It’s been a whirlwind ride for Jason Kidd since the Mavericks were crowned NBA Champions in June.

Between celebrity golf outings, work with his foundation and award shows, Jason hasn’t had much time to slow down. But he’s enjoying every minute of it, still getting a feel for what being a champion of your sport is all about.

"(It was) surreal in the sense that we won a championship, and we really didn’t know how to celebrate in the locker room," he told the San Jose Mercury News. "I thought about all the guys that I played with that helped me play this long, but also had fun playing the game. There were a lot family members and friends that I thought about that I wish could have been here to see it in person."

That group includes Jason’s dad, who passed away in 1999.

"With my dad, (winning a championship) was the No. 1 thing," J-Kidd told the Mercury News. "Talking with him when I was younger, or seeing him on the road while playing in the NBA, I always told him we were going to win a championship here soon. I think he agreed. I also think he was willing to be honest about the fact that there are some better teams out there than you.

"But to take this long, I think he would probably tell me, ‘The thing I’ve always told you was you have to be patient. It doesn’t always happen when you think it will.’ He always told me it doesn’t happen when you want it to happen, but it will."

Now that it has happened, Jason isn’t ready to head into life after basketball for good.

"Hopefully I got three years left," he said recently. "I have a year on my deal and then I would like to get past 40 and then watch the young guys play."

J-Kidd said that while he has thought about what he will do when he leaves the game, it’s a future thought, not a present thought.

"It depends on my mind and my body," he told The Sporting News. "I said at the end of the Finals, I hope to push past 40. At some point I will have to think about a career change, either coaching or on the business side of basketball. But I feel great."

Meanwhile, with the NBA tied up in its current lockout, Jason is looking at the current season with a glass half-full approach. He told CNN that he believes the season will start in October, but if it does not, he will just roll with the punches.

"For me, it’s hard to say," Kidd said. "I just got done playing, so I have a short summer. I have been through a lockout twice. One was short, but the second one cut the season to 50 games. And as I get older, playing only 50 games, hopefully that would be to my advantage."

In the meantime, he’ll be working this summer with the Jason Kidd Foundation while trying out some post-career hobbies, as he told Dime Magazine:

"Probably a lot more yoga, a lot more golf," he said. "If there’s a long lockout, this will probably give a kind of preseason type retirement situation, if you look at it that way too. Those are maybe some of the things, maybe play tennis, but pretty much just work out and get ready for the season."

That season is scheduled to begin on November 1st in Dallas, where the Mavs will raise their championship banner and receive their rings before an opening night tilt with the Chicago Bulls at the American Airlines Center. To check out the entire schedule, which includes a Finals rematch with the Heat on Christmas Day in Dallas, click here.

Can the Mavericks repeat? Jason believes they have the correct man in charge to get it done:

"I think we’ve got the right guy running the ship," he told the Arizona Republic, speaking of Mavs owner Mark Cuban."One of the funniest things was our owner walking into a club with the trophy," Kidd said, referring to the Mavs’ trip out hours after winning the title. "That doesn’t happen too much. So it was just a fun night seeing the trophy go into a club, and people holding it and taking pictures with it . . . and then our owner picking up the check at the end of the night."

DEEP FREEZE
Jason’s in-season workouts last season were supplemented by regular trips to a physical therapist. But these were no ordinary trips.

As Ric Bucher of ESPN The Magazine writes, the Mavs, starting with J-Kidd, began undergoing cryotherapy as a means of quick recovery from the everyday ails of the 82-game grind:

The 38-year-old Kidd, looking for any edge to help avoid another first-round playoff exit, was that guinea pig. After stepping out of the cryosauna, he said, "That’s amazing." Kidd returned two days later with the other thirtysomething Mavs in tow. Each of them took a long look at the machine, then at Kidd. Nowitzki muttered something and went first. In the end, they all left giddy and convinced.

The next day, the Mavs blistered the Suns by 25 points, and the night after that they beat the Rockets by seven in Houston. In the season finale two days later, Kidd posted his best game in more than a month, outperforming Hornets star Chris Paul with 12 points on four of six threes and eight assists with only one turnover in a 32-point beatdown.

Then in the Finals, Kidd had to defend Dwyane Wade, arguably the most athletic 2-guard in the league, and James, arguably the most athletic player in the league. Kidd gives a big nod to cryotherapy. "I can’t take it quite as cold as some of the others," he says. "But it still worked."


J-Kidd accepts the Mavs’ award for ‘Best Team’ at the 2011 ESPY Awards in Los Angeles (Getty Images)

Jason’s willingness to try the method, which effectively uses ice-cold temperatures to increase circulation, is a testament to his desire to keep himself fresh. That his teammates followed suit shows how much influence Jason has on the Mavs both on and off the court.

"Just seeing how hard

[Kidd] works, and how smart he is, with being the floor general, I think that motivates everyone in the locker room to give it their all," Brian Cardinal told SLAM Magazine. "And we all understand he’s not getting younger—along with all of us. We’re gonna go out there and play as hard as we can."

Jamie Aron, a longtime Mavericks beat writer who recently published a book about covering the team, called J-Kidd the backbone of the Mavs.

"In moments of truth, all the guys I talk to say J-Kidd does all the little things that drive them, that fire them up…that he says the right things in the huddle and takes over at certain moments," Aron told Dime Magazine. "As much as Dirk and Terry are the closers from a scoring perspective, I think Kidd really takes over the leadership when it’s needed. I really don’t appreciate all the little things that he does, but everyone raves about it. Not just when the cameras are on or the microphones are in his face, he’s really the backbone of the team."

ON THE LIST
17 years into his career, Jason remains one of the top point men in the game.

Recently The Basketball Jones took a look at the best players at each position over the last three decades. For the whole of his career, and his accomplishments therein, J-Kidd checked in at No. 4 at the point:

Kidd is one of those players that can affect the outcome of the game without scoring one bucket because he does so other many things on the court. Part of the proof is the fact that he is one of three players with 100+ triple-double games in their career (107). The other two are Hall of Famers Oscar Robertson (181) and Magic Johnson (138). Kidd was also one of the top defenders in the game during his prime, although he and his old knees did a relatively decent job versus the Miami Heat in this year’s NBA Finals where J-Kidd received his first NBA title.

Kidd never averaged better than 18.7 points (while shooting 41.4 percent from the floor, which is ugly), but led the league in assists per game five times and finished in the top 10 every season that he’s played. He was a Co-Rookie of the Year with Grant Hill and played in 10 All-Star games. Kidd was named to six All-NBA teams, nine All-Defensive teams (four first team) and finally got that elusive NBA championship this past season.


J-Kidd ranks among the NBA’s elite point guards, both now and for all-time. His jersey will one day hang in AAC (Getty Images).

For all of his accomplishments, Mike Fisher of Dallas Basketball believes it’s a no-brainer that J-Kidd’s number should head to the rafters at AAC after he’s finished playing the game:

"Other stops in Kidd’s NBA career will largely be forgotten now. He will be remembered as a Mav in the same way Dorsett (briefly a Bronco) and Emmitt (briefly a Cardinal) will be remembered as Cowboys.

All the numbers are there. By the time he retires (I still think he’ll sign one more contract after this upcoming year is over, and then maybe be persuaded to remain with the organization in some capacity), he’ll be cemented in as top-three in numerous categories not only in franchise history but also in NBA history.

Kidd best represents the struggles of the franchise’s climb to excellence. In his own way, he’s as deserving of legend status as The UberMan."

But Jason’s career is far from over and he still ranks in the Top 10 point guards in the league today. Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel positions No. 2 at 10.

Kidd showed he’s still got game this past postseason. He was his typically steady self, and his experience and sure-handedness paid huge dividends as the Mavericks won the Western Conference title and upset the Miami Heat in the Finals. Kidd continues to have superior vision, and his 3.66 assist-to-turnover ratio ranked third among all point guards during the regular season. He’s got size, and he’s still a strong rebounder who is difficult for opposing point guards to post-up.

He’s worn many numbers, and ranks in different spots on many lists, but for author Sandy Dover, Jason will always be No. 1, as Dover writes for SLAM:

This past June, Mr. Kidd played in his third NBA Finals in 17 years and finally won, leading a team of also-rans and thought-to-have-been losers to an opportunity to hold the championship trophy. It’s no coincidence.

As hard as he’s played for all of his 17 seasons in the league, he’s worked just as hard, if not harder, to stay and continue to be productive. Just last season, just before he was to turn 37, J-Kidd was an All-Star (a questionable alternate selection by NBA commissioner David Stern, but he was an All-Star nonetheless). Just five years before that, he battled career-threatening microfracture knee surgery and returned at nearly the same top speed he played at as a 25-year-old. And he has his 25-year-old body still, too (the weight room has treated him well; also being a 6-4, 215-lb man doesn’t hurt his cause).

I’ve seen him in Nos. 5, 32, 5 again, and now 2. I saw the true blue Mavericks uniform he wore as a young All-Star, the purple and black days of the Phoenix Suns, the platinum gray threads of the Nets of New Jersey, and he’s returned to north Texas in what was dark blue and what is now bright comet blue of the current Mavs order. I always wanted to have those old uniforms he wore. I looked up to him as a player on the court."

Like many of Jason’s biggest fans, Dover has followed his whole career as he transitioned from child to adult and hopeful basketball player to NBA scribe:

"In the same time, I was a child who went from believing that I was a future NBA player to a young adult writing about the same game that I fell in love with watching said player.

I have his original blue DALLAS jersey in a large plastic bag that disappeared years ago in my family’s home. I’ve been looking for it for nearly a decade when I’ve visited, but if and when I find it, best believe that I’ll be sporting it on the regular with extreme prejudice.

I Kidd you not."

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