Texas Chuck wrote:Jonny Blaze wrote:Kidd came back to Dallas in 2008 and the Mavs could no longer run the Dirk/Nash, Dirk/Jason Terry, Dirk/Devin Harris pick and roll that they had been killing teams with for years.
Why?
Because Jason Kidd could not hit a wide open jumper from the top of the key. .
This is just flat wrong. Dallas still ran tons of Dirk/JET pick and rolls after Kidd arrived and Dallas Kidd could and did hit open jumpers including some absolutely huge 3s. You do realize Kidd has the 3rd most made 3-pointers in the history of the NBA, right? Now that hardly makes him a great shooter, but it also kills your argument that Kidd can't make shots.
Kidd's 3P% in Dallas:
08 46%
09 41%
10 43%
11 34%
12 35%
and Kidd didnt feast on corner 3's either taking well under 20% of his 3's from there and shot a worse percentage when he did. He actually shot extremely well from the top of the key.
Kidd had his offensive flaws in Dallas--mainly finishing at the rim which got so bad that he would sometimes pass up layups to kick it out, but he was absolutely a positive at that end and clearly an upgrade over Devin Harris. And Kidd didn't ever try to do those things he wasnt good at. He played within his own offensive limitations.
And Dallas was still a top 10 offense every year Kidd was there except 12 which obviously had other major issues beyond Kidd. And this with Dallas playing non-offensive players at the 2 and the 5 and Marion, mostly a garbage man at the 3. Dirk is great and obviously the biggest factor, but Kidd deserves some due. This meme that Kidd is a negative offensively is a joke. He's no Nash to be sure, but he's not George Hill either.
To Jason Kidd's credit he became very good at hitting wide open three point jumpers.
These wide open shots were available to him because of the defensive attention paid to Dirk and JET.
When Jason Kidd came to Dallas in 2008 he could not create his own shot.
He could not come off a high screen and roll and consistently hit a 15-20 ft jumper.......shots that are damn near automatic for Nash or Terry, or even a John Stockton.
After a while teams started to cheat and not respect Kidd's offensive game at all. They cheated by putting more defensive pressure on Dirk or Jason Terry.
Dirk is good enough to still get his with the defensive attention. JET is not.
So Jason Terry would get all this criticism for having subpar playoff series, when the reality is that if Kidd was a better scorer it would take a tremendous amount of pressure of everyone else on the Mavs.
Jason Kidd's stats in the 2008, 2009 and 2010 playoffs are horrible. In those same playoffs almost every opposing point guard the Mavs played destroyed us (Chris Paul, Tony Parker, Chauncey Billups, Tony Parker).
To Kidd's credit he became damn good at parking himself behind the three point line and being able to hit some of those wide open threes. This gave the Mavs the ability to spread the court and put their players into better positions to beat their man.
The Mavs were not that talented in 2008 or 2009 (the 2009 Mavs started Antoine Wright at shooting guard and made it to the 2nd round upsetting the Spurs in round 1...and people want to doubt how great Dirk is, but that is another debate).
Kidd's intangibles didn't do a whole lot to help these teams because he was not a great scorer.
Between the 20009 loss to the Denver and the 2011 NBA title the Mavs added Shawn Marion, Caron Butler, Tyson Chandler, Brendan Haywood, DeShawn Stevenson and Peja Stojakovic.
Suddenly Kidd's intangibles were great because he had the luxury of playing on a very deep team that didn't have to rely on him to score.
For most of Kidd's career he was a sub 40% shooter. I think thats garbage for a guard. Its the #1 reason I can't place him over Stockton or Nash.
