The Ageless Kidd

See that image above, freshly downloaded from my scanner? (You may need to click on the image for a clearer view.) I found this advertisement inside United Airlines’s “Skymall” catalog while on a flight last summer from Chicago's O'Hare Airport. I meant to scan it earlier but have been lazy during these past few months. Explaining the economics of this ad requires a lot of exposition, so please stay with me. During the offseason of ’12, Jeremy Lin was on top of the basketball world, after a crazy Tebow-like win streak with Lin as the starting point guard in February and March. His coach in New York, Mike Woodson, proclaimed Lin the point guard of the Knicks’ future… until Lin signed a three-year, $25 million contract with Houston that would have ruined the Knicks’ salary-cap management plan. In the end, New York chose not to exercise its right to match the Rockets' steep offer. ESPN.com published a six-part (really) series of articles about why the Knicks chose to let him leave. Many fans were devastated when New York chose Raymond Felton as its new starting point guard over Lin.

Meanwhile, during the same weeks of July, Jason Kidd had a handshake agreement to re-ink his name with Dallas whenever his golfing buddy Deron Williams chose to sign with Dallas as a free agent… but then Mavs owner Mark Cuban no-showed the pitch meeting with Williams in favor of taping a reality television show, D-Will chose to stay with New Jersey, the miffed Kidd signed with New York planning to mentor Lin instead, but then, as already mentioned, Lin signed a too-rich contract with Houston that Knicks management chose not to match, and Kidd suddenly became a backup to the overweight Felton. Got all that?

So, with Lin a new star commanding a billion eyeballs and Kidd a 39-year-old afterthought, it is little wonder that a basketball signed by Lin could fetch $400 and a Kidd-signed ball went for a quarter of that. Jason Kidd, the former Rookie of the Year, MVP runner-up, and future Hall of Famer.

Yet here is Kidd, still (after similar jobs with the Nets and Mavericks earlier in his career) improbably willing a team with less-than-elite talent to outstanding performance. Sure, Carmelo Anthony is a fantastic scorer and Tyson Chandler is a very stout defender, but the rest of New York ’s roster is either comically old (Rasheed Wallace, Kurt Thomas, Marcus Camby), one-dimensional (J.R. Smith, Steve Novak, Ronnie Brewer Jr.) or too injured to play (Amare Stoudemire, Iman Shumpert). Kidd even led an Anthony-less team to a 20-point win over Miami last Thursday. Kidd is defending wings, as he did to great effect in the 2011 NBA Finals, dishing, stealing, and hitting three-pointers at a 50% rate. And Lin, for all his ferocious talent, is struggling to share the ball with James Harden.

(Did I mention that, when I visited the U.C. Berkeley campus in 1994, more than one person mistook me for Jason Kidd? I think it was the close-cropped hair, prominent nose, and ethnically ambiguous features. So I have long felt solidarity with the guy.)

Last night Kidd sank 6 of 8 three-pointers to help top the Nets. On most of them, his Net defender (usually Deron Williams or Joe Johnson) left him unguarded for an obvious count of one… two… sometimes three beats. To be fair, Carmelo Anthony with the ball often invites a hedge or an earnest help, sometimes making recovery difficult, but the Nets know that Kidd is a deadly three-point shooter. After he made his fifth shot from long range, why did they leave him so open for the sixth and final, game-winning 3-ball? A Ronnie Brewer or perhaps Ray Felton (if priorities must be drawn) can be ignored on the perimeter, but Jason Kidd?

Here above is Kidd's game-winning shot. The equally old Jerry Stackhouse, assigned to guard Kidd, foolishly stays near the painted area, waiting to oppose a potential drive by Felton. But Stackhouse strays too far from Kidd, Felton sees the opening, and Kidd lands a wide-open three-ball (and uses his leg to draw a foul too, though that probably should have been an offensive foul, as Jeff Van Gundy observes on commentary).

At times like these, the overused acronym "SMH" is apt.

Twenty-Four Months Of Perspective On Trades

Back in February 2008, three big trades altered the balance of power in the Western Conference:

(1) The L.A. Lakers traded Kwame Brown, 2007 first-round draft pick Javaris Crittenton, 2007 second-round draft pick Marc Gasol, a 2008 first-round draft pick, and a 2010 first-round pick to Memphis for Pau Gasol and a 2010 second-round pick.

(2) Phoenix traded Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks to Miami for Shaquille O'Neal.

(3) Dallas traded Devin Harris, Desagana Diop, Trenton Hassell, Maurice Ager, a 2008 first-round draft pick, and a 2010 first-round pick to New Jersey for Jason Kidd, Malik Allen, and Antoine Wright.

Each of these transactions was roundly slammed at the time for its one-sidedness: Folks thought that the Lakers, Heat, and Nets fleeced their respective counterparties. However, assets in the NBA (i) are relationship-specific, i.e. their value changes depending which team gets them, and (ii) have dynamic values that can change significantly over time. Ultimately, each of these trades turned out to be far fairer than once thought.

LAKERS-GRIZZLIES (Gasol, Gasol)
We know that Pau Gasol helped propel the Lakers to two NBA finals and one championship (after successive first-round exits in 2006 and 2007), so the trade was a home run for Los Angeles. Yet the deal now looks better for Memphis than once thought. Marc Gasol, hardly mentioned in initial accounts of the trade, now performs rather equinely every night, regularly turning in double-doubles and serving as a scary defensive presence. He was mentioned by several pundits as worthy of a 2010 All-Star spot. Moreover, the 2008 first-round pick in that trade became Darrell Arthur, who is now Memphis's only decent forward off the bench. Memphis, at 30-29 and unexpectedly striving for a playoff spot, is one of the most surprising squads of 2009-10. It is actually hard to imagine now that Memphis could have done significantly better in the trade, given the teams bidding to acquire Pau at the time. Chicago allegedly offered Joakim Noah and Tyrus Thomas, but neither of those guys has Marc Gasol's dominant offensive instincts.

SUNS-HEAT (O'Neal, Marion)
Early in the 2007-08 season, following a first-round sweep by Chicago the previous spring, Heat watchers declared Shaquille O'Neal "done". O'Neal, though, recovered from early-season doldrums following his trade to Phoenix and improved his rebounding from 7.8 per game to 10.6. Phoenix lost in the first round of the playoffs that season to San Antonio, which eventually beat the Hornets in the second round and lost to the Lakers in the conference finals. Whether Phoenix could have surpassed the West's best that season is uncertain. The Suns could not get past San Antonio with a full complement of Nash, Stoudemire, and Marion in the 2007 playoffs, so it is uncertain whether they could have reversed their luck in '08.
In 2008-09, O'Neal was selected to the Western Conference All-Star team and was voted to the All-NBA third team in June. That Phoenix struggled in the 2008-09 season and missed the playoffs was largely the fault of their new coach, Terry Porter, who failed to run a system suited to the run-and-gun, pick-and-roll strengths of the team's biggest stars, Nash and Stoudemire. O'Neal turned in a very good year, featuring his best scoring rate since 2005-06 and his best free throw percentage since 2002-03.
Meanwhile, Marion, once called the most athletic player in the NBA, is no longer thought of as a top 10, top 15, or even top 30 superstar. After the big trade in February 2008 he seemed to sulk, playing under his supposed potential on Miami and later Toronto. Now a starting small forward for Dallas, he is merely a top-notch role player who once was great.

MAVERICKS-NETS (Harris, Kidd)
Is there any controversy here? The Nets are 6-52 and Dallas is 38-21. The 2008 draft pick that the Nets picked up became Ryan Anderson (who was eventually flipped, with Vince Carter, for Courtney Lee), who is a decent ninth man. Save for Hassell, all the other role players in the 2008 draft — Diop, Ager, Allen, Wright — now play elsewhere. Jason Kidd turned in a 19-17-16 game on Friday night at nearly age 37. Following the 2008 trade, he helped the US Olympic team to a gold medal in Beijing, followed by a second-round playoff showing in 2009, knocking off the hated Spurs. This year he averages 10 points, 9 assists, nearly 2 steals, and 42 percent from long range. Looking beyond statistics, he is the unquestioned general of his team and often appears spryer than men nearly half his age. Harris had a nice 2008-09, finishing a very close 2nd in the Most Improved Player voting, but this year he is shooting under 40% from the field -- as a point guard -- while, again, leading his team to a 6-52 record.