Steve Nash is angry, and he's not going to take it anymore.
The sidelined Los Angeles Lakers point guard took to his Facebook account to answer critics who lambasted his posting of a video of him playing golf, Yahoo! Sports reported.
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Nash is out for the season after he hurt his back carrying a suitcase, likely ending his 18-year career. Nash twice was the NBA Most Valuable Player with the Phoenix Suns in 2004-05 and 2005-06 and is regarded as one of the great players of the game.
His time with the Lakers has been anything but.
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But in his Facebook post, he wanted to set the record straight about his back and his loyalty to the Lakers, as well as to answer his critics, which the Kansas City Star chronicled:
This guy's a crook. RT @MarkG_Medina: Lakers' Steve Nash posts video of himself hitting golf ball https://t.co/gsgamFLAf5
— RJ (@RLakers16) November 6, 2014
"I have a ton of miles on my back," Nash said on Facebook. "Three buldging disks (a tear in one), stenosis of the nerve route and spondylolisthesis. I suffer from sciatica and after games I often can't sit in the car on the drive home, which has made for some interesting rides. Most nights I'm bothered by severe cramping in both calves while I sleep, a result of the same damn nerve routes, and the list goes on somewhat comically. That's what you deserve for playing over 1,300 NBA games. By no means do I tell you this for sympathy - especially since I see these ailments as badges of honor - but maybe I can bring some clarity.
"This may be hard for people to understand unless you've played NBA basketball, but there is an incredible difference between this game and swinging a golf club, hiking, even hitting a tennis ball or playing basketball at the park. Fortunately those other activities aren't debilitating, but playing an NBA game usually puts me out a couple of weeks. Once you're asked to accelerate and decelerate with Steph Curry and Kyrie Irving it is a completely different demand.
I'm doing what I've always done which is share a bit of my off-court life in the same way everyone else does. Going forward I hope we all can refocus our energies on getting behind these Lakers. This team will be back and Staples will be rocking."
Nash played a total of 65 games during his three-year contract with the Lakers that will expire at the end of this season. He didn't do himself any favors with his honest assessment last season that he didn't want to retire because he wanted the money.
That may have contributed to the backlash he received. But he wasn't going to just let the backlash continue without comment.
"Competitiveness, professionalism, naiveté and hope that at some point I'd turn a corner has kept me fighting to get back," he wrote. "As our legendary trainer Gary Vitti, who is a close friend, told me, 'You're the last to know' - and my back has shown me the forecast over the past 18-20 months. To ignore it any longer is irresponsible. But that doesn't mean that life stops."
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