On Saturday night in New York, Jason Kidd will become just the 21st player in NBA history to play in a game after turning 40 years old, and perhaps no player at that age has meant more to his team than J-Kidd.
Jason celebrates his 40th birthday on Saturday, in the midst of his 19th NBA season and he remains a key factor for the Knicks, who clinched a playoff spot with a win over the Raptors on Friday night in Toronto. But for J-Kidd, who will take the court in a NBA game for the 1,524th time on Saturday, the game remains the same.
"You just play the game," Jason recently told the New York Post. "It doesn’t matter how many birthdays you have. You just always see yourself playing. But you know there’s an end. I’ve just been blessed to be able to go this long."
One thing has changed for J-Kidd this season: his role. For the first time since a midseason trade landed Jason in Phoenix in 1997, he is no longer a starting lineup staple. He started 48 games for the Knicks this season, but has come off the bench for each of the last 13 contests, the longest healthy stretch without a start in his NBA career.
But No. 5 has adjusted well to his new role of leading the second unit and with his help, that reserve group is producing big numbers to help offset the major injuries the Knicks have suffered over the last several weeks. That comes as no surprise to those who have long known J-Kidd.
"You may think by his demeanor he’s just another guy out there," Warriors coach Mark Jackson told the Post. "He’s a quiet assassin, trying to get the win by any means necessary."
That desire to win above all else is one of the major reasons the Knicks brought Jason to New York on a three-year contract this summer. Despite making the playoffs each of the last two seasons, the Knicks have just one playoff win over the last 11 years and haven’t made it out of the first round since 2000. J-Kidd is expected to help New York take the next step, as he has in every stop before it.
"He’s a culture changer, one of the few in the league that can do it," current Pistons and ex-Nets coach Lawrence Frank told the Post.
Indeed, Jason has been changing cultures since his high school days, when he led St. Joseph’s Notre Dame High School in Alameda, California to back-to-back state championships. Classmates remember J-Kidd fondly and aren’t surprised at his professional success.
"He’s the best athlete I’ve ever played with," Joe Nelson, a former major league pitcher who was a high school basketball and baseball teammate of Jason said. "He could have been a helluva center fielder in the big leagues."
Though he had offers from Kentucky and Kansas, among others, Jason chose to stay home for college and attend the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to lead Cal to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, including a historic upset of two-time defending national champion Duke during his freshman year, which propelled Cal into the Sweet 16.
After two years at Cal, J-Kidd entered the NBA and was selected No. 2 overall by the Dallas Mavericks. He spent two-and-a-half years in Dallas before the trade to Phoenix, where he immediately helped the Suns on a playoff push. The Suns made the postseason all five seasons Jason was there, but they traded him to the New Jersey Nets following the 2000-2001 season and went on to miss the playoffs for the first time in a decade the next year.
In New Jersey, J-Kidd had his biggest impact at all, leading the once hapless Nets to back-to-back appearances in the NBA Finals. Overall, the Nets won 335 games during Jason’s six-and-a-half seasons in New Jersey.
"It was the best time for the Nets in the history of the franchise. All those banners the Nets have came during his time," former Nets president Rod Thorn told the New York Post recently. "I can’t say enough about him as a player. I can’t say enough about him as a competitor."
In the middle of Jason’s seventh season, with title chances having long since passed the franchise, the Nets traded J-Kidd to Dallas, where his career came full circle and he completed his championship journey with a NBA title in 2011.
This offseason, he joined the Knicks because he believed they were closer now to a title than those Mavericks. Indeed, the Knicks are in the thick of the playoff race, jockeying for position having already clinched their spot with nearly a month left to play. Meanwhile Dallas is in danger of missing the postseason for the first time in a dozen years.
Though he’s in the midst of his 19th season, his minutes have been reduced and his numbers aren’t what they used to be, J-Kidd remains a key cog in New York, a player who teammates believe has a sixth sense for the game that is unmatched.
"There are times he sees something way before it even happens," Knicks teammate Carmelo Anthony said recently. "I’m coming to him, ‘How the hell did you just see that two plays before?’ He knows the quality of each possession."
"I respect him a lot," fellow Knicks point guard Pablo Prigioni said. He’s one of the best point guards in the history of this league, and he’s still playing at a very, very high level. I think he can read the game one second early before everybody else in this league. So especially for me to be with him, to be his teammate, I try to learn very small details from his game every second."
Many try to distinguish the NBA game and overthink what it takes to succeed at that level, but for J-Kidd the game is still what it was when he was an adolescent hooper, playing on the Oakland playground as a middle schooler with high schoolers like NBA legend Gary Payton.
"When you’re on the playground, you want to win. You learn really quickly who your scorers are and who the best player is on the court, and you want to give him the ball," Jason said. "That’s where that started, in understanding that if you want to stay on the court, you get it to your best player."
Along the way, J-Kidd has observed those rules to the tune of 12,054 assists, second most in NBA history. He also ranks second in steals (2,663) and third in three-pointers made (1,973), illustrating the longevity and diversity of his game.
It’s that natural talent, the "greatness," as Payton called it, that has made Jason a sure-bet Hall-of-Famer and that makes the Knicks a threat to contend for a title as long as he’s around.
RELATED ARTICLES