball to running mate Amare Stoudemire for some more high-wire acrobatics.

Should Nash play for Canada? Is he a bad person because he’s not? Is he good because he did?

I’m probably not a great person to make much of a judgment on this issue, such as it is. I love sports. I love the Olympics. But I’m not a big flag waver. There are lots of reasons to be a proud Canadian, but it’s always struck me a bit odd that a bunch of people who’ve never been in a boat without a motor can get all excited when rowers who have been grinding their bodies to dust before dawn for years – often in spite of tax payer support, rather than because of it – win silver at the Olympics. Or get similarly get all bent out of shape because they ‘lost’ gold.

How that makes you more or less proud to be Canadian, I’m not sure. When I hear or write those kinds of stories – about underappreciated athletes putting everything on the line only a few times in their career - it makes me more proud to be human, not Canadian.

But clearly there is large contingent of people who feel strongly about Nash’s decision not to play for Canada. There are roughly two camps: the first are those who look at the 10 or so summers he did play and figure he’s earned the right to say no. The second, and smaller group, figure he’s shirking his duty to his country and the sport in this country and he should be there, end of story, often citing the examples of Gretzky, Yzerman and Lemieux doing just that on the hockey side, late in their careers, possibly to their detriment.

I’ll tackle the second one first. I believe Nash when he says he’d like to play for Canada again, but that he can’t physically. He often says he wishes the year was 15 months long so he could do it all – play the 110 games or so he does for the Suns, give six weeks or so to the national team and still have three months or so to rest and prepare for the long grind ahead.

The difference between the situation Nash and the hockey greybeards found themselves in was that the hockey events – certainly the Olympics – took place in the course of the regular season. They didn’t have to make a choice between their holiday and playing for their country.

The Canada Cups took place, if I recall correctly, just before training camp, at a time when their training would be ramped up anyway. Doubtless playing with the best in the world was a good way to prepare for the regular season. As well, the Canada Cups were a profit centre for the NHLPA, if I’m not mistaken, so there was some motivation there.

The world championships are also timed to take place essentially during the season, or at least at a time when most guys wish they were playing. Many times the rationalization for a lot of players who make the trip is to scrub off the disappointment of not making the playoffs. And typically the guys that do go are younger players who might not ordinarily get the chance to play for Canada.

On the basketball side things are a little trickier. The events are generally smack in the middle or the end-middle of the NBA off-season. There is no way to cut it: for someone like Nash, playing for Canada is absolutely at the expense of time he would otherwise be spending with family, recovering from the season or ramping up for the next. This is why USA Basketball has had a floating roster of 30 or so possible players during their build-up to Beijing. Even though they asked for a three-year commitment from the Kobe’s and the LeBron’s, they knew that life, babies, surgeries, etc., simply get in the way.

Nash is in the same boat, but he’s a roster of one.

The other factor is that the international basketball calendar never stops. In 2007 teams were playing in the Olympic qualifying tournament. In 2008 it’s the Olympics. In 2009 it will be qualifying for the world championships, arguably more prestigious in basketball circles than the Olympics and in 2010 it’s the world championships themselves.          

Guess what rolls around in 2011? That’s right. Olympic qualifying.

I’m not suggesting our Canadian hockey heroes don’t deserve credit for playing at the Olympics or at the Canada Cup or whatever. But how willing would they be to play in the Olympics if it they were in July or August? And what if playing in the Olympics one summer meant qualifying for them the summer before? And what if, instead of the Canada Cup, the big deal was the world championship? And what if that was in July or August? And what if that meant you had to qualify the summer before?

Would Gretzky have played every summer? Right into his mid-30s? We’ll never know if he would or if he wouldn’t. The key point is that he was never asked to do it.

This brings me to the other side of the equation. How much credit does Nash deserve because he did play for Canada for so long?

He definitely deserves some, but the Saint Steve movement out there, which inevitably includes references to his selfless commitment to playing basketball for Canada, like he was going to Afghanistan or something, could use some deflating. Chances are Nash would be among the first to take some air out of that balloon.

The reality is when Nash started playing for Canada he was, in basketball terms, an attention-starved kid desperate to gain some tangible affirmation that he was an elite player with a future in the professional game. It helped that he grew up in Victoria and around the influence of former national team coach Ken Shields and stalwarts like Eli Pasquale, but early on Nash got as much or more out of playing for Canada as was the reverse. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.

Later, when Nash was in the NBA, the national team offered even more. While he was getting overlooked in Phoenix and booed in Dallas, he would come back to Canada in the summers and be reminded what it was like to be a key cog again and what it was like to have success on the basketball court again. An added bonus was that he was playing with peers; friends he’d made as a kid in the program or playing at the Canada Games or whatever. Instead of playing in the all-business atmosphere that the NBA often is – especially on struggling teams – he was in an environment with guys that shared his history and his values. It wasn’t a chore or a duty, it was a vacation. Literally there was nowhere that a 20-something Nash would rather be.  

That experience peaked at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 in a bittersweet tournament where Nash led Canada to a 7-2 record – second-best overall – but fell just short of a medal. At the time it was an impressive feat. With seven years of hindsight and a deeper understanding of the depth and quality of international basketball, it was a stunning achievement.  

And that was pretty much it for Nash as an international player. There was the last-hurrah attempt to qualify for the 2004 Olympics in the summer of 2003 which came up just short and then a decision to step away from the national team program that has grown firmer every year since. And while there’s the drama of the firing of his friend and former coach Jay Triano to give the whole thing a layer of intrigue, it’s kind of a red herring. Nash was done as a national team player before Triano ever got fired; that just made it easier to say ‘no’ in the early going. 

But the national team commitment he made then serves him well now. Even as his NBA star has ascended into the stratosphere the fact that he did play for Canada has made Nash the equivalent of being from every Canadian basketball fan’s – and most sports fan’s – hometown. We knew him when. 

The reality is he got as much out of playing for Canada as he put in. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have played then either. Humans – at least rational ones – are funny that way.

So where does it leave us? Is Nash forever an athletic patriot for having played before? Is he somehow betraying someone or something by saying ‘no’ now?

I’d say neither. He did what he did then because he wanted to, and it served him well for a range of reasons. And he’s doing what he does now because he wants to, and it serves him for a range of reasons.

But there is one statistic worth mentioning that might tip the balance for those somehow aggrieved at the fact he’s no longer spending his summers ‘serving’ his country. Or at least conflicted about it.

In his first five NBA seasons, when Nash was still a regular with the national team program, he missed an average of 20 games a year due to injury. In his next five NBA seasons, when he played only one summer of international basketball, he’s missed just 20 games total.

A player who Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban wouldn’t re-sign in part because he was concerned about Nash’s durability has become a virtual ironman while at the same time playing the very best basketball of his career and earning wide recognition as one of the best point guards of all time 

Last night Nash rolled into the Air Canada Centre just two months shy of his 34th birthday and playing on the second night of a back-to-back and ran rings around the Raptors, effortlessly (or so he made it look) racking up 18 assists.

All his fans – and chances are that was just about everyone among the 19,800 at the ACC -- loved it, even if it did mean the Raptors went down in flames.

There is no doubt that all of his fans across the country would love to have seen Nash leading a plucky underdog team in Olympic qualifying this past summer in Las Vegas or at next summer’s last-gasp qualifying event or maybe, against all odds, at the Olympics themselves.

Who wouldn’t want to see Nash in the winter star for the Suns and then in the summer fly the flag for Canada? More Nash is better, I think everyone would agree.

But keep in mind as you watch Nash streak across the NBA galaxy this year once more, fit, healthy and at the top of his game, that you can’t have it all.

Nash knows it. And we should too.