That Time Steve Nash Asked For Michael Jordan's Shoes

That Time A 'Young and Dumb' Steve Nash Asked For A Pair Of The Legendary Michael Jordan's Shoes

DALLAS - If you are a Dallas Mavericks fan, you are likely aware that old friend Steve Nash is a gifted storyteller. ... a fact that becomes even more true if the story allows Nash to be self-effacing.

This story - about a young Nash's encounter with the iconic Michael Jordan - does all of that.

The rookie Nash was with the Phoenix Suns when, after a 1996-97 game against the Chicago Bulls, he boarded the team bus and noticed that teammate Chucky Brown had scored a pair of Jordan's game-worn shoes. 

Nash wondered how that came about; Brown said all one had to do was ask MJ.

So in the next Suns-Bulls meeting, Nash tried that ... at a strangely humorous moment.

“As a rookie, it was like that moment where I was like, ‘Holy sh–, MJ just scored on me,’” Nash said to Ernie Johnson, recalling an in-game encounter. “‘He’s letting me have it in a fun way. This is unbelievable.’ And all I could think of was, Chucky Brown got his shoes.

“So I turn, I laugh and I go, ‘Can I have your shoes after the game?’”

"You were at a slight disadvantage." - Michael Jordan

"Can I have your shoes after the game." - Steve Nash@SteveNash shares his own MJ story from his rookie year in 1996 on today's #NBATogether with Ernie Johnson (@TurnerSportsEJ). pic.twitter.com/lwSulHVxZ7

— NBA (@NBA) May 12, 2020

A few years later, after moving from Phoenix to Dallas and then back to Phoenix, Nash himself would become fairly iconic, a Hall-of-Famer with two MVPS. But early on? "Young and dumb'' is his self-evaluation.

“When you idolize someone like that to the level that so many of us did with MJ, that superseded any sort of self awareness that maybe I shouldn’t be asking an opponent for his shoes,” Nash said. “It was just one of those moments that I look back on — like many — and think I was just young and dumb. But at the same time, I wouldn’t change it for the world.”