Jason Kidd, ‘Immature to Immortal’: Inside His Long Path Back to the Dallas Mavs
DALLAS - Are you ready for some bas-Kidd-ball?!
Jason Kidd has been a little bit of everything to the Dallas Mavericks over the last 27 years.
Franchise savior and NBA co-Rookie of the Year.“He’s the real deal,” said his original coach in 1994, Dick Motta. “Truly a once-in-a-lifetime player.”
Prima donna that forced his way out of Dallas. “Jason isn’t the guy who could take us to the next level,” interim general manager Frank Zaccanelli said upon trading him in 1996. “Management wasn't comfortable putting the franchise in his hands.”
Villain who vowed to eternally torch his former team. “I’ll always have another gear to give them,” Kidd said after recording a triple-double as a member of the Phoenix Suns in 1997. “As long as I'm able, I'm going to make them regret trading me."
Missing link to a championship. “Kidd’s skill set and leadership will help us close out games and series,” said coach Avery Johnson after the Mavs re-acquired Kidd in a 2008 trade. “Because of him we have a better opportunity to win a championship.”
Mark Cuban’s dog-house resident that had “no chance” of having his jersey retired. “I’m sure I’ll get over it at some point,” the owner said in 2012 in the wake of Kidd bolting to the New York Knicks in free agency. “But as of right now, I wouldn’t put J-Kidd’s number in our rafters.”
And now, completing his second circle of insanity, head coach entrusted with the development of superstar Luka Doncic.
“Dallas has meant so much to me as a player and I want to thank Mark Cuban for the opportunity to return as a head coach,” said new coach Kidd in a press release. “I am excited to get to work with this young, hungry and incredibly talented team and to continue to build a winning legacy for the Mavericks organization.”
Though Kidd has morphed and matured during his matriculation back where it all began, there are some links to the past in his present.
In taking over for Rick Carlisle and attempting to help the Mavs win a playoff series for the first time in 11 years, he’ll work alongside new general manager Nico Harrison. He comes to Dallas – and replaces the legendary Donnie Nelson – after a 19-year career as an executive at Nike, the same company that gave Kidd his first real taste of superstardom.
LISTEN: A New Mavs Era: Will Nico Harrison & Jason Kidd Attract Stars?
In 1995, Nike gave Kidd a sketch pad and told him to empty his imagination onto it with designs for his personalized “Air Zoom” shoe.
“I went wild,” Kidd told me at the time. “On a couple,I didn’t even stay inside the lines.”
While one regime’s savior is another’s scapegoat, Kidd will be under an intense microscope as he returns to Dallas with a losing career coaching record that bedevils his Hall-of-Fame playing career. Will he – like Carlisle – keep his team on a tight leash? Or will he – like Motta – be willing to again color outside the lines with creativity?
To know where Kidd is going, it’s best to remember where he’s been.
All three of his acts in Dallas – 21-year-old rookie, 37-year-old champion, 48-year-old head coach – are brought you by … Suki.
At age 3, Jason Frederick Kidd provided no hints he would earn $70 million before his 30th birthday or be an NBA Hall of Famer.
At that time in the mid-1970s, all he wanted to be was a cowboy.
“John Wayne was his main man," Kidd's mother, Anne, told me during his first go-round in Dallas in 1994. “He wanted to ride around and be tough just like him."
Thanks to a family horse, Kidd never rode into the sunset. In fact, he barely rode.
During an Oakland, Calif., afternoon atop the Appaloosa “Suki”, Kidd learned a hard, life-altering lesson.
"Yeah, they warned me, but I wanted to go fast like John Wayne did on TV," Kidd said. "Just when I got going, a dog ran out and spooked Suki. He raised up and bucked me off, and that was it; my riding career was over. I knew it was time to use my own two feet."
Before he recorded his first assist for the Mavs, Kidd was lifting expectations with lofty goals.
"I'd like to be rookie of the year and play in the playoffs," said Kidd.
"I know those are strong predictions, but I'm going to stand by them all season."
He was not – on any level – afraid of the pressure or affected by the attention.
Life in the NBA wasn't unusually demanding for a Kidd whose formative years were spent in the limelight. Kidd grew up with a white mother and black father, held news conferences in the eighth grade and saw his academic grades make banner headlines. One of his best friends committed suicide, and Kidd before being drafted he was slapped with a paternity suit, a civil lawsuit alleging abuse and a court appearance for leaving the scene of an accident.
"The attention's been there as long as I can remember," Kidd said. "It's like a part of me I think will always be there. Kind of like an old girlfriend's phone number."
Anne couldn’t remember a time when Jason wasn't playing with some type of ball in their middle-class house in the hills surrounding Oakland.
"We were just keeping him occupied," she said. "We knew he was coordinated from the time he was an infant even. But we never really thought, `Wow, he could be a star.' "
That soon changed, about the time the records started falling.
In the fourth grade, Kidd set his first mark, scoring 21 of his team's 30 points in a Catholic League game.
Though soccer was his first love, Kidd followed the lead of close friends Andre Cornwell, Kris Stone and Jay Hadnot to the cement basketball court with the 8-foot-high rims. In the sixth grade at Grass Valley Elementary School, the legend was born.
"About that time everybody started saying how great Jason was," his late father, Steve, said. "We were flattered but a little afraid to accept it. But by high school, there was no doubt he was going to be something special."
With Cornwell and Hadnot helping develop his game, Kidd was being force-fed his future. Surprisingly, he said growing up the son of a Baptist airline worker from Missouri and an Irish Catholic banker from San Francisco was nothing but positive.
"It was different back then, and there were times when it got a little thick," Kidd said. "But I got a lot of inspiration from those days, and I realized I have the greatest parents in the world."
By the eighth grade, Kidd was receiving letters from colleges.
"But he never got the big head," said his younger sister Denise. "I hung out with him and the guys. He picked on me but let me hang around. He never acted like a superstar."
In the summer before his freshman year at St. Joseph's of Notre Dame High School in Alameda, Calif., Kidd played in pickup games in packed gyms before spectators such as then-Cal coach Lou Campanelli.
"Even then, you could tell Jason was more than special," longtime St. Joseph's coach Frank LaPorte said. "Lou leaned over to me and asked about the new kid, thinking he was a junior or senior transfer. When I told him he was an eighth-grader, he about fell off the bleachers."
Later that summer, Kidd was chosen the most valuable player of a pro-am league that included NBA starting guards Gary Payton of Seattle and Brian Shaw.
"He's been destined for the NBA since he could walk," said Payton.
There was no hiding Kidd's boyish enthusiasm when he talked about Cornwell and LaPorte, or his somber contemplation when Hadnot's name came up. Each, he said, helped build his game, his character.
Back on the court at Grass Valley, Kidd was a self-described "scrub," four years younger than Hadnot and most of the players. Usually picked last for games, Kidd learned quickly that the more he passed the more readily he was picked.
"It was intimidating to play with them, but Jay made me," Kidd said. "I was just out there for exercise at first, but he taught me how to pass and who to pass to. He helped me develop my joy for passing."
Unknown to Kidd, Hadnot was also developing a drug addiction. After leaving a rehabilitation center in 1990, Hadnot killed himself at 21.
"Jay taught me a lot of lessons," Kidd said softly. "Showing me what can happen if you decide to use drugs was one of them."
While Hadnot was the friend Kidd lost, Cornwell became "the brother I never had." It was the 5-foot-8 Cornwell who teamed with Kidd on the late-night court to perfect what they claimed was an original, unstoppable play.
"We saw Kareem and Magic run this sweet give-and-go, so we decided that would be our play, too," Kidd said. "We called it the `GG' and acted like we invented it. Andre even wanted me to get goggles like Kareem. But, no way, I was Magic."
But it was LaPorte who saw the most in Kidd.
LaPorte, a legend at tiny St. Joseph's, helped market Kidd into a Northern California cult hero, one a newspaper called "the best Bay Area basketball talent ever, including Bill Russell." It was LaPorte's idea to move St. Joseph's games from their 800-seat gym to the Oakland Coliseum, where they drew crowds up to 11,000.
With Kidd at the controls, St. Joseph's won consecutive Division I state championships and went 122-14.
"Jason put our school on the map," LaPorte said like a proud papa. "Once we had 10,000 fans at a game. When I took Jason out with four minutes left, 9,999 got up and walked out."
LaPorte had Kidd raise money for team road trips by selling doughnuts in the gym at 7 a.m., autographing 250 rubber basketballs to be auctioned at a pancake breakfast and putting his likeness on T-shirts, caps and posters that still blanket the coaching office walls.
"He's my godfather," Kidd said. "He's 99 percent of the reason I'm the player and person I am today."
Said LaPorte: "I love him like a son."
LaPorte passed away of pancreatic cancer in 1997.
Criticism of his coaching likely won’t ruffle Kidd, because he’s been desensitized to the microscope since his first day at Cal. Late in the summer of 1992, he received a sobering dose of his larger-than-life reality.
The front-page headline in the Oakland Tribune read, "Kidd Fails SAT Again."
"That's when we realized how out of whack things had become," said Anne. "It was an eye-opener."
Kidd made the required 700 on his Scholastic Aptitude Test on his fourth attempt, opening the door to a record-setting, albeit short career in Berkeley.
An admittedly unenthusiastic student, Kidd struggled with classroom books while rewriting the record books on the court. Despite being accused of instigating a mutiny of academics-oriented coach Campanelli – "I was the furthest person from it," said Kidd – he set school career records for steals and the Pacific-10 Conference career record for assists in only two seasons while earning All-America and conference player of the year honors as a sophomore.
"All eyes were on him," said Campanelli's successor, Todd Bozeman. "And he produced spectacular results night in and night out."
While at Cal, Kidd also established the Jason Kidd Foundation, to which contributions were made from his "Kidd Klub" official fan club and $19.99 highlight video.
"People literally chased him night and day," Bozeman said. "Fans would sneak inside the locker room or just run onto the court. We finally had to move him off the campus."
After a first-round upset loss to Wisconsin-Green Bay in the 1994 NCAA Tournament, Kidd moved himself permanently off campus and into the NBA Draft. Even at the ultimate level, the accolades piled up like his assist totals.
Washington Bullets GM John Nash called Kidd "the best passer on the planet," Denver Nuggets’ GM Bernie Bickerstaff said he was "in his own world," and Motta labeled him a player that comes around "once in a lifetime." Because of his size (6-foot-4, 205 pounds) and respect for the fundamentals of the game, scouts said Kidd was the best defensive point guard to come out of college since Walt Frazier in 1967 and the best pure point since Isiah Thomas in 1981.
But less than a month before the draft, Kidd’sbandwagon wobbled and almost crashed.
Kidd, the consummate floor general, began making terrible off-court choices that had the Mavericks wondering if he was a problem child instead of a wonder kid.
Kidd's paradise became his paradox.
"He made a couple of really bad decisions at terrible times," Anne said.
First, Kidd was hit with a paternity suit in mid-May by 21-year-old Alexandria Brown, who said she needed financial support for her son, Jason Jr., fathered by Kidd. A court ordered Kidd to pay Brown's legal fees of $15,000, $4,000 a month in child support and provide health insurance. Kidd signed a nine-year, $54 million contract with the Mavericks and an eight-year, $15 million deal with Nike.
"I never denied he is my son, and legally I've done everything to take care of him financially," Kidd said. "The day he was born is a day I'll always remember. Those kinds of things happen every day, but mine got blown out of proportion because I'm an athlete."
Later in May, Kidd flipped a Toyota Landcruiser he bought for his father and, in a panic, left the scene and two unharmed passengers via a car driven by Brown. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced to two years probation, 100 hours of community service and $1,000 fine for leaving the scene of an accident.
"I should have stayed, no doubt about it," Kidd said. "That taught me a lesson. I'm only 21, but I've got to do things by the book, too."
That June, Tameka Tate sued Kidd for $250,000, claiming he hit her at his 21st birthday party last March. The Oakland District Attorney's office ruled there was not enough evidence for a criminal case.
"That showed that one minute you can graze somebody and the next be defending yourself," Kidd said. "From now on I'll make sure I bump into my best friend and then say, `Excuse me, I'm sorry.' Those incidents aren't based on my character. They are all isolated events, and it's not fair I'm tagged as somebody who's going to be crazy or bad. I know I'm a very good person."
Kidd may not be a magna cum laude, but he did learn from the incidents.
"Nobody or nothing can pierce my family's circle of me, my mom, dad and my two sisters (Denise and Kim)," Kidd said. "And I learned life is a lot like golf. Not every shot is intended to go into the hole, but every one counts."
Early on with the Mavs, the 21-year-old who digs Robert DeNiro and Chinese food dazzled on the court and dumbfounded off it. He was the first Maverick to be voted an All-Star starter, but also the knucklehead who missed a practice because he fell asleep at the Waffle House and, of course, publicly feuded with teammate Jim Jackson and coach Jim Cleamons.
At 23 – just two and a half years after he arrived – Kidd was gone. Obviously, the door was left ajar.
First to Phoenix, then New Jersey, grudgingly growing up along the way. Through relentless jeers on his returns to Dallas. Through seven more All-Star appearances, two unsuccessful trips to the NBA Finals and a couple gigs with USA's Dream Team. Through the domestic abuse of his first wife, anger management classes and a nasty divorce. Through the death of his father, Steve, from a heart attack in 1999. Through the birth of his six kids, three with current wife Porschla. Through the ol’ “let me accidentally-on-purpose spill a drink on the court so I can talk to my players even though I’ve already used all my timeouts” trick while coaching the Brooklyn Nets.
Kidd's past is scarred with immaturity, yet adorned with immortality. His present? Improbable.
READ MORE: Cuban's Luka-Friendly Reason For Hiring Kidd
The saint-turned-sinner-turned-saint-turned-sinner is back again, re-cast as a saint. Kidd brings with him the glory of the Mavericks’ only championship and the ringing endorsement of special advisor Dirk Nowitzki, but also a flimsy coaching resume, a past rift with the owner, a 2012 DWI arrest and a domestic abuse past into an organization still healing its sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace black eye.
Buckle up. Bas-Kidd-ball is back in town.
