Brooklyn Nets coach Steve Nash talks fitness app, investing, and the NBA

Steve Nash, NBA Brooklyn Nets Head Coach and Hall of Fame Athlete, joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the new fitness app Block Training, engaging current and former athletes across communities, and the state of the NBA.

Video Transcript

DAVE BRIGGS: The crowded fitness app space is getting some Hall of Fame worthy competition. Two-time MVP, two-time NBA champ, now the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets, Steve Nash getting in the game with the BLOCK training app. The Hall of Famer joins us now here on Yahoo Finance. Steve, good to see you.

A lot of attention on this space, some big names in it, Lululemon. We always talk about Peloton. How does BLOCK differ from the rest?

STEVE NASH: Well, first, thanks for having me. You know, I think we were trying to create a slightly new category in the marketplace. We're taking into account the 60-plus million Americans that play sports once a week.

Whether you're a young athlete or you're someone that plays for enjoyment, post-career, post-high school, college, professionally, whatever it is, we're trying to give those people an opportunity to stay healthy, to play at a high level, to be out there doing whatever they love to do with the community they love to do it with.

And throughout my career, I've learned a lot of tools that can help people. I think being exposed to some of the top physiotherapists, strength and conditioning coaches, and sports scientists allowed me to get a little glimpse under the hood, so to speak, or a deep glimpse under the hood of what's possible out there for people. And that they're just not getting access to.

SEANA SMITH: Steve, give us a little bit more details about the app here. How much does it cost per month? And I guess what do you expect demand to look like for BLOCK?

STEVE NASH: It's $14.99 a month. I think what we're trying to create is a community that recognizes, I think, increasingly, how prep work, injury prevention, mobility, stability activation, what-- investing a little bit of your time in these things daily or even weekly can have on your playing career, whether it's, like I said, a young athlete, someone who's striving for high performance that doesn't have access, or someone that just wants to play for the enjoyment of it, like I said.

So those are the tools we want to give them. They can train with it. They can do prep. They can do recovery. They can put themselves in a position to sustain their performance even at an amateur level because I think that's the goal, is to be able to share so many secrets and insights and movement principles with people so that they can continue to do what they love to do with the people they want to be with for as long as possible.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: So how much went into the training methodology when you were figuring out what is it that people who are accessing the app really want and will find most useful when it comes to building longevity?

STEVE NASH: Yeah, it's fairly simple. You know, we want to create mobility and stability so that you can perform. Then we're going to train once you've created that mobility and stability and activation.

I think that we live such busy lives. I'll call it the sitting disease. But in science, it will be called a flexor pattern. We sit in this position. Our hip flexors tighten. It pulls on our bottom five vertebrae. Our shoulders round, and our mid back gets tenuous. And our neck, our chin protrudes forward.

And it just puts us in this position that's not sustainable to just jump into everyday sports or training class or whatever it may be. So kind of undoing that sitting disease for many people, it's so important for them to be able to sustain longevity, performance, and enjoyment out there. So that's one of the main building blocks.

But, also, I would put our training methodology as far as the load and output of what we try to accomplish to get fit on our training day up there with anything that's out there in the app space. So gotten to work with some incredible people throughout my career. And this is kind of the amalgamation of all those lessons. Some of them are involved in the company as well.

And so I feel really, really proud of it. And for me, this is a mission. This is something that I've just felt so indebted to all the people that helped me along the way in my career. I want to share that with as many people as possible so they get the quality of life that I'm striving for daily.

DAVE BRIGGS: As a 45-year-old who broke my ankle playing basketball, you have my attention. Some of the sports that are involved-- running, soccer, cycling, lacrosse, golf, tennis, pickleball, the most popular sport or growing sport in America. Do you play the sport? And, specifically, what would I find on BLOCK? Would it be how to better play that game, how to better prepare for it? Or get specific.

STEVE NASH: Yeah, well, we do tailor it to 10 sports at the moment. But there's something in there for everyone. And a lot of the principles, really, are evergreen across all the sports landscapes or training landscapes, whether you're an individual sports endurance athlete, a team sport athlete, or your sport is dynamic, your sport is stationary, whatever it may be. There's tons of crossover there.

So if you did get into prepping for a specific sport, we will lean into specificity, what those movements are and tailor them towards what you're prepared to do, how you can sustain those movements, how you can improve or those movements. So there is a specificity there. There is a sports component to it.

And I think, like I said, there's so much crossover between the sports. But we do dial in to what the majority of those movements will be within that sport and try to hone those skills and allow you to do them better but also to sustain them longer.

SEANA SMITH: Steve, you've invested in companies in the past. This is not your first foray into business. Talk to us just about how you evaluate various business opportunities and what that looks like coming out of the NBA.

STEVE NASH: Yeah, I think the number one thing for me is passion. If I really believe in something, then I want to put my time or money into it. I want to believe in something before I-- my time is very valuable to me because I love to give it to my family and my profession, first and foremost. So having the opportunity to share and build a great team to share this with people out there is important. And that's, for me, my vetting process.

I'm definitely more into making investments of time or money depending on things that I really believe in, that mean a lot to me, and that I can get behind. So as a founder in this, as someone who-- with all the lessons I've learned, all the access and opportunity I've had in my career, I can share this with the public. There is a financial component. But, for me, the motivation is to share, is for people to be out there doing what they love to do with the people they want to be with and improving their quality of life, of being able to sustain it as long as possible.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: And, Steve, we know that a lot of people purchased home fitness equipment and other things during the pandemic, really trying to wake themselves up during the pandemic and also trying to build some sort of longer-term health things. Any sort of partnerships you're looking at with BLOCK into how it could perhaps pair with other fitness companies in terms of an ecosystem?

STEVE NASH: Well, our ecosystem, the way we've approached it is really going out to groups, sports groups, clubs. For example, Volo is an amateur sports group that puts leagues on across the country. And we want to be able to be the provider of their training and health components to that partnership, so looking at different groups that are giving a platform for people to play and to do what they love to do and then trying to help them do it better and do it longer and more safely.

So we're really looking at that space to people that are already out there trying to play, trying to enjoy, trying to move well. I think that while I would put our workout up there with anyone, any offering that's out there, our goal is more so for people to move well and have a great quality of life rather than to brag about their six pack. We want people that are feeling, like, great about the things that are important to them, that will be lasting, the things that give them community and satisfaction.

And so for us, that's what we lead with. And we want people to feel great. If they look great as well, that's a bonus. But, really, it's about feeling great, moving well, and being out there doing what they love to do.

DAVE BRIGGS: Not the only challenge ahead, Steve. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about the challenge of getting Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving with the vaccination drama and KD with the trade request. Some say that it involved your job. How do you get these two superstars and this superstar roster on one page without the off-court drama?

STEVE NASH: Well, we all have a long history. So I think when we cleared the air this summer, it's like the whole process was behind us. I think we were all just scarred, scarred by losing, scarred by all the adversity we faced with injuries or vaccinations or whatever it may be that our team has happened to face for whatever reason for two years. It scarred us all really bad. And I think we went into the summer wanting change.

And so for us, I think there was a kind of a tumultuous summer and an event that brought some drama from the outside. But from the inside, we just discussed it. We got back together, got on the same page. And since then, it's been really positive.

I think we've all learned that we can handle this adversity, that we can make changes and be self-critical of the things that we need to improve, regardless of what we've faced that we've been out of our control. So it's been a really fun start to the season. I think September was great for us all to get working again. And then getting into training camp the last week has been really positive. Our guys are super locked in, and I'm excited for the year.

SEANA SMITH: We are, too. Steve, we wish you all the best. Thank you so much for hopping on Yahoo Finance and talking to us. And good luck this season.

STEVE NASH: Great. Thanks a lot.