Mavs Coach Jason Kidd on Favorite LeBron James Memory: 'I Love 2011'
With LeBron James nearing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's placement as the NBA's all-time leading scorer, many have reflected on James's impact on the game of basketball.
Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd recently shared his belief that James will be regarded as the NBA's greatest ever player, but it was solidified before the talk of breaking Abdul-Jabbar's record.
“He’s going to go down as the greatest to ever play the game,” Kidd said. “He’s always delivered. He’s won multiple championships. … He’ll break a record that a lot of people didn’t think would be broken – the scoring title. It’s pretty cool.
“To play against him, to play with him and to coach him, he’s delivered on each decade, I guess you could say.”
Kidd shared the court against James throughout the 2000s, mostly as an opponent but also as teammate on Team USA in the 2008 Olympics. Kidd even has coached James during his time as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Lakers. What is Kidd's favorite James memory? Defeating him in the 2011 NBA Finals as a member of the Mavs.
“(The ‘08 (Olympics) was great,” Kidd said. “(James) doesn’t like ’11. I love ’11. We both love ’08. We’ve had a lot of battles. He’s won a lot of battles.”
When explaining what makes James such a great player, Kidd explained that the combination of competitiveness and basketball knowledge from the start of his NBA career in 2003 was impressive. Kidd believes that James somehow overachieved despite all the pre-NBA hype.
“Just his competitiveness and IQ, and what he’s done from day one when he was drafted (in 2003) and all the hype around him, he never stopped working,” Kidd said. “He delivered.
“I think he probably over-delivered in a sense that no one has never done it this long at a high level of what he’s done.”
In order to defeat James in the 2011 NBA Finals, Kidd believes that timing was a helpful factor. With the Miami Heat "Big 3" being in its first season together, there wasn't the same continuity established. Meanwhile, the Mavs had the right formula around Dirk Nowitzki at the right time.
“We just caught them at the right time,” Kidd said. “That was their first year together, so we were lucky.
“But also we had (Dirk Nowitzki). But we had a bunch of good role players who played their role at a very high level. And Rick (Carlisle) was a great coach who helped us achieve that.”
For James to be so effective for so many years, Kidd admires the work that James has put in to maintain his conditioning, both physically and mentally.
“He takes care of himself,” Kidd said. “Physically and mentally he’s always conditioned himself, so he’ll go out when he goes out. He might be one of the few who can beat Father Time.”
-
-
