Jason Kidd
(Kalb: #28, Simmons: #42, BBR: #28)
Earlier this spring, Jason Kidd became the oldest starting point guard ever to win the championship, and although he is still a good player, he is nowhere near the level he was at a decade ago, when he was one of the best players in the NBA, and one of the all-time great point guards.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly when Kidd hit his peak, because he played at such a high level for so long, but he was probably at his best during his first two seasons in New Jersey, when he led the Nets to the NBA Finals two straight times, even though the team didn't even have another All-Star caliber player on the roster. Statistically, those seasons look like a lot of others for him, but for a point guard it's still amazing to his these stats:
Kidd (2001-2003) - 16.7 pts, 6.8 reb, 9.4 ast, 2.2 stl, .403 FG%, .331 3P%, .831 FT%
Those seasons came in the midst of a streak of nine years that Kidd was named to the All-Defensive Team, and during the time that he led the league in assists 5 times in 6 seasons. Even with how good he was in the regular season, he stepped it up in the playoffs, and the Nets would have had no chance without him, so these numbers are the reason they got as far as they did:
Kidd (Finals runs) - 19.8 pts, 8.0 reb, 8.6 ast, 1.8 stl, .409 FG%, .263 3P%, .817 FT%
As good as Kidd was, he wasn't good enough to win a title by himself, and he was never given a star to play with, but even at age 37, he was still a major contributor to the Dallas Mavericks, who went on to win the NBA Championship, and allowed Kidd to leap two spots in these rankings to become one of the top 30 players of all time.
The only glaring weakness in Kidd's game has been his shooting percentage, which is always among the worst in the league, hovering around 40%, which would have been acceptable 50 years ago, but is almost unheard of today. That one weakness, even with his greatness in so many other facets of the game, held him back from being the best point guard of all time, but there is no denying that he belongs in the conversation as one of the 5 best ever.
Jason Kidd and Patrick Ewing were both recognized as great players who could never win the big one, but Kidd finally broke through this year and got his title, even if he wasn't the star player. Kidd made it to the Finals in his prime one more time than Ewing, and was just as big a star at his peak as Ewing was, but what really sets him apart is that he's still good enough to be a starter on most teams in his 17th season, while Ewing was warming up the bench for Orlando at that point of his career.
No comments:
Post a Comment