Do we like Steve Nash?
Our score: 8 out of 10. A long record of speaking up for gay marriage, migrants and peace, plus years of kids' charity work, with no climate record to speak of.
Steve Nash is the skinny kid from Victoria, British Columbia, who wasn't meant to make it. He led his high school to a provincial title in 1992, then went to Santa Clara University and was twice named conference player of the year. Phoenix drafted him in 1996, and he went on to Dallas as an All-Star.
The peak came back in Phoenix, where he won the NBA MVP award in 2005 and again in 2006, one of only ten players to win it in back-to-back years. He was an eight-time All-Star and led the league in assists five times. Time put him on its 100 most influential people list in 2006.
Now the harm check, which is the page's main question. In 2011 he made a video for the Human Rights Campaign backing same-sex marriage in New York, and said of the growing list of athletes doing so, “I'm proud to be one of them.” That's a straight athlete using his name for gay and lesbian couples at a time when few in the NBA did.
He has also put his name behind other causes. At the 2003 All-Star weekend, while with Dallas, he wore a shirt reading “No war. Shoot for peace.” and said he thought war was wrong in nearly all cases. Years later, with Phoenix, he called Arizona's immigration law “very misguided”, warning it could enable racial profiling, and organised his team to wear "Los Suns" shirts in protest. Where you land on the Iraq war is your call, but he said what he thought and copped the heat for it.
The gaps are worth admitting. I found nothing from Nash on trans rights either way, and nothing on climate. Silence isn't the same as harm, so it doesn't drag the score down, but it's why this isn't a perfect ten.
Off the court, he started the Steve Nash Foundation in 2001 to help underserved children. It has handed out more than $800,000 in grants in British Columbia, and he put over $2 million into Educare Arizona preschools for low-income kids. He has also been honoured with the Order of Canada and the NBA's Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award. A 2003 Maclean's profile said he asked charities to keep his donations anonymous.