Nash Deal Ends Bryant-Suns Talk

The Phoenix Suns will try to spend their salary-cap space on point guard Steve Nash, not Kobe Bryant.

And the Dallas Mavericks might have lost a valued player in their hopes to find a deal with the Lakers in a trade for Shaquille O’Neal.

Nash and the Suns have agreed to a five-year, $65-million contract, according to agent Bill Duffy. Nash, a free agent who began his career in Phoenix and spent the last six seasons with the Mavericks, cannot enter into a contract until July 14, by NBA guidelines.

Along with the Clippers and San Antonio Spurs, the Suns had room under the cap and several good, young players, believed to be of interest to Bryant. But, whether on word from Bryant or not, the Suns moved quickly away from Bryant and to secure Nash.

According to reports, Sun owner Robert Sarver, Chairman Jerry Colangelo and President Bryan Colangelo met with Nash in Dallas on Thursday, reached a handshake agreement and returned to Phoenix.

The Lakers’ major off-season moves had been to send away Phil Jackson and put O’Neal on the market. Now they’ve lost some of the competition for Bryant, though the Clippers appear to pose the greatest threat.

Laker General Manager Mitch Kupchak spent Thursday, the first day of the free-agency period, in North Carolina, where he spoke to Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski about replacing Jackson. He contacted the agents for Bryant and Derek Fisher on Wednesday night and tried to reach Slava Medvedenko’s agent and Karl Malone on Thursday.

Clipper management also spoke to Bryant’s agent Wednesday night. The Utah Jazz and Denver Nuggets are well under the salary cap, but do not appear to interest Bryant, whose preference seems to be Southern California.

Many believe Bryant would rather see O’Neal traded before committing to the Lakers. After a lot of early interest, however, trade talks involving O’Neal have slowed, in part because Kupchak has been reluctant to progress beyond the basic parameters of deals.

Though O’Neal’s wife, Shaunie, publicly asked the Mavericks for a trade this week, those close to O’Neal said there were several places O’Neal would choose to play and that he would not limit his destination to Dallas.

The Houston Rockets have made an early and aggressive move to sign free-agent guard Brent Barry and that, too, could affect the Lakers in multiple ways. The Lakers have an interest in Barry. Also, the Rockets have considered signing Fisher as a replacement for Steve Francis, who went to the Orlando Magic in the Tracy McGrady trade. The Lakers would like to keep Fisher.

Fisher’s agent, Mark Bartelstein, said there had been “a lot of early interest,” and that Fisher remained emotionally attached to the Lakers.

“He’s got enough good feelings about the Lakers,” Bartelstein said. “Mitch and I are going to talk more.”

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Nash’s Numbers

Steve Nash’s year-by-year statistics:

*--* Year, Team G FG% 3pt% FT% Ast Pts 96-97, Pho. 65 42.3 41.8 82.4 2.1 3.3 97-98, Pho. 76 45.9 41.5 86.0 3.4 9.1 98-99, Dallas 40 36.3 37.4 82.6 5.5 7.9 99-00, Dallas 56 47.7 40.3 88.2 4.9 8.6 00-01, Dallas 70 48.7 40.6 89.5 7.3 15.6 01-02, Dallas 82 48.3 45.5 88.7 7.7 17.9 02-03, Dallas 82 46.5 41.3 90.9 7.3 17.7 03-04, Dallas 78 47.0 40.5 91.6 8.8 14.5 Career 549 46.5 41.6 89.3 6.0 12.5

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