Merry Christmas Eve!
penbeast0 wrote:trex_8063 wrote:.
Is there any evidence of Kidd as this great transition passer? Any sign that any of Kidd's teams were unusually outstanding in transition? Highlight reels are fine but they aren't evidence and if so, he must have been usually bad in the halfcourt game because, as you said, his team offenses aren't very impressive.
Probably the GOAT rebounding point, quite possibly the GOAT defensive point, I don't buy that he's a Stockton/Nash/Magic type passer (ignoring the whole shooting issue) without some small smidgeon of evidence.
Well firstly, I don't see that I said he was a "Stockton/Nash/Magic type passer". I said he was "arguably the greatest transition passer of all-time", and a "solid creation passer in the half-court". Frankly, if he was, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Because anyone who played 19 durable seasons while being a Nash/Stockton/Magic tier facilitator AND the arguable GOAT defensive and rebounding PG would have been voted in AT LEAST 3-5 places ago, even with the poor shooting efficiency.
Even if I'm right and he is the GOAT(ish) transition passer, that doesn't necessarily put him in the same tier as Magic/Nash types, because transition plays only account for what?......maybe one out of every 6-8 possessions for even the most fast-breaky of teams? And only about half that for the least fast-breaky of teams.
The rest of the time it's the half-court [where I labelled him merely "solid"].
Secondly, I think I provided at least "some small smidgeon of evidence". I realize highlight videos often aren't the best material evidence, though this wasn't a mere top 10 passes, or highlights from a single great game. It was a [not totally insubstantial] FORTY-FIVE plays, spread from all stages of his career; and it was sort of telling to me that the majority of the so-named "Top 45 Assists" of the entire career of the guy who is 2nd all-time in career assists were transition assists.
Not that my word or eye-test is necessarily "evidence", but this was sort of consistent with my memory of Kidd [particularly younger Kidd]; I thought he was a bit of a wizard in transition.
As to other TEAM-based evidence you're looking for, that can be trickier to find and/or correlate. No matter how good a transition passer you are, you need guys who can run and finish well in transition to make an elite transition game. ALSO you need the defense plays that trigger transition opportunities: steals, blocks, or occasionally more simple defensive stops involving a missed shot and a defensive rebound. Which although Kidd's teams were often ranked well in defensive rebounding and steals [in no small part due to Kidd himself], he almost never played alongside a notable shot-blocker.
But anyway, I found some data going back to '04 [at least partial season for '04] and later on teamrankings.com, which I'll combine with some info off of bbref....
'04: the Nets were 3rd (of 29) in fast-break ppg, despite being on 18th in pace, 14th in drpg, 8th in spg, and 27th in bpg
'05: the Nets were 20th (of 30) in fast-break ppg, despite being 21st in pace, 22nd in drpg, 28th in bpg, (though were 10th in spg).
'06: the Nets 8th in fast-break ppg, despite being 18th in pace, 8th in drpg, 20th in spg, and 27th in bpg.
'07: the Nets were 9th in fast-break ppg, despite being 16th in pace,
30th in spg, 27th in bpg, (though were 8th in drpg)
'08 (Kidd plays a little over half the year with Nets before moving to Dallas): the Nets were 11th in fast-break ppg, despite being 16th in pace, 13th in drpg, 24th in spg, and 16th in bpg.
After his departure, the Nets would fall to 17th in fast-break points in '09, 20th in '10, and 26th in '11.
So all of ^^^this [combined with prior "evidence"] seems suggestive regarding his transition passing, imo.
As to overall offenses, I'll note many of these teams [particularly in New Jersey] were constructed with defense in mind. They were for the most part mediocre to poor at one or both [usually both] of FT-shooting and 3pt shooting, and except for '02 and '03, they were exclusively
terrible on the offensive glass--->this latter I
suspect was by design [prioritizing transition defense over crashing the boards], and part of why they were elite defensively (while simultaneously contributing to poor ORtg's). Perhaps non-coincidentally, '02 and '03 were the years their offense was OK.
And take a look at the Nets in '01, you note they were the 24th-rated -3.0 rORTG with Stephon Marbury running the show.
The next year, out go Marbury and young Stephen Jackson, in come Jason Kidd, Kerry Kittles, and a rookie Richard Jefferson; otherwise mostly the same cast......they still weren't good [-0.5 rORTG], but it's a sharp improvement over what they'd been in '01. Would have one season >0 at +0.2 rORTG in '03, before tanking a bit after that.
Prior to Vince Carter arriving [which surprisingly didn't translate to much lift], they really didn't have any elite-level offensive talents, though. Richard Jefferson was a nice young talent, but not quite a "star-level" talent. Kenyon Martin was awfully raw offensively early on in his career [very turnover prone early, and pretty consistently mediocre shooting efficiency]. Kerry Kittles [in NJ for '02-'04 only] was a decent all-around player, but nothing real special on offense: could give you 13-14 ppg on average efficiency and 2-3 apg [though did take VERY good care of the ball]. After that??.......Lucius Harris was an OK spare guard on offense, but he was aging out thru the early 00's. A slightly aging Rodney Rodgers was brought in for a couple years, I think to provide some offense off the bench, but he didn't mesh well [or shoot well] in NJ. Most of the rest of the cast was very defense-oriented: Jason Collins, Nenad Krstic, Aaron Williams.
And I'll again make note of his more than capable ORAPM's throughout his career.
Interestingly, I note that in Kidd's final season in NY, the Knicks had the
best offense in franchise history, at +5.2 rORTG. Obviously this offense wasn't built around Kidd by a long shot; but he
was the primary starting PG for this team, averaging about 27 mpg. The Knicks the season before his arrival had been a -0.2 rORTG [though +3.6 the year before that], with much of the same cast (Melo, Amar'e, Tyson Chandler, few other smaller minute guys).
The big changes in '13 [relative to '12] was they obtained Raymond Felton and the ancient Jason Kidd, and JR Smith was healthy in '13 [though Stoudemire was in further decline and banged up]......otherwise much the same cast. But they jumped to that +5.2 mark. Kidd retires, and it's a lot of the same cast in '14, with rookie Tim Hardaway Jr. replacing most of Kidd's minutes, and they fell to +1.6 rORTG.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
