<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">[imgl]http://images.theglobeandmail.com/story/assoc/TP/sectionS-220.jpg?d=20051209[/imgl] Steve Nash, who last year enjoyed the greatest basketball season ever for a Canadian playing in the National Basketball Association, is the unanimous winner of the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada's athlete of the year for 2005. It was a slam-dunk that Nash, a 31-year-old from Victoria who enjoyed a phenomenal season running the high-octane attack of the Phoenix Suns, would win the annual award. Other athletes considered were: diver Alexandre Despatie; speed skater Cindy Klassen; curler Randy Ferbey; National Hockey League rookie Sidney Crosby and U.S. National Collegiate Athletic Association soccer star Christine Sinclair. Nash scored a victory for the little guy playing a big man's game, averaging 15.5 points a game and an NBA-best 11.5 assists in leading the Suns to a 62-20 record last year, a 33-win improvement from the previous season. The slightly-built 6-foot-3, 195-pound point guard had the highest assists average since John Stockton's 12.3 in 1994-95, while shooting 43.1 per cent from three-point range (sixth in the NBA) and 88.7 per cent on free throws (sixth overall). In the summer of 2004, Nash signed a $65-million (U.S.) deal to move back to the Suns after six seasons with the Dallas Mavericks. Phoenix had drafted him in the first round out of Santa Clara University in 1996. The move paid immediate dividends in the desert with Nash's playmaking skills and tireless play turning the Suns into the NBA's most exciting outfit, averaging a league-best 110.9 points a game, the highest output in a decade. The Suns also broke the single-season record for three-pointers made with 796. In beating out Miami Heat centre Shaquille O'Neal in the voting for league most valuable player, Nash joined an elite group of guards, including Michael Jordan, Oscar Robertson and Allen Iverson, to have won the award. In the postseason, Nash revved up his performance to a higher level, leading the Suns to the Western Conference final, where they lost to eventual NBA champions, the San Antonio Spurs. Nash averaged 23.9 points and 11.3 assists a game in the playoffs. During one memorable four-game stretch, he averaged more than 30 points and 10 assists, the first player in NBA history to accomplish that. Adam van Koeverden, who won a gold and bronze medal in kayaking at the Athens Olympics, won the award last year. The award is named after a former Toronto Star sports editor. Voting is done by a panel of sports editors and broadcasters, representing The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Canadian Press, National Post, Toronto Sun, La Presse, Edmonton Journal, CBC, CTV, The Score and Prime Time Sports/The Fan 590.</div> Source Congrats to Nash!
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting shapecity:</div><div class="quote_post">Source Congrats to Nash!</div> Damn! And I thought Ferbey had it in the bag. It those media worms that ruin the voting! If only they would pay attention to a real sport like curling!
