Was Steve Nash's Bloody Nose A Hoax?

PHOENIX--Steve Nash’s bloody nose is one of the lasting images of the 2007 NBA postseason, but now some skeptics are asking: was it all a hoax? According to one Suns player, who wished to remain anonymous, Nash applied red paint to his nose during a time out and then staged the prolonged bandaging sequence in order to cement his legacy as a postseason hero.

News of the possible hoax was all over the internet on Tuesday as fans and sportswriters tried to get to the bottom of the “bloody nose affair.”

“Was Nash’s bloody nose for real?” asked ESPN’s Marc Stein. “It’s hard to say. It certainly looked real to the naked eye, but that doesn’t prove anything. The fact is, it took an awful long time for the trainer to get that thing patched up, which may or may not mean something. My hunch is that it was his real nose and it was real blood and everything is on the up and up. The only reason I’m addressing it is that somebody on the internet mentioned it, and you can’t just brush off something that somebody mentioned on the internet.”

Message boards and chat rooms were buzzing today over the bloody nose affair. While some fans took the rumors with a grain of salt, others were quicker to cast judgment on Nash.

“Ya I knew that faggot was fakin it the whole time!!!!!!” wrote a poster on a popular Spurs message board. “Im so glad that all those stupid suns fans can eat shit now cuz their BUTT BUDDY is a liar and hes goin down!!!!!!”

The text was followed by an array of emoticons conveying the poster’s skepticism.

Another poster on the same message board took a slightly more measured approach.

“Nash’s teammate says it’s a hoax and to me that’s pretty convincing,” wrote Pop333. “That being said, he did make the allegations anonymously, so it could just be someone who has an ax to grind. It seems crazy that Nash would do something like that, but it’s also kind of fun to believe, so I think I’m going to believe it anyway. What the hell. Steve Nash is a fraud.”

The hoax claims were bolstered by eye witnesses, who said that Nash’s bloody nose was gushing so much that it had to have been a fake. One of those witnesses was a Spurs player, who said that he was “shocked” at the amount of blood coming from Nash’s “nose.”

“I’ve never seen that much blood coming from a nose injury,” said the player, who asked not to be identified. “I’m not saying it’s fake, I’m just saying it was a copious amount. And when they started bandaging it up, I was reading Steve’s lips, and I’m pretty sure he said to the trainer ‘Make sure it looks convincing, otherwise people will be on to our little hoax.’ I mean, I certainly don’t know that he said that, but he could have. I think that counts as circumstantial evidence, doesn’t it?”

The Suns organization will not dignify the allegation with a response, but Nash himself did speak about it during a radio interview today, in which he laughed at the story and said he would happily provide the bloody bandages to anyone who wanted to do DNA testing.

“Honestly I just think it’s funny,” Nash said. “It just goes to show that all you need to do is mention something once and it will be all over the internet in about five minutes. And once it’s out there, it’s out there. Now, even if somebody does DNA testing on the stupid bandage and proves conclusively that it’s not a hoax, the whole thing will forever be known as the ‘bloody nose controversy’ or something, even though there is no controversy.”

“If you really want to be privy to some hoaxes that went on during that game,” he added, “take a look at all the ‘charges’ that Floppy McFlopenstein took. I've seen UFO sightings that were more convincing. ”

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