Shoulder sidelines Nash for Sunday's All-Star Game
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
Steve Nash will not play in Sunday's All-Star Game because of his ailing shoulder.
Nash has missed the Suns' past three games and will also be held out of Wednesday's visit to Seattle, according to the Suns.
"Steve's just not ready to play right now. He needs the recovery and rehab time," coach Mike D'Antoni said in a statement released by the team. "He hasn't recovered as quickly as we anticipated. Hopefully, he'll be able to resume play after the All-Star break."
Withdrawing from the annual Skills Challenge on All-Star Saturday as well as Sunday's game thus gives Nash two full weeks away from game conditions before the Suns play again Feb. 20 in a road date against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Nash, though, will be in Las Vegas alongside fellow Western Conference injury victims Yao Ming and Carlos Boozer. League rules stipulate that All-Stars must be in attendance throughout All-Star Weekend even if they are injured and require ongoing rehab treatments.
Nash's replacement on the West roster will be selected by NBA commissioner David Stern. A replacement for Nash will also be required for the four-man skills event that would have pit him against Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.
Stern has already chosen Denver's Carmelo Anthony and Dallas' Josh Howard to replace Yao and Boozer on the West squad, but it's believed that two members from the Jazz -- center Mehmet Okur and guard Deron Williams -- will receive strong consideration to take Nash's spot. Boozer's leg injury has left Utah without an active presence in the All-Star Game even though the Jazz awoke Monday morning with the league's third-best record at 33-17.
Other potential replacement candidates include the Los Angeles Clippers' Elton Brand and Portland's Zach Randolph.
Nash told ESPN's Jim Gray during Sunday's broadcast of the Suns' home loss to the Bulls that the mysterious shoulder pain -- which first began troubling him on the morning of Feb. 1 -- is likely related to his chronic back trouble. Nash's unavailability increases the likelihood that D'Antoni, who's coaching the West, will select Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki to start Sunday in place of Yao. Yet it's believed that D'Antoni was leaning toward starting Nowitzki regardless, which would have enabled him to sub all three of the Suns' All-Stars -- Nash, Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudemire -- into the game at the same time.
Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. To e-mail him, click here. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2763202
Also, I've copy/pasted the insider article (blog, really) by John Hollinger (everyone's favorite analyst) that goes along with the above news:
Jazz replacements? Please, no
by: John Hollinger
posted: Monday, February 12, 2007
So who replaces Steve Nash?
With the two most plausible All-Star replacements, Josh Howard and Carmelo Anthony, already appointed to the squad, nobody's quite sure who's next on the list.
This is a slightly depressing topic for me, because I know a) what should happen, b) what probably will happen, and c) that the two aren't the same.
The idea that's gaining momentum is to put either Utah's Mehmet Okur or Deron Williams on the team, because at 33-17 the Jazz deserve representation on the team and won't have any with Carlos Boozer out.
This is what I call the Parliament argument, because it makes it sound like we're electing some kind of basketball government and that the principality of Utah simply must be represented. As you can probably tell, I'm not a big supporter of this line of reasoning.
Not only has it been the basis for nearly every awful All-Star selection in recent history (take a bow, Tyrone Hill), but the basic premise turns the entire logic of selecting an All-Star team on its head. Everyone seems to forget that the idea is to put on a game for the fans by selecting the 12 best players. Somehow, that's been perverted into putting on a game for the coaches by selecting the 12 players with the best teammates.
Okur and Williams aren't even the best players at their positions who were excluded; those would be Marcus Camby and Manu Ginobili. Besides, as I pointed out in a previous missive, the coaches never intended to have five guards on the team, so replacing Nash with another backcourt player makes little sense. Replacing him with a center makes even less, considering how many dominant power forwards remain to choose from in the West.
And unbelievably, the guy who will get the shaft is once again Elton Brand. The Clippers' forward is so obviously better than Okur or Williams that it seems silly to even get into debating it. But should my worst fears come to pass, the Parliament argument will now have placed Dale Davis, Wally Szczerbiak, Rashard Lewis, Brad Miller and Williams/Okur on All-Star teams ahead of Brand in the past seven years. He was eventually taken as an injury sub after the Szczerbiak snafu, and I'm still hoping the same happens this year. But I'm guessing it probably won't.
http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog...hollinger_john
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
Steve Nash will not play in Sunday's All-Star Game because of his ailing shoulder.
Nash has missed the Suns' past three games and will also be held out of Wednesday's visit to Seattle, according to the Suns.
"Steve's just not ready to play right now. He needs the recovery and rehab time," coach Mike D'Antoni said in a statement released by the team. "He hasn't recovered as quickly as we anticipated. Hopefully, he'll be able to resume play after the All-Star break."
Withdrawing from the annual Skills Challenge on All-Star Saturday as well as Sunday's game thus gives Nash two full weeks away from game conditions before the Suns play again Feb. 20 in a road date against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Nash, though, will be in Las Vegas alongside fellow Western Conference injury victims Yao Ming and Carlos Boozer. League rules stipulate that All-Stars must be in attendance throughout All-Star Weekend even if they are injured and require ongoing rehab treatments.
Nash's replacement on the West roster will be selected by NBA commissioner David Stern. A replacement for Nash will also be required for the four-man skills event that would have pit him against Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.
Stern has already chosen Denver's Carmelo Anthony and Dallas' Josh Howard to replace Yao and Boozer on the West squad, but it's believed that two members from the Jazz -- center Mehmet Okur and guard Deron Williams -- will receive strong consideration to take Nash's spot. Boozer's leg injury has left Utah without an active presence in the All-Star Game even though the Jazz awoke Monday morning with the league's third-best record at 33-17.
Other potential replacement candidates include the Los Angeles Clippers' Elton Brand and Portland's Zach Randolph.
Nash told ESPN's Jim Gray during Sunday's broadcast of the Suns' home loss to the Bulls that the mysterious shoulder pain -- which first began troubling him on the morning of Feb. 1 -- is likely related to his chronic back trouble. Nash's unavailability increases the likelihood that D'Antoni, who's coaching the West, will select Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki to start Sunday in place of Yao. Yet it's believed that D'Antoni was leaning toward starting Nowitzki regardless, which would have enabled him to sub all three of the Suns' All-Stars -- Nash, Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudemire -- into the game at the same time.
Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. To e-mail him, click here. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2763202
Also, I've copy/pasted the insider article (blog, really) by John Hollinger (everyone's favorite analyst) that goes along with the above news:
Jazz replacements? Please, no
by: John Hollinger
posted: Monday, February 12, 2007
So who replaces Steve Nash?
With the two most plausible All-Star replacements, Josh Howard and Carmelo Anthony, already appointed to the squad, nobody's quite sure who's next on the list.
This is a slightly depressing topic for me, because I know a) what should happen, b) what probably will happen, and c) that the two aren't the same.
The idea that's gaining momentum is to put either Utah's Mehmet Okur or Deron Williams on the team, because at 33-17 the Jazz deserve representation on the team and won't have any with Carlos Boozer out.
This is what I call the Parliament argument, because it makes it sound like we're electing some kind of basketball government and that the principality of Utah simply must be represented. As you can probably tell, I'm not a big supporter of this line of reasoning.
Not only has it been the basis for nearly every awful All-Star selection in recent history (take a bow, Tyrone Hill), but the basic premise turns the entire logic of selecting an All-Star team on its head. Everyone seems to forget that the idea is to put on a game for the fans by selecting the 12 best players. Somehow, that's been perverted into putting on a game for the coaches by selecting the 12 players with the best teammates.
Okur and Williams aren't even the best players at their positions who were excluded; those would be Marcus Camby and Manu Ginobili. Besides, as I pointed out in a previous missive, the coaches never intended to have five guards on the team, so replacing Nash with another backcourt player makes little sense. Replacing him with a center makes even less, considering how many dominant power forwards remain to choose from in the West.
And unbelievably, the guy who will get the shaft is once again Elton Brand. The Clippers' forward is so obviously better than Okur or Williams that it seems silly to even get into debating it. But should my worst fears come to pass, the Parliament argument will now have placed Dale Davis, Wally Szczerbiak, Rashard Lewis, Brad Miller and Williams/Okur on All-Star teams ahead of Brand in the past seven years. He was eventually taken as an injury sub after the Szczerbiak snafu, and I'm still hoping the same happens this year. But I'm guessing it probably won't.
http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog...hollinger_john
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