Nash is most noted for his playmaking, ball-handling skills and shooting. He led the league in assists for five years, averaging 11.5 assists per game in 2004–05, 10.5 in 2005–06, 11.6 in 2006–07, 11.0 in 2009–10 and 11.4 in 2010–11 and won the NBA Skills Challenge in 2005 and 2010. As of the end of 2012–13 season, he had a 90.4% career free throw shooting average (formerly the best in NBA history; it is now second to Stephen Curry) and a 42.8% career three-point shooting average (eighth-best in league history), and ranked as one of the top 10 players in league history in total assists, assists per game, and three-point field goals made. In addition, he is ranked second (starting from 1986–87) in regular season point–assist double doubles. In the 2005–06 season, Nash became the fourth player in NBA history to shoot 50% or better from the field, 40% from three-point range (43.9), and 90% from the line, joining Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, and Mark Price in the 50–40–90 club. Nash would repeat this feat three more times in the 2007–08, 2008–09 and 2009–10 campaigns. Nash (four times) and Larry Bird (two times) are the only players to have accomplished this feat more than once. A two-time NBA MVP, Nash is one of three point guards (along with Magic Johnson and Stephen Curry) to win the MVP award multiple times and the one of four guards in NBA history to earn back-to-back MVPs (along with Johnson, Michael Jordan and Curry). Only ten other NBA players have won back-to-back MVP awards: Johnson, Jordan, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, and Stephen Curry. On 11 May 2006, ESPN.com rated Nash as the 9th-best point guard of all time, and in a survey by nba.com in 2007, Nash received 85% of the votes by the league's general managers as best point guard in the league. In a similar survey in 2009, Nash was rated as the best passer of the ball and the player possessing the best basketball IQ.

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