Last season the thought of what Steve Nash could do on the Lakers left fans drooling at the mouth. With years of Derek Fisher Smush Parker and Steve Blake fresh on their minds the Lakers weren’t use to a playmaker like Nash who could create so many opportunities for teammates. But his ability to score was something Lakers fans hoped most was that he could relieve the pressure off of Kobe Bryant with his scoring ability. As we know none of this happened. In the games Nash did play he was relegated to spot up shooting and minimal play-making beside Bryant. But that didn’t stop Nash from nearly completing another 50/40/90 season which would have been his fifth. We were left with glimpses of the Suns version of Nash where he was relegated to a Derek Fisher role. Kobe on the other hand resorted to his ball-dominating for the majority of the season. Save for his Magic Mamba phase he maintained his on-ball iso basketball that has worked so well for him for 17 years. While his usage rate went down it still sat at 31.9% which was 5th in the league. It took a legendary shooting performance in which his true shooting percentage was the highest it had been in six years and his effective field goal percentage was his best ever. More often than not we saw two individuals playing on the same team. The duo rarely meshed and any of their great plays from the season were a result of great individual talent. Given an entire off-season of recovery and learning Mike D’Antoni’s offense how will Nash and Kobe co-exist this year? Last season Nash did not get many opportunities to execute the pick and roll he’s so deadly at due to the reluctance of big man Dwight Howard. However in the few times they did run it good things often happened. Let’s first take a look at Nash’s third game with the Lakers against the Warriors a game that saw the Lakers make a memorable comeback to eventually pull out the win. The play we’re focusing on is a pick and roll run late in overtime that iced the game for the Lakers. - See more at:http://lakeshowlife.com/2013/08/06/how-will-kobe-and-nash-coexist-in-dantonis-offense/
