For the second straight season, Jason Kidd’s NBA peers have deemed him the most sportsmanlike player in the league.
The NBA announced on Tuesday that Jason has been awarded the 2012-2013 NBA Sportsmanship Award Joe Dumars Trophy. J-Kidd becomes the first player ever to win the award, which is voted on by NBA players, twice consecutively.
Jason has won the NBA Sportsmanship Award for the second consecutive season (Getty Images).
According to the NBA release, “The annual award reflects the ideals of sportsmanship — ethical behavior, fair play and integrity — in amateur and professional basketball, a key focus of the league’s NBA Cares program efforts. The trophy is named for former Detroit Pistons guard and Hall of Famer Joe Dumars, the award’s first recipient.”
Each team nominated a player for the award and a panel of former NBA players John Crotty, Antonio Davis, Eddie Johnson, Steve Smith, and Jay Williams selected Jason as one of six divisional winners, representing the Atlantic, from a pool of 30 team nominees. Of the final six, he received 91 first-place votes (2,474 total points) of a possible 355.
The NBA will make a $10,000 donation on behalf of Kidd to The Jason Kidd Foundation, which is dedicated to improving education among the youth, by ensuring that kids of all ages have the tools needed through mentoring, tutoring and technology programs to succeed in life.
