IN HIS 19 years as a stellar player in the National Basketball Association, Jason Kidd planted something good in all of us, sports fans.
If basketball, like any other sport, is a metaphor for life, Kidd taught us respect for time, quick thinking and poise under pressure, among other traits, while he regaled his worldwide audience with breathtaking plays during a splendid career.
The point guard had us mesmerized with the way he could change a game. He is famous for quick treys, pinpoint bounce passes in transition, and smart plays without looking at the basket.
At 6’4”, Kidd could serve as a role model for Filipino point guards dreaming of the NBA as it gets more global every year.
After all, a league official, noting the quickness and natural ability of local hoopsters, once said that the Philippines is a veritable factory for prospective point guards in the NBA.
Kidd retired recently from the world’s premier basketball league. A few days later, he was hired as head coach by the Brooklyn Nets, formerly the New Jersey Nets. Jason helped the franchise—home team of many Filipino Americans in the Tri-State area of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey—to back-to-back NBA Finals appearances as a player.
Jason’s transition from uniform to suit came like his trademark lightning speed, while we were punch drunk with excitement at the height of the classic 2013 NBA Finals won by the Miami Heat over the San Antonio Spurs.
“I went from being one of the oldest guys in the league to being a rookie again,” the 40-year-old Kidd told New York media during his introduction as main mentor of the Nets. “I really do get the chance to feel young again.”
Jason ended his NBA run-and-gun brand of basketball with the New York Knicks, his new team’s crosstown rivals. He won an NBA title with the Dallas Mavericks in 2010 and two Olympic gold medals with Team USA.
He will have little trouble adjusting to his new role.
Billy King, the Nets’ general manager summed up the team’s expectations of Kidd.
“Jason is a proven winner and leader with an incredible wealth of basketball knowledge and experience,” King said in a statement to sports media.
“This will be a natural transition for him to move into the role of head coach, as he embodies the tough, smart and team first mentality that we are trying to establish in Brooklyn.”
Kidd is among guards who are current head coaches in the NBA. The list includes Mark Jackson (Golden State), Mike Woodson (Knicks) and Doc Rivers (Los Angeles Clippers).
As Nets head coach, Byron Scott, also a guard in his playing days, reunited with Kidd, a former Phoenix Suns teammate to bring New Jersey to the NBA Finals two years in a row in 2002 and 2003.
Now himself a chief bench tactician, Kidd has an idea of what a basketball franchise, anywhere in the world, should look like.
“I think I have a sense now of how you build a championship structure and how you maintain that structure,” Kidd told the basketball universe on the day of his hiring.
“I don’t care what sport you’re talking about. What you see with great franchises is structure—a structure that doesn’t just take you from year to year, but day to day.”