Toronto Raptors make offer to Steve Nash

Step by step, it appears the Toronto Raptors are getting closer to getting their hands on the object of their desire and clutching it tight, leaving little wriggle room, maybe not even enough to breath.

It’s good to want something so bad you can taste it, but you can want something too much. Wanting something that might not want you back can get uncomfortable for all concerned.

In the courting of Steve Nash the Raptors have been the pure-hearted suitor; the franchise that will pay him the most; woo him the hardest; promising the moon and earnestly figuring out how to deliver it.

And just to make sure they got their point across, on Tuesday Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo sent Nash, the New York Knicks and the rest of the NBA a bouquet of black long-stem roses worth about $20-million by way of an offer sheet for restricted free agent Knicks forward Landry Fields.

Fields isn’t worth $20-million over three years, not even close.

He’s an interesting and clever player who will add some potential to the Raptors wing rotation, but his primary value to Colangelo is that he was rumoured to be the centerpiece of a sign-and-trade deal the Knicks were trying to put together with the Phoenix Suns so they could clear enough space to make an offer to Nash that was at least close to the $36-million over three years the Raptors reportedly offered Canadian basketball’s favourite son.

Add it up and the Raptors are willing to commit $56-million to make sure they get their man. That’s devotion.

If Nash, 38, stays healthy it’s plausible that he can help the franchise enough on the court and off the court to make it a gamble worth taking. The bigger price for Colangelo, the Raptors and their new owners at MLSE – Rogers Communications and BCE – would be standing idly by while the best basketball player Canada is likely to ever produce, finishes his career elsewhere.

That would be awkward.

But nearly as awkward is the emerging possibility that the best basketball player Canada has ever produced isn’t really all that keen on finishing his career in Toronto and trying to hump a fairly suspect lineup into the bottom end of the Eastern Conference playoffs picture for the first time in four years.

If he was, all he would have had to say is ‘yes’ when the Raptors made their offer on Sunday morning in New York. What a happy Canada Day that would have been. With NBA free agency entering its fourth day, however, it’s hard to conclude anything other than that the Raptors are simply a well-padded fallback position for Nash.

First he wanted to see what would happen with Deron Williams, the primary target of the Brooklyn Nets and the Dallas Mavericks. That was cleared up Tuesday night when the Williams agreed in principle (contracts can’t be signed until July 11th) to a five-year deal for $98-million.

There was also the possibility that the Knicks would find a way to clear cap space to improve on the $3-million they would otherwise be limited to offering him, most likely via a deal built around Fields.

Colangelo’s move on Fields has likely scuttled that possibility.

So the two teams that would allow him to live in New York don’t seem to be in the picture. His old team, the Suns, seem content to part ways and begin rebuilding. The market appears to be shrinking, yet still no word from Nash to those pursuing him with the purest hearts; no indication that he couldn’t wait to come home.

Instead the waiting continues with the Dallas Mavericks zeroing in on Nash as a potential consolation prize for Williams, though reports suggest that they’re not willing to make a three-year commitment to a point guard they deemed too fragile seven years ago.

Next came reports from David Aldrige that the Los Angeles Lakers are trying to work a deal with the Suns that would allow them to make an offer more enticing that the $3-million a year they would be able to give him otherwise.

And yet nothing from Nash.

You can’t fault someone for investigating options. Nash has pledged to do that since it was clear he was unlikely to return to Phoenix and was jumping into free agency with both feet.

But there’s a fine line between considering your options and looking around desperately for something — anything — even remotely as good as the one that has been front-and-centre all along, waiting expectantly.

The Toronto Raptors want Steve Nash, and have never wavered. It’s seemingly evermore clear that they’re going to get their man.

The trick will be for Nash — should the day come – is to seem just as happy about it as everyone else will be.