Jason Kidd announced his retirement Monday. Photo Credit: Mark Runyon, Basketball Schedule
Two days after Grant Hill announced his retirement from the NBA, the other co-Rookie of the Year from 1994-95, Jason Kidd of the New York Knicks, bade farewell to pro basketball on Monday, June 3.
Kidd was the second overall pick in the 1994 NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks after playing two seasons at the University of California.
As a rookie, Kidd averaged 11.7 points, 7.7 assists and 5.4 rebounds per game and shared Rookie of the Year honors with Hill. Here are some highlights from Kidd’s first year:
A McDonald’s All-American as a senior at Saint Joseph of Notre Dame High School in Alameda, Calif., Kidd went on to earn All-America honors as a sophomore at Cal before moving onto the NBA.
As a pro, Kidd was a first-team All-Rookie selection in 1995, was All-NBA first team in 1998-99, 1999-2000, 2000-01, 2001-02 and 2003-04 and was a second-team All-NBA selection once as well. He was also named to the NBA’s All-Defensive team nine times in his 19 seasons, including four first-team nods. Kidd was a 10-time All-Star and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, earning gold in Sydney in 2000 and again at Beijing in 2008.
Jason Kidd, second from left, holds up the Larry O’Brien Trophy after the Dallas Mavericks defeated the Miami Heat in the 2011 NBA Finals. It was Kidd’s only championship in his 19-year career. From left are Dirk Nowitzki, Kidd, Jason Terry and Shawn Marion. (Flickr.com photo by Danny Bollinger)
He captured his lone NBA title in 2011 after returning to the Dallas Mavericks. Not a great scorer, Kidd averaged 12.6 points, 8.7 assists and 6.3 rebounds per game over his 19-year career with the Mavericks, Phoenix Suns, New Jersey Nets and New York Knicks.
Here are some highlights from Kidd’s long career:
He also was part of three of the most significant trades of the last two decades in the NBA, trades that shaped franchises for years to come.
Jason Kidd had two stints as a Dallas Mavericks. He was drafted second overall by the Mavericks in 1994 and was traded to the Phoenix Suns in December 1996. Kidd returned to Big D in February 2008 as part of a trade with the New Jersey Nets. (Flickr.com photo by Keith Allison)
The first such trade came on Dec. 26, 1996, when Kidd was sent to the Suns with Tony Dumas and Loren Meyer in exchange for Sam Cassell, Michael Finley, A.C. Green and a second-round draft pick in 1998.
While Kidd went on to lead the NBA in assists three straight years in Phoenix (1997-98, 1998-99 and 1999-2000), Finley became one of Dallas’ all-time greats and made multiple All-Star appearances for the Mavericks.
On July 18, 2001, the Suns traded Kidd and Chris Dudley to New Jersey for Stephon Marbury, Johnny Newman and Soumaila Samake.
This was the trade that put the Nets on the map as an NBA franchise. Playing on Long Island in the 1970s as a member of the American Basketball Association, the Nets won a pair of ABA titles, but after joining the NBA as part of the ABA-NBA merger in 1976, the Nets had trouble getting any traction.
Jason Kidd made the New Jersey Nets legitimate in the early 20th century, leading the Nets to back-to-back appearances in the NBA Finals in 2002 and 2003 after being acquired from the Phoenix Suns. (Flickr.com photo by John Maynard)
At the time of the Kidd trade, the Nets had made the postseason in only 10 of their 25 NBA campaigns and had only advanced past the first round once—a memorable upset of the defending champion Philadelphia 76ers in the first round in 1984.
Then along came Kidd.
His arrival helped transform the Nets into an Eastern Conference power (of course, in the early 21st century this was akin to saying that “After Earth” is Will Smith’s best move of May 2013 … entirely accurate, yet not all that noteworthy).
The Nets made their only two NBA Finals appearances in Kidd’s first two seasons in New Jersey, losing in a sweep to the last of the Shaquille O’Neal–Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Lakers title teams in 2002 and dropping a six-game series to the San Antonio Spurs—in David Robinson’s final season and led by Tim Duncan and a pair of international rookies named Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili).
The Nets made the playoffs six straight seasons with Kidd running the point—the longest string of postseason appearances in franchise history.
But at the trade deadline in February 2008, the Nets moved Kidd along with Malik Allen and Antoine Wright to the Mavericks for Devin Harris, Maurice Ager, DeSagana Diop, Trenton Hassell, Keith Van Horn’s contract, a 2008 first-round pick and a first-rounder in 2010.
Back in Dallas for the first time in more than a decade, Kidd became a key component to the team’s 2011 title run. He signed with the Knicks last summer and spent one year in Madison Square Garden, where he unfortunately experienced a historically bad postseason. Kidd shot just 12 percent in the playoffs this spring, hitting 3-of-25 shots in 12 games.
But shooting was never Kidd’s game. It wasn’t until his third season, 1996-97 with the Mavericks and Suns, that he managed to break 40 percent from the field for a season. His career-best shooting performance came in the lockout-shortened 1998-99 campaign, when he hit 44.4 percent of his shots for Phoenix.
But he did become a respectable threat from 3-point range later in his career, twice making more than 40 percent of his long-range attempts (40.6 percent in 2008-09 and a career-best 42.5 percent in 2009-10).
For his career, he shot just 40 percent from the floor and 34.9 percent from the land of 3. But for a point guard, Kidd was a terrific playmaker and rebounder and ranks third all-time with 105 triple-doubles, one of just three players to record more than 100 stat-stuffing games (Oscar Robertson with 181 and Magic Johnson with 138 are the others).
His 11 postseason triple-doubles are second all-time behind Magic’s 30.
Then there are the accumulated stats. With 12,091 assists and 2,684 steals, Kidd ranks second all-time behind John Stockton in both categories. His 1,391 games is sixth all-time and with 50,111, Kidd is third all-time one of only four players to reach 50,000 minutes in his career. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played 57,446 minutes, Karl Malone logged 54,852 and Elvin Hayes retired with an even 50,000.
More telling is that as a point guard, Kidd is 50th all-time in rebounds with 8,725—an astounding total for a guard.
In terms of averages, Kidd’s 8.7 assists per game is eighth all-time and he is 14th all-time with 1.9 steals per game. He led the league in assists five times, the three with Phoenix mentioned earlier, as well as in 2002-03 and 2003-04 with the Nets.
Kidd developed a reputation very early in his career as a so-called coach killer; whether it was deserved or not is debatable. On the other hand, though, Kidd took two teams coached by Byron Scott to the NBA Finals, so maybe he deserves a bit of a break on that front.
What isn’t debatable is Kidd’s place in the history of the game. He was a stat-stuffer, sure, but he was also a winner. Kidd’s teams made the playoffs in each of his last 17 seasons and he was one of the niftiest playmakers and perimeter defenders to ever play the game.
Did I mention he was a playmaker extraordinaire? Here are Kidd’s top 10 dimes:
Start the countdown. Jason Kidd will be going into the Basketball Hall of Fame, likely the first year he is eligible in 2018.