We may never see Steve Nash in a Toronto Raptors uniform, but hats off to Raps GM Bryan Colangelo for making every effort to land the unrestricted free agent.

Oh sure, Nash is too old – he’s 38 and will be entering his 17th NBA season. He’s never been great defensively, he’s had myriad injuries and his stats are certain to go south, and quickly.

Still, the Raptors were right to offer the free agent point guard a three-year, $36 million contract on Sunday.

Nash is a Canadian icon. He’s a two-time MVP. He’s the general manager of Canada Basketball. Put simply, he embodies the present and future of Canadian basketball.

So it makes sense for him to play with a maple leaf on the back of his jersey, and it makes sense for him to finish his career on Canadian soil.

Nash really became part of the Canadian fabric when he single-handedly carried the Canadian Olympic team to the quarter-finals of the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia. He played for Canada at the Americas Olympic Qualifying Tournament in 2004, and even though he was named tournament MVP, Nash was unable to push the team to a berth in the 2004 Games.

He went on to win back-to-back NBA MVPs in 2005 and 2006, beating out Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki, despite being an undersized point guard who scored less than 20 points a game. Instead, Nash was a deft passer with amazing court vision who made all of his teammates better and made the Phoenix Suns a perennial powerhouse.

“I think, on the world stage, he’s one of our great athletes in all sports,” said Celtics legend Bill Russell of Nash. “I’m a big fan. The two MVPs he got, he deserved.”

And even though Nash never sported the maple leaf in international play after 2004, basketball fans from Labrador to Vancouver Island were rooting for him.

Earlier this year, he accepted the GM role with Basketball Canada, and quite frankly he is one of the few people with the clout to not only entice the best Canadian players to join the squad, but to attract big-money investors to finance it.

But will Nash now walk the walk as a player and be the active face for Canadian basketball as a player for Canada’s professional team? Will he kick-start his Olympic recruiting campaign by leading by example?

Unfortunately for the Raptors, they aren’t the only suitor interested in Nash. The Knicks, Mavericks and Heat are the most serious contenders for his services. The Heat would represent his best chance to win a championship, something he was never able to do in Phoenix. Joining the Knicks or Mavericks would mean reuniting with friends and fellow teammates Amar’e Stoudemire or Nowitzki on contending teams.

The Raptors are not contenders by any stretch of the imagination, unless 2011 draft pick Jonas Valanciunas transforms into Shaquille O’Neal on the fight over from Lithuania. In fact, investing a huge chunk of their cap space in a 38-year-old guard for the next three years might just keep the team in treadmill status – not good enough for the playoffs and not bad enough for a high draft pick.

And while the Knicks, Heat and Mavericks will be asking Nash to take a salary cut to play for a contender – as much as $10 million a season less than the Raptors have offered – none of those teams can offer him the hometown hero status he would receive in Toronto.

So the ball is in Nash’s court now. Which is more important – a chance at a championship as a reserve or the adulation of his home country as a living icon?

The future of basketball in Canada may depend on his decision.

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