On June 26, 1996, the Phoenix Suns selected a young basketball player named Steve Nash 15th in the NBA draft, making him only the second player produced by Canadian high schools to be selected in the first round of the NBA draft, and the highest Canadian pro draft pick ever.

Victoria Times-Colonist sportswriter Jeff Rud’s new biography, Long Shot: Steve Nash’s Journey to the NBA is a work that holds definite interest for the die-hard basketball fan. There’s no glorification of the in-your-face, high-gloss, super-hyped world of the NBA (for which there is the recent autobiography of the Chicago Bulls’ Dennis Rodman). Rud is more nuts-and-bolts, describing for instance, how professional players make it to the big time. Through Nash, Rud examines all of the crucial aspects that combine to produce talented superstars. Special focus is placed on Nash’s work ethic, his tremendous devotion, and the support of his family as he’s worked his way up the organized basketball ladder, finally making it, against the estimated 7,600-to-1 odds, to the pros.

About the only criticism that might be leveled at Long Shot is Rud’s penchant for long descriptive passages of particular games throughout Nash’s career. This criticism reflects the view that the world needs less “he shot, he scored, his team won” sports biographies, and more of the kind that attempt to put the whole overblown world of big-money athletics into some kind of reasonable perspective.