I could write a game preview relating to Kevin Garnett’s ball-tap, or Channing Frye’s logical comments about the ball-tap this afternoon. I could write about Marcin Gortat’s out-of-nowhere 19 points and 17 rebounds in the last Celtics-Suns meeting, or I could write about Mickael Pietrus’ annoying tendency (and I have no stats to support this) to murder the Celtics. I could write about Jeff Green and Nenad Krstic, or I could write about something else I’ve spent far too much time discussing the past few days.

Or I could write about Steve Nash. Partially because he’s one of my favorite non-Celtics, and partially because he’s having one of the most severely overlooked seasons in recent memory.

The Suns, when Nash is on the court, are an obscene 17.2 points per 100 possessions better than when he’s off it. That’s partially due to the fact that Goran Dragic, Nash’s backup prior to the trade deadline, has taken a step back this season. But 17.2 points are 17.2 points, even if Grant Hill’s grandmother was Nash’s backup. For comparison’s sake, the Chicago Bulls are 4.0 points better with Derrick Rose on the floor, the Boston Celtics are 8.2 points better with Rajon Rondo on the floor, the New Orleans Hornets are 15.3 points better with Chris Paul on the floor, and the Utah Jazz were 8.6 points worse with Deron Williams on the floor (yes, you read that right). When reading these stats, please keep in mind: Mr. Nash is 37 years old. By most historical comparisons, he should have retired by now.

Instead, Nash keeps chugging along, dragging a stable of decent small forwards and — to use a Waltonism — the thinnest, softest frontcourt in the history of Western Civilization to within one game of the Western Conference’s final playoff spot (and, actually, the Suns are one game ahead of current eighth-seed Memphis in the loss column). Quick, name the Suns’ best big man. You said Channing Frye, right? Gross. Yet Nash has this Phoenix team, so flawed in so many ways, four games above .500.

The Canadian magician trails only Rajon Rondo in assists per game, and, per 36 minutes, Nash actually out-assists Rondo 12.2 to 11.5. While Rondo has earned a reputation as a poor shooter, Nash shoots 50.7% from the field, 38.2% from the arc, and 91.6% from the free throw line, while averaging 16.4 points per game — all of which puts him one slightly-extended hot streak away from joining the 50-40-90 club for the fifth time in his career.

Nobody else has ever accomplished that feat more than twice, and only four players besides Nash — Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, Dirk Nowitzki, and Mark Price — have ever done it once. Yet Nash, 37 years old, is whiskers away from doing it again. As usual, he shoots such a high percentage while having to create almost all his offense by himself — only 12.5% of all Nash’s made shots are assisted. Contrast that to Ray Allen, another old man within shouting distance of the 50-40-90 club this season, who is assisted on 73.4% of his made field goals.

The Phoenix Suns, without Nash, would reside in the NBA’s basement alongside the Cleveland Cavaliers. Hell, they’d be worse than the Cavs. When Nash sits, the Suns get outscored by an average of 13.5 points per 100 possessions. The Cavs, meanwhile, get outscored by an average of 10.9 points per 100 possessions.

Again, I point out that Nash is 37 years old. Not that his accomplishments need a qualifier. For a man of any age, Nash’s numbers and play speak for themselves. He just should have slowed down years ago.

Maybe Nash didn’t deserve to make the All-Star team. Chris Paul and Deron Williams are terrific talents, and play (or played, in Williams’ case) for good teams. But Nash has been fantastic, in ways that Nash always is fantastic. Despite playing with a misshapen roster that lacked positional foresight, Nash has done what he always does, lifting Phoenix on his oft-spasming back while making everyone around him much better.

These oddly-constructed Suns could very conceivably earn a playoff berth, and that, in a career filled that has led to two MVP trophies, would be one of Nash’s greatest accomplishments yet.

Perk's happy face.

The scene seems eerily similar to my kindergarten class, where we sat in a circle and passed around what my teacher called “the conch.” If you held the conch, just a regular seashell, you were allowed to speak. If you didn’t have the conch, your silence was insisted upon. It was kind of like Lord of the Flies, except an adult was actually in charge, and I don’t think my teacher considered us savages when the conch was somebody else’s.

The 20-24 Phoenix Suns gathered at mid-court during yesterday’s practice, to discuss how to right their recent wrongs. Their defense has too often resembled a five-man fish net, with holes everywhere. Their rebounding, too often non-existent. Their offense, not enough to carry their obvious flaws. Never mind that those are natural side effects of a roster that combines twenty-five small forwards. These Suns are frustrated, and they want to fix this leak before it sinks the entire franchise.

“We had a good stretch and now we’re having a bad stretch and we’ve got to find a way to end this as quickly as possible,” Steve Nash told the Arizona Republic. “We’ve just got to come out, play hard and compete and give ourselves a chance to win. If we lose, we can sleep at night if we compete. I feel like there’s been moments where we’ve been caught thinking instead of fighting.”

Questioning his team’s fight, Nash sounds the alarm, pleading for change. But it’s difficult to imagine a team that starts both Channing Frye and Vince Carter ever being tough. The problem is personnel more than anything else. Carter is who we thought he was, a disinterested star who continues to underachieve despite natural physical gifts that make even Michael Jordan envious.

One recent Carter anecdote sheds more light on the unfulfilled promise of his career: Grant Hill, noted great guy and awesome teammate, questioned Carter’s diet and conditioning. “He eats one too many cookies on that plane,” said Hill during a radio interview. Carter has never been willing to take the extra step to corral the greatness that once seemed his destiny. He’s never been willing to cut that extra cookie out of his diet, or to cut hard on every play. Now 34 years old, Carter’s an old dog. And it’s tough to teach an old dog new tricks. To continue using cliches, it’s not the size of the athleticism in the player, it’s the size of the combination of athleticism and fight in the player. Err, or something like that. What I mean to say is, Carter’s never been known as a fighter. If you ever did have to make a fighter analogy with Carter, he’d be the one with a glass jaw.

Maybe Carter should take notes when playing against Kendrick Perkins tonight.

“(Perkin’s) is a really physical guy,” Marcin Gortat told SB Nation. “He’s a guy who will never let it go. I’m going to kind of compare him to a little dog. These little dogs, they will never let go. They’re so small, they just keep barking and just keep running around you. You’re going to keep throwing the little ball and they’re going to keep running and bring it back. He’ll grab to your leg and he’ll never let go. That’s how is Kendrick Perkins. He’ll never let go. He’ll keep fighting with you, he’ll keep pushing you, keep hitting you and at some point you’re going to go like, ‘damn dude, you don’t have enough?’”

“But honestly, that’s great,” Gortat continued. “That’s character and I really respect him for doing that. I always seen this guy battling Dwight (Howard)…I really respect his game and respect him as a player. Even though right now he’s my enemy because we play today, I’m happy he’s back on the floor. He’s a good player and I believe that he deserves to play because of his hard work and his heart.”

According to Gortat, Stan Van Gundy used to say the key to playing against a player like Perkins wasn’t strategy — the key was having balls. Some of Gortat’s teammates should find some. Carter’s, specifically, have been lost for quite some time.

It’s a shame, too, that these Suns lack fight. They are wasting the remarkable twilight of Nash’s career.

I was reading Andrew Sharp’s piece about Kevin Durant’s media-driven throne of righteousness, and I completely disagreed with one of Sharp’s points. Oddly enough, considering it was a piece about Durant, the actual point I disagreed with had little to do with the spindly, 6’9″ scorer. Sharp wrote this: (SB Nation)

Jerry Seinfeld once said sports fans are basically “cheering laundry,” and in a literal sense, he’s right. But in a literal sense, sports are a complete and utter waste of time. That’s Seinfeld’s point. Only by taking things to the deeper level, adopting certain guys as heroes and others as villains… Only then does it become something worth going crazy over.

We create this dynamic—LeBron as villain, Durant as hero—because otherwise, they’re just two oversized gentleman that run up and down a wooden court 100 nights a year, wearing different laundry. Projecting character onto these guys may be naive, but it’s also what makes sports fun. And that’s the essential truth missed by both Craggs and all the writers lavishing Durant with praise.

If NBA players could all be more like Kevin Durant… Basketball would be incredibly boring.

I don’t know about all of you, but I don’t watch basketball, I don’t follow basketball, and I don’t love basketball because the players have character. I don’t care about the NBA because Lebron James is a villain and Kevin Durant is a hero. If that was why I cared about sports, I wouldn’t care about sports at all. I’d merely watch soap operas all day, preferably All My Children.

In fact, I hardly care about what NBA superstars are like off the floor. I don’t watch Lebron James play basketball because he’s a villain, or because he used to be seen as “the unselfish superstar,” just as I don’t watch Kevin Durant play basketball because he seems like a fun guy to play Madden against.  I watch Lebron because he is the biggest, strongest, fastest package of athleticism ever created by the hand of God, and I watch Durant because I’ve never seen someone his height with that mind-blowing package of skills. Watching them, regardless of how the media portrays them or how I feel about them as individuals, not only brings me awe that a human being could be THAT good at basketball, but that he could push the limits of human accomplishments so far.

Greatness, no matter who does it or what avenue of life it appears in, is special. It’s why I watched the Olympics and became attached to Michael Phelps. I didn’t know the first thing about Phelps and I didn’t know the first thing about executing a proper flip turn, but I understood that what he was doing was extremely special, and that was good enough for me. I returned to my television every time Phelps had a race, because I knew there was always the potential for greatness. I didn’t care whether Phelps was a bank robber or Mother Theresa; he was doing something better than it had ever been done before, and that was enough for me.

But watching basketball is different than watching the Olympics, different than watching Phelps. Not only do I watch for the potential greatness each game brings, but I watch because I appreciate the intricacies of the game. I watch because a simple bounce pass can leave me breathless. I watch for the sound of a swish, the thwap of a dribble, and because the squeaking of sneakers sounds like heaven. I watch for the perfectly executed screen-and-roll, the beautiful no-look pass, and because “damn, did you just see that guy fly?” I watch because you never know when you’ll see a close game, a great comeback, or an astounding play. I watch because I don’t ever want to miss something special, and I watch because I see greatness even in the smallest, most normal plays.

So no, Andrew Sharp, I don’t watch basketball because Lebron James is a villain and Kevin Durant is a hero. In fact, if they were “just two oversized gentleman that run up and down a wooden court 100 nights-a-year, wearing different laundry” that’d be A-okay with me. As long as they still played the game I love and played it better than just about anyone else on earth. As long as they still showed me what greatness looks like, as long as they still tested the boundaries of human accomplishment.

Even my unabashed love for certain players has no basis in personality. Paul Pierce isn’t my favorite player because he’s a great guy, or because he’s known as The Truth, or because he smiles from time to time in postgame press conferences; he’s my favorite player because he’s been a Celtic the longest, because his on-court skills have helped my favorite team win games for years. The same thing goes for my favorite non-Celtic, Steve Nash. I don’t give a damn that Nash makes funny videos or seems really down to earth, or that some people view him as the underdog because he’s small and white. Those things are all cool by me, but I try to watch Nash as often as I can because he makes at least three or four passes per game that make me wish I was a soccer-loving Canadian originally from South Africa.

I watch sports in general for the potential of seeing something prodigious,  but I watch basketball more often than I watch any other sport because I appreciate every intricate detail roundball has to offer. I certainly “root for laundry” when I cheer on the Celtics, but I’ve got a confession: even if Lebron, Durant and every other player in the NBA were nothing more than bland, boring, over-sized gentlemen who run up and down a wooden court 100 nights a year, I’d still love this game.

What can I say? I’m an addict.

Rumors, rumors, rumors and more rumors, rumors, rumors. That’s all I’ve heard about the past few days. But now it’s time for some concrete substance. Some real, substantiated truth. And you know what it is? It’s that Nate Robinson, despite playing nary a soccer game in his entire life (he chose to play a man’s sport during the fall), is “amazing” at soccer, according to TrueHoop’s Henry Abbott. Why in the world was Nate playing soccer? Steve Nash’s annual charity event. (ESPN)

Meanwhile, the title that I was hoping Jennings would steal — NBA player who’s surprising good at soccer — was no contest in favor of the amazing Nate Robinson. Part of his greatness was his relentless motor, which showed after the game when he said he had “never been more tired” and felt “like I just worked out seven hours.” He seemed to have been playing his entire life, though he insisted before, during and after the game that he had literally never played one soccer game before.

If true, this was one of the great athletic performances of all time.

Nate Robinson, owner of “one of the great athletic performances of all time.” And here I was thinking his life had peaked with his third Slam Dunk title.

I think it’s safe to say Steve Nash is a certified clown. “You don’t know Steve Nash?”

This movie’s hysterical. I hate the ending (there’s no way Artest could ever throw a ball in the hole anyway), but certain parts were perfect. The Kobe “That’s my elbow!” complaint after a miss was perfect, as was Nash licking his hair. Also loved when Rondo said it must be the fourth quarter, because Kobe was being a hog.