John Walters

So nobody wants to coach the Phoenix Suns?

Mike D'Antoni left for more moni. Doug Collins, a Valley of the Sun resident, would rather winter in Chicago and summer in Phoenix, apparently, than be stuck with a team that has averaged just a 58-24 record over the past four seasons. That leaves as the most successful basketball coach in the state of Arizona Lute Olson, a suddenly taciturn septuagenarian prone to disappearing for months at a time without explanation.

I realize I just described a third of the state's population, but still …

It's shocking, really. The Suns are having trouble luring a middle-aged man — or at least, the right middle-aged man — to accept millions of dollars to spend a winter in the most sublime of climes, to essentially roll a ball out on the court for a roster full of savvy veterans. To the only team in the NBA with two former MVPs, each acknowledged as good guys, on its roster. To a state where the state bird is the snowbird.

The Suns, with a roster and staff so enviable just two years ago that it inspired Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum to spend a season with them for a book entitled "Seven Seconds Or Less", have now been without a head coach for three weeks or more. This is becoming dire. It could be the worst coaching transition the game has seen since Reggie Theus handed the Deering High hoops team over to Dick Butkus.

I have a solution.

With all the unrest in the Valley over the absence of a coach, maybe owner Robert Sarver and general manager Steve Kerr should recognize that they've had one all along. That they should exchange all this gnashing of teeth for, in terms of his coaching career, a teething of Nash. Steve Nash.

There are plenty of good reasons why the two-time MVP point guard should be the next coach of the Suns. Here are just a few:

1) Player Respect

What other person will command more respect from All-Stars such as Shaquille O'Neal, Amare Stoudemire and Grant Hill? Phil Jackson, sure. But he is not coming.

Nash is not only a two-time MVP, he is a player who more than earned everything that has come his way. Only one school offered the British Columbia native a scholarship out of high school, and that was Santa Clara. The 6-3 guard really began to get noticed when he led his Broncos to a first-round upset of No. 2 seed (ta-da!) Arizona in the 1993 NCAAs. Nash connected on 6 of 6 free throws in the final seconds of that upset.

Guys such as Leandro Barbosa, Raja Bell, Boris Diaw and Stoudemire have been Nash's teammates for nearly half a decade. They know how much of a leader he is. How much he cares. Even Shaq listens to him. Who will Sarver and Kerr be able to find whose "tune-out-ability factor" will be lower than Nash's?

2) Diminishing On-court Returns

If the first-round series with San Antonio demonstrated anything, it is that Nash, 34, is no longer the best point guard in the Western Conference. In fact, next season he may be the fourth-best, behind Tony Parker, Chris Paul of New Orleans and Deron Williams of Utah.

Last season was Nash's first in his four with Phoenix that he did not lead the NBA in assists, finishing second to Paul. While he has never averaged more than 35.4 minutes per game in his career, it has seemed clear in each of the past three postseasons the Suns were fighting a battle against Nash's battered body. Keeping him fresh, and healthy, seemed as fruitless an effort as taking on the Spurs.

Nash will be most effective if he plays closer to 30 minutes per game next season. Strangely, Nash had his best season in 2007-08 from beyond the arc in terms of both conversions per game (2.2) and percentage (.470). The key to that is fresh legs.

As long as Nash is spending less time on the court, he may as well spend more on the bench —even if that means lying down on his back at the end of it, swaddled in towels, as he has the past two seasons. Heck, Knute Rockne once coached a game from a stretcher.

3) Take a look westward on I-10 … in the distance … that's right, the Lakers aren't going anywhere

ESPN analyst Jon Barry, speaking before Game 6 of the Celtics-Pistons series, said, "I don't want to get ahead of things, but the Lakers are set up to win five, six NBA titles in the coming years."

Barry is correct, if perhaps overreaching slightly. The Lakers have the best coach, best player and the deepest bench in the NBA (and, apparently, the chummiest cheerleaders). They have Walton and they have wanton.

Slide show   Week in Sports Pictures Pain on the skating rink, flying high on the hardwood, upsets on the football field, and more. more photos

Look at that roster. If you plopped the Lakers' top ten players into the midst of Logan's Run, only Derek Fisher, 34, would have to fear for his safety (and if you're too young to remember Logan's Run — ironic, that — it's a film in which the state euthanizes you once you turn 30).

Nobody is going to "Beat L.A.!" this season, and the Lakers are doing it without 20 year-old Andrew Bynum, who'll be the Western Conference's answer to Dwight Howard in the coming years. And we might mention Trevor Ariza as well, a 6-8 swingman out of UCLA who's a more athletic version of Bruce Bowen.

The Lakers have won 14 NBA championships, while their nemesis next week and in decades past, the Celtics, have won 16. Los Angeles will have passed Boston by on that list by the time Bill Simmons' second child starts kindergarten.

The Suns will remain competitive next season, but they're stuck with the Charismatic Cactus, Shaq, for two more years at $20 million per. In other words, any Sun or Suns fan should not bother holding off on that June vacation. And as long as that is the case, why not allow Nash a relatively pressure-free coaching incubation environment?

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