For Now, Jason Kidd Is The Mavericks' Point Guard of the Future

This summer, the Mavs' front office repeatedly said that re-signing Jason Kidd was priority No. 1. Some (at the risk of sounding like a Kobe fan, I'll call this group the "haters") thought that it was a face-saving move by owner Mark Cuban that the Mavs had to retain Kidd's services in order to make it seem like they didn't give Devin Harris away for a year-and-a-half of disappointing basketball.

After the Mavs got into a little bit of a bidding war with the New York Knicks, they ended up offering the 36-year-old point guard a three-year deal.

It was a strange move, even for the Mavs faithful, because even though the front office declared objective No. 1 "accomplished," we still had the same point guard we had last year, nothing had changed; enter the haters.

The haters are saying that the Mavs should have let Jason Kidd go and that they should have gone after someone else; that Kidd is too old to be at the helm of a contender.

Well, those people are idiots. Jason Kidd is the best point guard the Mavs could realistically have right now.

Did I wait until Kidd had one of his best performances of the season last night against the Philadelphia 76ers to run this article to make my point seem especially poignant?

That's none of your damn business and I'll thank you to stay out of my personal affairs.

But digressions aside, for right now, Jason Kidd is the point guard of the future for the Dallas Mavericks.

Sure, we've all been wowed by Rodrigue Beaubois acrobatics and ginormous wingspan, but Jason Kidd is clearly it right now.

For those of you who think the Mavs shouldn't have re-signed Kidd, I ask you, who would be their starting point guard right now?

Last I checked, Rajon Rondo, Chris Paul, Derrick Rose, and Deron Williams weren't on the market last season. Last I checked, Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans, Ricky Rubio, Ty Lawson, and Jonny Flynn were picked before the Mavs even got a chance to draft last year.

Beaubois, as gifted as he is, isn't ready to start for a contender right now and allowing him to do so, would have put the Mavs in a rebuilding mode, something that veterans like Dirk, Marion, Terry, and Josh Howard simply do not have time for right now.

I know Ramon Sessions was a hot name, but we've seen all the good he's done for the Timberwolves, when he can even get off the bench.

Anyone else that you think the Mavs should have signed? Because a trade for a good point guard would have certainly cost the Mavs a significant part of their core and they certainly wouldn't be sitting as pretty as they are right now with a piece gone.

There are several reasons why Jason Kidd is the perfect point guard for the Mavs right now:

1) He is a distributor on a team full of scorers

Sure, we've all been wowed by some of the point totals put up by Jennings, or by Harris when he was healthy last year, but the fact is, a point guard is supposed to be a pass-first guy and Jason Kidd is that to a fault.

Sure, he can't score (except for the wide-open three), but with Shawn Marion, Jason Terry, Dirk Nowitzki, and Josh Howard, Kidd doesn't need to score. He needs to get his teammates better shots.

And that's what he does, whether in the halfcourt off the pick and roll, on the fast break, or once every blue moon on a drive and kick.

When you've got shooters like the Mavs have, you need someone willing to defer to get his teammates better looks. Better shooters with better looks equals more points. It's just that simple.

2) He's a world-class mentor

In addition to Rodrigue Beaubois, the Mavericks have J.J. Barea, who is becoming a legit backup point guard right now, no small (pardon the pun) feat for an undrafted guy who tops out at 5-11.

Barea has learned from Kidd, and you can see it when he runs the fast break, sees the passing lanes, gets open for three and even drives to the rack for the occasional layup.

I've been watching almost every Mavs game for the past three seasons now, and looking at the 2007-08, Barea and the 2009-10 Barea is like night and day. He's simply a better basketball player and Kidd is directly responsible for that.

You don't think the Mavericks had that in mind when they drafted a raw talent like Beaubois right before gunning for Kidd?

Who better to teach the young guy how to run a pro-basketball offense? Face it, Beaubois is getting the best on-the-job training that a young point guard could ask for right now.

3) Good basketball players like to play with Jason Kidd

Ask LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony or Dwight Howard, all of whom played alongside Kidd on the redeem team. People just like to share the court with him.

They like to be on the business-end of his passes, to be a cog in his offense.

And come the free agent summer of 2010, you think that's going to help the Mavs land a big fish? I sure do.

Sure, LeBron and/or Wade might be out of reach, but any free agent whose worth his salt, would love to play alongside Kidd, even a Kidd on the downside of his career.

If the players I mentioned above, the best basketball players in the world like playing with Jason Kidd, then who wouldn't want to play with him?

If I'm a smart, big-name free agent, do I want to play for the Knicks, with their terrible roster and no first-round draft pick or do I want to be fed passes in traffic for a contender? I thought so.

Now, will Kidd be the same player when he's in the final year of his contract at age 39? Probably not, but will he still be able to mentor players like Beaubois and play 10-15 minutes a game? Absolutely.

That is why despite his age and despite some fairly obvious shortcomings, both offensively and defensively, Jason Kidd is the point guard of the future for your Dallas Mavericks.