National Basketball Association

Top 50 NBA players from last 50 years: Steve Nash ranks No. 40

Updated May. 5, 2022 1:04 a.m. ET

Editor's Note: As part of a new series for his podcast, "What’s Wright with Nick Wright," FOX Sports commentator Nick Wright is ranking the 50 best NBA players of the last 50 years. The countdown continues today with player No. 40, Steve Nash.

Steve Nash’s career highlights:

Eight-time All-Star
Three-time first-team All-NBA, two-time second-team, two-time third-team
Two-time MVP
Five-time assists champion
Fourth on all-time assists list
Four-time 50-40-90 club

There’s no debating who is the greatest shooter in NBA history. But a good debate can be had that Steve Nash is second.

When it comes to efficiency, Nash has no peers.

He’s the preeminent member of the 50-40-90 club, an exclusive assembly of shooters who made at least 50% from the field, 40% on threes and 90% at the free-throw line in a single season. Only nine players have pulled it off, including the likes of Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry.

Nash hit those thresholds four times — Bird is the only other player to do it twice — and fell one made free throw from doing it five years in a row. He fell one percent short on field goals from meeting all three marks for his career (49.0-42.8-90.4).

Steve Nash is No. 40 on Nick Wright's Top 50

Former Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks star point guard Steve Nash won back-to-back MVPs in 2005-06. Nash was also a five-time NBA assists champion and three-time first-team All-NBA selection. Nick reflects on Nash's outstanding playoff runs as a key factor in propelling him into the top 50.

The biggest knock on Nash, who got the most out of his 6-foot-3, 195-pound frame, is that he didn’t shoot more. Consider that he never attempted five 3s per game in any of his 18 seasons. By comparison, Curry has made almost five a night since Nash retired in 2014 while shooting twice as many (4.5-for-10.7). Not being more aggressive from downtown is something the world-class passer and dribbler has lamented in retirement when reflecting on how close his Suns teams came to winning it all.

"If he would have shot more 3s, if they would have had the data that we have now, maybe they do break through," Wright said.

Phoenix looked especially primed to do so between 2005-07, as the floppy-haired point guard won consecutive league MVPs and was arguably better as the runner-up a year later. Nash’s freewheeling style flowed perfectly with Mike D’Antoni’s frenetic offense.

"There was this brief, three-year stretch of time where he was one of the five best players in the league," Wright said. "His apex didn’t last quite as long as some other guys because he got started slow, because he wasn’t really the centerpiece of a [team] until he’d been in the league damn near a decade. But once he was the centerpiece of a team, they damn near reinvented basketball."

The "Seven Seconds or Less" Suns were also unlucky.

In 2005, they had the best record in basketball and were unbeaten in the postseason before Joe Johnson broke a bone in his face. In 2006, they lost All-NBA forward Amar'e Stoudemire to a season-long knee injury. In 2007, Stoudemire and Boris Diaw were suspended for Game 5 of a tied conference semifinals series with the Spurs, after they left the bench to defend Nash following a hip-check from Robert Horry.

In 2010, the Suns were tied 2-2 in the conference finals with the defending-champion Lakers when Ron Artest tipped in a game-winner at the buzzer of Game 5.

Phoenix would fall short of the Finals each time, despite Nash's brilliance. He averaged 20.0 points and 10.7 assists in the playoffs from 2005-10, leading the Suns to three conference finals while outplaying Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan at different points to get there. Prior to Nash’s arrival, the franchise had not made it out of the second round since 1993.

"He had his opportunities; sometimes you feel like there’s some big what-ifs," Wright said. "With that said, it’s not like he didn’t have some big playoff moments despite that."