As the old adage goes, "It’s not the destination, but the journey."

That idea was on Jason Kidd’s mind on Sunday night as he tried to soak in every bit of his first NBA championship.

"It’s a dream come true," Jason said after the game "It’s not real right now because–just the battles with the Heat and understanding the journey–it’s been a long journey of 17 years."


Jason Kidd plants a kiss on the Larry O’Brien NBA Championship trophy the first NBA title of his career (Getty Images).
Johnny Ludden of Yahoo! Sports described the scene when Jason finally got to hold the title for his own.

"Jason Kidd grabbed that championship trophy, and finally, all those 17 battle-scarred seasons from Dallas to Phoenix to New Jersey to Dallas again, had their validation. He’d forever been the picture of composure on the court, the heady point guard always looking ahead for the next play, the next passing lane, and in that moment, in the din of celebration late Sunday, teammates pressing around him, trophy in his arms, Jason Kidd looked lost."

Surely he was thinking about the journey. It was all Jason spoke about in each interview he conducted Sunday night.

"I can put it into words, it’s like a dream right now," he told NBA TV’s Game Time crew. "The journey, besides this season, but just 17 years of playing against the best players in the world, coming up short two times and then having the opportunity when I’m 38 years old, to play for a championship."

That journey began in earnest 23 years ago when J-Kidd burst onto the hoops scene as a freshman phenom at St. Joseph’s High in Alameda, California. Just one year later, he was taking on Goliath, for the first of many times in his life, in the California state finals.

Washington Post columnist Mike Wise was there when J-Kidd put together his first championship performance at age 16:

"I was rooting for Kidd to finally get a ring. As a high school correspondent, I was at his coming-out party — so to speak.

Outside of national hoop circles, no one had heard of the 16-year-old who, as a sophomore at St. Joseph’s High School in Alameda, started against mighty Skyline in the state, large-school semifinals in 1991.

Well, no one but the Oakland Coliseum security guard who ran exasperated into the pressroom as the roars from the stands grew louder.

"Oh my God! This kid from St. Joe’s is takin’ out Skyline by himself," he said, his pupils enlarged. "I’ve seen the truth. It’s him."

We saw back-to-back steals at halfcourt, whereby Kidd raced toward the goal at warp speed and dunked on two 6-foot-8 seniors, right between them. We saw a double-digit Skyline lead evaporate within two minutes in the fourth quarter, Kidd hitting teammates in stride with bullet, no-look passes.

It was a smaller, stockier Magic — at 16!

Twenty-two years later, there was that kid, at 38, doing all the little things to fend off a younger, talented team.

That, in essence, is the theme of Jason’s journey, fending off those who were said to be better and leaving his mark on the game along the way.

After turning down offers from the giants of college basketball, Jason stayed close to home at the University of California-Berkeley. As a freshman, he led the Bears to an upset of two-time defending national champion Duke in the 1993 NCAA tournament. He left Cal after his sophomore year and was picked No. 2 overall by the Mavericks, who were then owned by Don Carter.

Carter has since sold the Mavericks to Mark Cuban, but the Mavericks welcomed the Carter family onto the championship stage Sunday night and Jason experessed his elation for the family that brought basketball to Dallas and brought him into the league:

"I think this is huge for the Carter family," J-Kidd said. "For the down years that Dallas has had and then to still be a part of it once Cuban bought the team, and just to see this day come, I mean, I think they’re on cloud nine. We’re so happy for them because of what they’ve done for the franchise."

17 LONG YEARS
Jason’s NBA career took him from Dallas to Phoenix, then to New Jersey, where he helped to turn around the Nets, a team coming off a 56-loss season. In his first two seasons in New Jersey, the Nets had two shots at an NBA title, only to fall ever so short.

Mike Vaccaro, now a writer for the New York Post covered the Nets in those days and wrote about their rise to prominence on J-Kidd’s back.

"The thing to remember about those heady, giddy early days in New Jersey was how much of a secret Jason Kidd was. Those were the best nights.

Kidd’s talent was no mystery, of course: he had performed wonders for years in Phoenix, in his first stint as a Maverick, back in college at Cal-Berkeley.

But Nets fans — never what you would call a crowded room — were especially wary to embrace those 2001 Nets. They had been burned too many times before, by Stephon Marbury and Chris Morris, by "Whoop-de-damn-do" and the sad, slow destruction of Micheal Ray Richardson.

So in those early weeks with the Nets, Kidd performed his basketball wizardry in private. His first four games at the Meadowlands were played before friends and family: 8,749 against Indiana in his debut, 6,532 against the Hornets, 5,277 against the Sonics, 5,630 against the pre-LeBron Cavaliers.

The Nets were winning, playing a brand of basketball that even the sainted ’70 Knicks never approached. And yet were imitating the tree falling in the empty forest.

"I don’t blame them for staying away," Kidd told me after one of those games, early in November. "There’s been a lot of bad basketball here over the years. They want to make sure we aren’t the same old Nets. I understand. It’s our job to make people want to see us."

They did that. He did that. Night after night that first season with the Nets, he led by example and by performance, he cajoled and coaxed and coddled his teammates and Nets fans. He would slap triple doubles on the score sheet barely breaking a sweat. Knicks fans who already could sense the trouble brewing in their own backyard but who still appreciated good basketball joined Nets fans who barely could believe their good fortune.

Man. That was a hell of a ride."

The ride wasn’t even close to over for J-Kidd. He would remain in New Jersey for four-and-a-half more years after those back-to-back Finals trips, guiding the Nets to four more playoff appearances, but never again to the championship round.

GOING BACK TO DALLAS
In the midst of Jason’s seventh year in New Jersey, Mavs owner Mark Cuban decided to take a chance on J-Kidd. So Cuban shipped young point guard Devin Harris, four others and two draft picks to New Jersey for Jason and two others.

Johnny Ludden of Yahoo! Sports recounted the reasoning behind the deal:

"These Mavericks grew into a championship team because Kidd helped Dirk Nowitzki make them so. Three seasons earlier, Mavs owner Mark Cuban had gambled a talented young point guard, Devin Harris, and two first-round draft picks to pull Kidd from the rubble of the New Jersey Nets. Cuban knew that Kidd could serve as a guide for Nowitzki, help him lead in ways he never had. Even at Kidd’s age, he could still manage a game as well as anyone in the league."

But the process wasn’t instant with the Mavericks either. It took time and it took a few first round ousters before the Mavericks found the cohesion for a title run. After a half-season under Avery Johnson, Rick Carlisle took over for Jason’s first full year in Dallas. Over the last three years, Carlisle claims he’s absorbed as much knowledge from Jason as J-Kidd has from him.

"I’ve learned so much from these guys. Especially Jason Kidd," Carlisle said. "His view of the game is so different, and he’s savant like. He’s just been a thrill and a privilege to spend time with him."

Carlisle also put his faith in Jason, a crucible to the team success, according to Nowitzki.

"He’s an experienced coach, and he pushed all the right buttons, and it took us a while to find a good mix," Dirk said. "I think I mentioned that yesterday, of still keeping our defensive principles that Avery

[Johnson] installed and also giving Kidd a little more freedom on the offensive end, letting him run the show a little bit, letting him create and letting him call some plays on the fly and push the pace up a little bit."


Five Mavs vets with a combined 65 years of NBA experience all celebrate their first title. (Getty Images)
THE COMPLETE PACKAGE
 At the end of his time in New Jersey, and through his first two full seasons in Dallas, Jason continued to work hard on his shooting to add a layer to his game that previously wasn’t there.

According to No. 2, he had to be more dynamic to help the Mavs reach his championship goals.

"That was my challenge," Jason said. "I wanted to compete and help my team, and I had to be able to knock down the 3 to make it easier for these guys. So I worked on it every day.

"You’re never too young or too old to always improve your game. For me at 38, I’ve always felt that I had to improve my shooting if I want to be on the floor and help my teammates out. As I’ve gotten older, it’s just about timing, and not so much scoring 20 points or having 15 assists or 10 rebounds. It’s just being at the right place at the right time, and feeling that your teammates believe in you."

The results have been a boon for Dallas. In the 2011 playoffs, Jason hit an incredible 43 threes. But J-Kidd is still more than a spot up shooter. There are several layers to his game and his guidance made Jason the glue of the team that finally put a ring on his finger, as Calvin Watkins of ESPN Dallas writes:

"In these Finals, Kidd was the glue.

After Dwyane Wade and LeBron James had a little sparring session near the Mavericks bench in Game 2 after building a 15-point lead, it was Kidd who kept Jason Terry calm.

"Deuce is funny," said Terry, referring to Kidd by his jersey number. "He said being from Oakland, he said it brought out the GP in me. Everybody knows who GP is, Gary Payton. One of my idols. A good friend."

Terry sparked the dramatic rally that the Mavericks staged to win Game 2 on the road.

On Sunday night, when Nowitzki struggled with his shot (he was 4-for-19 after three quarters), Kidd got into the head of the Finals MVP and told him to keep going.

In the fourth quarter, Nowitzki made 5-of-8 shots, scoring only one fewer point in the fourth than Dwyane Wade and LeBron James combined.

"We just kept playing," Kidd said. "That just shows the character of this team. No matter how old you are, we understood how to play the game, by passing the ball and making sure that we didn’t take shots where three or four guys are on you. We just made the extra pass. We didn’t care who put the ball in the basket."


Jason and Dirk both put their heart and soul into the title run, each wanting it as badly for the other as themselves (Getty Images)
Dirk talked after Game 6 about what it meant to him to help Jason win a ring.

"I’m happy for Kidd," Nowitzki said. "What a warrior he is at 38, chasing the most athletic players in this league out there and doing a great job on him, and also leading our squad. He’s been in this league forever and had two chances. [This is] just an unbelievable team."

Bob Sturm of the Dallas Morning News has followed Jason’s career and was marveled by Jason’s efforts on the defensive end in the Finals:

"The oldest player in NBA history to ever win his 1st ring while starting, this 38-year old point guard brought the perfect composure and calm to a team that perhaps lost the 2006 Finals because they did not possess composure or calm. There was nothing that Kidd had not seen in his long NBA career, and as controversial as his acquisition seemed at the time, the fact that he steered the ship all the way to an NBA title, clearly the move is not controversial anymore. It is flat-out genius.

Kidd was always there to make shots, make stops, and lead the team into the right move at the right time. Kidd’s defense was also gigantic, and at his age, that was supposed to be his biggest weakness. But, his performance against Kobe and Dwyane Wade certainly speaks for itself."

Meanwhile, Jason’s teammates praised him for getting them the ball in the right spots. Jason Terry sat next to J-Kidd at the press conference after Dallas had clinched the title, pointed to No. 2 and called him, point blank, "the greatest."

"Greatest point guard in the world, he’s sitting right next to me," Terry said. "Hall of Famer. Understands where to get his teammates the ball in the right situations, in situations to be successful."

Willing passer. Determined Leader. Three-point assassin. Defensive specialist. All those rolled into one describe Jason’s impact on the 2011 Mavericks. His will to fight for his ultimate goal inspired his teammates and it kept the 38-year old feeling, fittingly, like a kid again.

"This all about being a kid," he told NBA TV’s Chris Webber after Game 6. "The game of basketball is about being young and feeling young. When you have that opportunity to play at 38, you have to feel that you’re 25. I can remember those days. Tomorrow is going to feel great, but it’s just living the journey, fulfilling your goal and winning a championship."

While he still feels young, as the eldest guard to start on a championship team, Jason is also proud to achieve for all those who haven’t completed that journey, as quoted in the Washington Post:

"I’m happy to represent where I’m from and who didn’t make it. But really I just identify with old people. Old players. The guys who just are sore, had a bunch of surgeries, can’t believe they’re still out there trying to take on the young guys at the Y or whatever. Yep, just old dudes."

And the 17-year trip to the title just made him appreciate capturing it that much more.

"It has been an unbelievable journey. I have been here twice. The third time was the charm. I always hoped to get another opportunity," Jason said. "My teammates deserve all the credit. I’m just happy to be at the right place at the right time.

"To finally finish across the line of the marathon in first place is huge."

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