Remembering Jason Kidd's Better Days with the Nets Franchise
Before Jason Kidd was a villain in the hearts of Brooklyn Nets fans, he was a hero.
Prior to pacing the sidelines of Barclays Center for one rocky season, Kidd was remembered for running one of the most electrifying shows in all of sports in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
J-Kidd is arguably the best player who has ever donned a Nets uniform. His No. 5 jersey is retired and hanging in the rafters of the brand-new arena. He brought the team as close as it’s ever come to winning an NBA title.
And yet, the mention of his name draws disgust from Nets fans.
Kidd ditched Brooklyn for greener pastures this summer and currently stands as the head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks. We’ll get into that.
But it seems as though everyone—Nets fans and basketball followers, alike—have forgotten just how spectacular Kidd was in his playing days.
It’s time for a reminder.
The Road to the Nets
Kidd, a native of California, was drafted by the Dallas Mavericks with the second overall pick in 1994.
He shared Rookie of the Year honors with Grant Hill after averaging 11.7 points, 7.7 assists and 5.4 boards while leading the league in triple-doubles.
After clashing with coach Jim Cleamons, Kidd was traded to the Phoenix Suns 25 games into his third pro season. Here’s an excerpt from David Steele of the San Francisco Gate on December 27, 1996:
"But it was Kidd, who grew up in the East Bay, who got shipped. "Well, the rumors are now not rumors anymore," he said after learning of the trade just before game time. The past week or two had been filled with talk that Kidd, who felt shackled by Cleamons' deliberate offensive schemes, was on the market. The Mavs had been fielding offers from around the league since early in the season.
Reaction among his former teammates ranged from surprise ("It caught me off guard," Jackson said) to disappointment ("Jason was my man. He always thought pass-first, shoot-second," said Gatling) to anger: As he heard the news while checking into the game late in the first quarter, Mashburn said, "(Bleepin') stupid, man."
On his differences with Cleamons, Kidd said, "I thought I was trying to do my best and do things the way he wanted to do it . . . I was trying to execute the style of the play he wanted." Later, however, he said he welcomed the more up- tempo style the Suns offered: "Danny (Ainge, the coach) likes to get up and down, and they have a lot of basketball talent there."
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Kidd spent five seasons with the Suns and led the team to the postseason each year.
While in Phoenix, Kidd averaged 14.1 points, 9.7 assists and 6.3 boards. He led the league in assists for three consecutive seasons (1998-99, 1999-00, 2000-01), and also made three All-Star appearances.
Kidd would more than likely have been a four-time All-Star with the Suns, but the game was not held in 1999 due to a lockout that shortened the season to 50 games.
While Phoenix was a perennial playoff contender, things just never seemed to bounce in the team’s direction.
In the summer of 2001, Kidd was traded to New Jersey in exchange for a package highlighted by Stephon Marbury.
Kidd had solidified himself as a bona fide star in his first seven seasons in the NBA. But it was with the Nets that he would become a legend.
Taking New Jersey to New Heights
Kidd was never the biggest guy on the floor.
He wasn't the the quickest, strongest or most athletic, either. But Kidd was so smart, so crafty and so skilled that he was able to dominate every aspect of the game.
His basketball prowess was complemented by his immense heart—Kidd hustled after every ball. Every one. He got most of them, too. How else would a 6’4” guard finish his career with 3,662 rebounds?
J-Kidd made passing cool in a sport where the high-scorer is often the hero. He made his teammates better and had a ton of fun doing it.
In his first season with the Nets, Kidd led the team to a 52-30 finish. One year prior to Kidd’s arrival, New Jersey had finished 26-56.
The 28-year-old Kidd put up 14.7 points, 9.9 assists, 7.3 rebounds and 2.1 steals a night in 2001-02. Playing alongside Kenyon Martin and Kerry Kittles—no, Vince Carter hadn’t arrived just yet—Kidd led the Nets to their first-ever NBA Finals.
It was a tremendous run for Kidd and the Nets. But the Los Angeles Lakers, led by a 23-year-old Kobe Bryant and a 29-year-old Shaquille O’Neal, beat New Jersey in a four-game sweep. It was the final stroke in the Lakers’ masterpiece of a three-peat championship run.
Los Angeles was just better than the Nets. Kidd, to his credit, did manage to hit the Lakers for 20.8 points, 9.8 assists and 7.3 boards throughout the Finals.
Here’s what he had to say after Game 4, courtesy of NBA.com:
"The big thing is we had a great season, you know. Nobody had picked us to be in this position. So for us to get this far with the talent that we had and the group of guys, that just shows the character in the group of guys that we had.
We're not going to be satisfied—we've got to use this as our first step of becoming one of those elite teams. Sometimes it's gonna hurt, but success has never come easy. So we just have to understand that.
"
The next season, Kidd did it again. He exploded for a nightly average of 18.7 points and 8.9 assists while leading the Nets to another Finals appearance.
Unfortunately for New Jersey, the team had run into another dynasty. This time, it was the mighty San Antonio Spurs.
The Spurs won the series in six games in large part due to Tim Duncan, who dominated with 24.2 points and 17 rebounds a night. In Game 6, Duncan closed out the Nets with a mind-blowing 32-point, 20-rebound performance.
After losing in back-to-back Finals, Kidd re-signed with the Nets for five more years in summer 2003 despite speculation that he could replace Tony Parker as the Spurs' point guard.
"What we accomplished in New Jersey with the Nets, from the bottom and being able to get to the Finals, back to back, that was really special," Kidd said, per ESPN, after retiring in 2013.
Though he never again made it past the Eastern Conference Finals, Kidd led the Nets to the playoffs every year and won the Atlantic Division four times along the way.
When the Nets acquired Carter in December of 2004, the team had created a spectacle that fans would never forget.
Kidd, Carter and Richard Jefferson were a traveling highlight reel, with more dazzling passes and thunderous dunks on a nightly basis than the Harlem Globetrotters.
On February 19, 2008, Kidd was traded to Dallas, where he won an NBA title in 2011. In return, New Jersey received a package that featured Devin Harris, a few role players and two first-round picks.
That's right. At one time, the Nets actually traded for draft picks—weird, right?
Here's what Nets president Rod Thorn had to say at the time, per ESPN:
"Thorn told The Associated Press that as the Nets struggled this season, Kidd lost some of the intensity that defines him as a player, making it imperative that the team trade him.
Thorn said he first noticed it in December, an indirect reference to an incident in which Kidd sat out a game against the New York Knicks with a migraine, a move some considered a one-day walkout to force a trade.
"Over the course of time it became very evident that his heart wasn't in it," Thorn said. "The kind of player he is, if his heart's not in it then he's not the same player, and it became evident to me that his heart wasn't in it anymore. It just wasn't going to work."
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Instead of re-upping with the Mavs, Kidd then suited up for the New York Knicks in 2013. After the conclusion of that season, he called it a career.
When asked what he wanted to be remembered for, here’s what Kidd told ESPN New York’s Ohm Youngmisuk:
"The biggest thing is winning. No matter what percentage, no matter what my numbers say in the sense of points, assists, rebounds and steals, it's always been about winning. And it will always be about winning…making my teammates better.
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Kidd played for four different teams throughout his career, but the bulk of his legacy lies with the Nets.
He ranks first in franchise assists, steals and triple-doubles. He also owns the team’s all-time record for postseason points, assists, rebounds, steals, field goals made and attempted, three-point field goals made and attempted, minutes and games played.
Julius Erving would obviously be in the conversation of choosing the greatest Net ever—even though he played only three seasons with the team in the ABA. But Kidd may very well go down as the franchise's all-time brightest star.
Will the Betrayal in Brooklyn Live Forever?
Shortly after Kidd announced his retirement, he signed a contract to become the next coach of the Nets.
Under Kidd, the Nets were dreadful at first, beginning the year 10-21.
On November 28, Kidd was fined $50,000 for deliberately spilling a soda on the court in order to create a makeshift timeout. On December 2, he demoted top assistant Lawrence Frank—"just different philosophies," Kidd told ESPN—after a huge locker room blow-up.
But somehow, the Nets got it together and managed to win 34 of their final 51 games.
Brooklyn knocked off the division champion Toronto Raptors in the first round of the playoffs, but fell to LeBron James’ Miami Heat in the conference semis. For as poorly as the team kicked off the year, it had certainly gotten back on track.
A good portion of that turnaround could be pinned on Kidd, who became the second coach to ever win two Coach of the Month awards in his rookie season. After losing arguably his top player in Brook Lopez to a broken foot, Kidd's small-ball lineup clicked and the Nets started rolling.
But as a whole, 2013-14 was a mildly disappointing season, being that the Nets had constructed the most expensive basketball roster ever assembled.
On June 28, it was revealed that Kidd failed in his attempt to leapfrog general manager Billy King and garner more power in the organization.
Ownership brought him back down to Earth and allowed him to begin negotiations with the Bucks for their coaching position, unbeknownst to Milwaukee's then-current coach, Larry Drew.
Tim Bontemps of the New York Post broke the story:
"A league source told The Post Kidd recently approached ownership with a series of demands, including the role of overseeing the Nets’ basketball operations department in addition to his head-coaching responsibilities. The source said Kidd didn’t want general manager Billy King to be dismissed, but wanted to be given a title and placed above him in the organizational hierarchy.
Ownership declined to grant Kidd that kind of power, which is rare for any coach in the league to have. The source said ownership felt Kidd wasn’t ready for that kind of responsibility after having only one year of coaching experience—the team finished his first season on the bench with a 44-38 record, good for sixth in the Eastern Conference—and allowed Kidd to seek other opportunities.
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Kidd was named head coach of the Bucks less than a week after that report surfaced.
How could he?
"This is business. I think [Nets general manager] Billy [King] said it best," Kidd said with a grin, per ESPN New York's Mike Mazzeo. "It's business, and that's what it comes down to."
Milwaukee gave him a three-year deal worth roughly $5 million more than what he was making in Brooklyn. There’s also the possibility that Kidd will climb the food chain in the coming years and eventually hold a position such as president of basketball operations in Milwaukuee.
Nets fans are upset. And understandably so.
Kidd’s No. 5 jersey, which was retired in October of 2013, hangs in the rafters of Barclays Center.
It will serve as a constant reminder of one of two things.
Fans can look at that jersey and think of the coach that deserted them after just one year—the villainous, power-hungry Kidd.
Or, fans could look at that No. 5 and think of the good times.
The back-to-back Finals appearances, the only ones in franchise history. The lengthy list of individual franchise records. The superstar, perhaps the best player in team history. The success. The fun.
Right now, Brooklyn followers might still be venomous toward Kidd. But as time goes on, the fanbase will come to forget about the coach who ditched them, and instead remember the superstar point guard whose on-court greatness left a permanent footprint on the Nets franchise.
All stats are accurate courtesy of Basketball Reference unless otherwise noted.
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