Jason Kidd Complements Dirk Nowitzki Better Than Steve Nash

With the new Jason Kidd to Dallas trade finally resurrected, and seemingly imminent, we can finally start analyzing the deal and try to predict how this new team will function. 

Many people seem to believe that Dirk and Kidd won't be able to get it done because Dirk and Nash were never able to.  There are a couple errors in this thinking, though.

First of all, Dirk isn't the same player he was with Nash.  Dirk hadn't reached his prime with Nash and Nash hadn't reached his prime with Dirk either. These guys were both late bloomers who are still developing even right now.

Case in point—Dirk just had his first triple-double a few days ago. With the poor shooters on the Mavs, that is especially impressive. Especially because he can't pass to himself.

But the most important thing that differentiates Kidd from Nash is that Kidd's game has the potential to complement Dirk much more than Nash's game ever did.

Nash was, and is, your prototypical point guard. Ideally you want to pair a player like Nash with a prototypical power forward or center.

I am sure this was Kerr's thinking in Phoenix as well—Nash and Shaq have the potential to complement each other as well as any tandem to ever play the game and could add a decade to each others careers.

But the problem with Nash and Dirk in Dallas is that Dirk is about as far from your prototypical post playing power forward as is imaginable. 

Teams don't just put small defenders on Dirk in the playoffs to create mismatches all over the court for themselves defensively and to make Dirk a better post player, forcing them to double and triple him there.

They put small defenders on Dirk because he can take seven footers off the dribble at will.

Dirk plays the power forward position like a shooting guard —that's what makes him so special. 

Then you have Jason Kidd, who is just as unique at his position. Unlike Nash, Kidd has the ability to post up most point guards.

This is what could make Dirk an entirely different player in the playoffs. Even though it's in an unusual package,  Dirk finally has the kind of player he always needed—a post player that will finally take some pressure off him on the perimter and finally give the Mavs a post player other than himself.

And this should allow Dirk to actually play his game and be the leader he has always had the potential to be, because all through his career he never once had that kind of player.

So now we have two unconventional superstars that could make each other better than they have ever been before.

The only question: Is Avery Johnson too conventional to coach them?