In his second NBA season, Giannis Antetokounmpo was benched by Jason Kidd, which made him irate.
“I was like, ‘Let’s see what this guy did in his career, anyway,’ ” Antetokounmpo recounts.
Antetokounmpo decided to look up Kidd’s bio on his phone. “I saw Rookie of the Year, NBA championship, USA Olympic gold medal, second in assists, fifth in made threes, blah, blah, blah. I was like, ‘Jesus freaking Christ, how can I compete with that? I better zip it.’ ”
Kidd is one of the best point guards to ever play the game but he always wished he was taller than 6'4.
“But I wanted so badly to be 6' 7" or 6' 8",” Kidd said. “Guys like Magic are looking through a window that’s so high. They can make passes I could only dream about.”
Kidd saw enough in Antetokounmpo's potential as a playmaker to use him at point guard in the 2014 Summer League and 2015 preseason but didn't really try it in the regular season under late last February.
“We didn’t talk about it,” Kidd says. “We didn’t make a big deal out of it. There was no pressure. We just wanted to try something different.”
