Can Brooklyn Nets head coach Steve Nash unlock Kyrie Irving?

Can Steve Nash help Kyrie Irving be a better leader?

Kyrie Irving has shown a variety of flaws in his leadership abilities, one example being in Boston Kyrie undermined his younger teammates in a post-game interview in January of 2019. As a leader supporting young players and teaching them how to win is the most important aspect.

And in Brooklyn when discussing the team’s structure to the media, Kyrie spoke about the Nets need 1-2 more pieces to reach the NBA Finals, Irving didn’t mention two of the key role players on the team when rattling off his teammates. Irving neglected to mention Joe Harris and Jarrett Allen who both are great players and also being in a year they weren’t going to win with a sidelined Kevin Durant.

Irving can learn a lot from Steve Nash, Nash was one of the best leaders in the NBA despite struggling in his early years in the NBA. One of his teammates was Australian basketball legend Chris Anstey. In the 1998-1999 season Anstey was teammates with Nash playing for the Dallas Mavericks.

That season a lockout and Dallas finished 11th in the West that shortened season.  Anstey told Hoops Habit how Nash was able to support his teammates even in bad times and situations during his career, not just during his MVP years.

"“If I can say anything, Steve can teach cohesiveness within the group, he can teach them to understand each other’s games better and he’ll give them ownership of their mistakes and successes”"

Almost all of the great NBA players have egos, and Kyrie is no different and it’s justifiably so. Nash hasn’t always been one of the best players on the court for his career and managing ego’s in an NBA locker room is not only the coaches’ job but it’s the job of the stars too. Anstey also expressed how great Nash was at ego management in the locker room.

"“He knows what it’s like to be around egos, an NBA locker room is full of egos and he’s been around them for a long time, managed them and taken them with him along for the ride with him for a long time”"

Now Nash is the coach and he should be able to garner the respect of Irving with his resume but it comes down to Irving whose had a troubled history with coaches and Anstey spoke on this too.

"“He (Irving) hasn’t responded to a disciplinarian in David Blatt, he hasn’t responded to a structured coach in Brad Stevens and he hasn’t responded to an inexperienced coach in Tyronn Lue. A coach is only ever going to be as good as a player or playing group allows them to be, and Kyrie needs to allow himself to be coached.”"

It’s a two-way street, Nash will need to be patient and Irving will need to be cooperative. Nash spoke to Adrian Wojnarowski in a podcast about connecting with Irving. 

"“The secret sauce in some of these great coaches Gregg Popovich, Phil Jackson, Steve Kerr is that they recognize the value of connecting with their players. The connectivity with their players is a huge mandate and a huge priority”"

Both Anstey and Nash have acknowledged the struggle for Nash coaching Irving will be about the relationship above all else. Nash can’t teach much to Irving on the court but Irving can learn from Nash off the court, to be a leader for this new look Net’s franchise.

If you’d like to hear more from Chris Anstey he did an article telling some life stories with Steve Nash on his public Facebook page.