No he didn't. Kidd routinely got torched by the smaller speedy guards and routinely guarded 2's. Man do I remember that. How often he was criticized on message boards like this one for not being able to shoot and not being able to guard pg's.
He could rebound though.
I think I was Jason Kidd critic #1 here before and after he was traded. The guy was flat out amazing in a fast-paced up and down game, but he could not be relied upon to break down a decent defense in the half court. It's the reason we used to get these huge swings in games where we would go up 15-20 points and then lose. As soon as the other team would start making shots our offense did not function. The teams would just sag off of him and clogged up the middle of the floor. Of course in his defense we really didn't have anybody else who could create their own shot unless Penny Hardaway was healthy. At New Jersey team was a really good fit for him with their motion offense and they played really good defense allowing them to run a lot. But let's face it, if you had put that team in the Western Conference at the time they would have been lucky to have home-court advantage in the playoffs most years. That's back when it truly was the Leastern Conference. At that time there were only one or two Eastern conference teams that would have even made the playoffs in the West.
The other thing (I believe somebody mentioned this earlier) about Jason Kidd that drove me crazy was that he was not a good interior passer. Everything was a kick out to a jump shot. I remember the year that Jason Kidd broke his ankle and they brought back KJ. For a few games our big men were fumbling his passes because they were not expecting to get the ball right under the basket for layups/dunks. KJ was absolutely amazing at that. As soon as the help defender came over we would find the open big for a slam dunk or layup. With Kidd and Marbury it was always a kick out to the perimeter.
I really didn't think Jason Kidd was an overrated defender. He just struggled with the faster point guards. His versatility as a defender was amazing though. It wasn't just that he was adequate at guarding 2's and 3's. He was very good at it.
That was another season doomed by bad luck. Tom Gugliotta suffered a terrible knee injury and Jason Kidd had the ankle injury. Before that they were a damn good basketball team and getting better.
Joe Mama
