Grown-Up Kidd: Mavs Advice for Luka and Fun with Dirk

A Grown-Up Jason Kidd offers Mavs Advice for Luka Doncic and has some Fun with Dirk Nowitzki

DALLAS - Jason Kidd is joking when he says the City of Dallas should place him alongside Dirk Nowitzki atop a light pole. But the NBA legend isn't joking when he says Luka Doncic and the present-day Dallas Mavericks should avoid emulating a trap his era of Mavs once fell into.

“Just to go through the process together,” said Kidd, now a Los Angeles Lakers assistant, via The Dallas Morning News. "One person is not better than the next. In this league, the more talent you have and the more you can be together, the easier the game becomes. Especially for those two, it’ll make it easy.”

"Those two'' are Luka and Kristaps Porzingis. Doncic was once again amazing, almost matching head-to-head the production of LeBron James in Friday's 110-119 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in which Doncic had a triple-double of 31 points, 13 boards and 15 assists (to LeBron's similarly spectacular line). Meanwhile, Porzingis added 16 points and nine rebounds. ... an attempt to counter Anthony Davis for the Lakers.

After the game, LeBron told Luka that he's a "bad m--------,'' and Doncic enjoyed the praise, saying, "The words he said after the game, that's something very special to me.''

For Dallas, the tests continue tonight with a 6:30 tip at Cleveland and the haunting knowledge that, as coach Rick Carlisle acknowledges, "We were very close from being 4-1 and probably being the lead story on the morning talk shows ... but now we’re 3-2 and we have to regroup and get on the plane ... to go to Cleveland.”

LeBron probably knows how this works; he and AD can do something very special in LA. Luka and KP are learning, and hopefully learning from the errors of young Kidd and company. Yes, he won a title with the Mavs as a player in 2011 - which is why he joked that "Nowitzki Way'' in the City of Dallas should have a couple of side roads named after himself and Jason Terry.

A Street Named 'Nowitzki': #Mavs Dirk and Carlisle's Best Quips at Ceremony https://t.co/v0ninKZahg pic @AACenter pic.twitter.com/7ZPIZIoqHK

— fishsports ✭ (@fishsports) October 30, 2019

But just as important in Mavs history is what didn't work, when in the early 90's he and Jamal Mashburn and Jimmy Jackson teamed as a gofted Dallas trio that eventually couldn't get along.

"One person is not better than the next.'' Those Mavs didn't quite grasp that. Jason Kidd is now offering a piece of advice for these Mavs to hold onto.