Steve Nash: Why Back Injury Isn’t Getting Better and What Lakers Can Do

Steve Nash has locked in his contract for next year, as noted by Dave McMenamin of ESPN Los Angeles, after playing just 10 games so far this season. Naturally, his previous injury began to act up in his last game, and he could miss significant time. The nerve irritation has led to serious pain and struggle for Nash, but with the outcry from the Lakers fanbase, it's hard for me to understand the disdain.

Still, none of this should be a surprise. Read my article from December and you'll see that it didn't take a crystal ball to see the likeliest path for Nash, his back and his role with the Lakers.

Nash is actually like a photographic negative of Andrew Bynum. It's more than short and tall, black and white. It's mostly about desire. Bynum, an athletic talent, simply doesn't care that much, with was echoed by this quote from a league source tweeted out by Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski.

Nash is fighting pain and old age just so that he can play in a limited fashion for a team he knows won't improve his legacy. To me, that's someone to look up to.

To a point, that is. Nash's back problems have left him a shell of himself. The two-time MVP's nerve root irritation, reported here by ESPN's Ramona Shelburne, is a chronic condition that won't be cured and can only be controlled. It took the Lakers' medical staff almost half of the season just to get it under control. The fact that it's come back so quickly doesn't suggest it can be pushed aside easily.

Plenty of non-athletes can understand both the pain and the chronic nature of a lower back injury. For many, that's a reality the moment they wake up each morning. Due to poor posture and a lack of focus on both core muscles and back extensors, lower back injuries are among the most common and most serious in the general population. Time lost for back injuries, treatment and surgery suck billions out of the economy each year.

For an athlet...