Give Dallas News columnist Jean-Jacques Taylor this much credit, of the three easiest to defend versions of the Don’t Trade Player X article, he choose the most interesting player to discuss in this past Sunday’s column. He could have written that the Mavs should not trade Dirk or Terry. Either of those articles would have been much easier to write but would not have been very interesting.
Defending the “decision” to keep Jason Kidd on the team is slightly more interesting. Sadly and predictably, JJT still found a way to write a terrible article though. For such an easy to defend subject, he makes the argument very difficult on himself.
“If the front office is smart, it won’t trade Kidd — unless it wants to make sure the team misses the playoffs.”
Taylor jumps right into the most difficult part of these kinds of articles, the gross assumption and the blanket statement. Admittedly, Taylor could probably legally change his name to Blanket Statement Taylor but that doesn’t make it a good idea for his article.
The problem with his statement is that it ignores the other side of the trade. Everybody is tradable for the right price. Okay, sure, the Mavericks shouldn’t just give Kidd away for a bag of beans. But that is pretty much true for any player that isn’t a cancer to the team.
If “[they] won’t trade Kidd” is a code phrase for “don’t trade Kidd for a bag of beans” then JJT could have written the same article about JJ Barea.
“There’s no player or draft pick who can adequately compensate the Mavs for losing Kidd”
Really? You never know who might get traded, big guy. I wonder how many times that was written in New Jersey about this time last year?
If the Mavs got an offer for a trade that brought them a near-all-star shooting guard and an up and coming young point guard wouldn’t you think twice about that statement? Just using some recent rumor mill fodder… what if the Mavericks, in a series of trades, sent away Kidd, Diop and others while adding Michael Redd, Raymond Felton and others? Or something like that.
I think you would want Donnie to consider those kinds of trades. Maybe the exact set of players that become available are not worth it, but you have to look long and hard at the short and long term implications of these trades while balancing your current opinion of this team’s chances of reaching the NBA Finals as constructed.
”Really, ther’s just one solution: Give Kidd his money. If it takes a three-year contact to get a deal done, so be it.”
At this point, we know JJT is mailing this one in after a hard night of drinking. What on earth are you talking about Mr. Taylor? Give Kidd his money?! Please, Lord give me patience with this man.
A three-year contract? Earlier in your article you whined about Kidd being 36. Did you take any math at Ohio State? Do you know how old he will be in three years? Did you stop to consider what impact a contract like that would have on the 2010 free agent festival?
Oh, wait, clearly your did consider that because later in the article you give us this gem…
“In the summer of 2010… Kidd gives the Mavs an ability to legitimately compete for one of those franchise-changing players because other players like, respect and admire him.”
So, young players looking for a team they can build a dynasty with and lock themselves into a trip to the Hall of Fame are going to bet their careers on a THIRTY NINE YEAR OLD Jason Kidd who “got his money” and damaged the Mavericks cap flexibility? To quote two of JJT’s favorite and most used paragraphs…
Seriously.
Ridiculous.
“No one else in the league can dominate a game without scoring the way Kidd does.”
We won’t dwell on this comment for long. Can we all just agree that JJT pulled this from a ten-year old scouting report on Kidd and leave it at that? Okay, I can’t leave it at that. Did you really say “dominate?” I like Kidd and I actually agree with the article’s topic by-the-way. The Mavericks probably should not trade Kidd. But I still don’t think I’ve seen Kidd dominate a game since he came back to Dallas.
Maybe we are just quibbling over the definition of dominate now or maybe we are distracted by the “without scoring” part of the statement. But when I think of dominating a game, I don’t think of what Kidd has done in his return to Dallas.
“Hopefully, Mark Cuban has learned his lesson after giving up on Steve Nash and allowing him to slip away in free agency a few years ago.”
JJT, you did not just say that?! Please, please, somebody take the ice pick out of my head!
Do we really have to go there again? Did Cuban really “give up” on Nash? Or did he underestimate his willingness to leave Dallas and Dirk and underestimate the efforts the Suns would go to in stealing him away? Did Cuban “allow him to slip away” or did Cuban make a difficult decision while facing an as-yet-unresolved new CBA and salary cap/luxury tax?
We can agree to disagree I guess. But please admit that Cuban did offer Nash a considerable contract and clearly didn’t think Nash would leave without an opportunity to bargain on the final terms of a contract.
“Kidd does all of the little things it takes to win.”
To win what? To win 45 games? To win a playoff game? To win a playoff series? Taylor, the standard of winning in Dallas has gone up in the last ten years.
Do you know who else does the little things it takes to win? JJ Barea does the little things and he scores too. That doesn’t mean he can lead this team to a championship.
The really sad thing about JJT’s article, as I said early on, is that it should have been really easy to write an argument for keeping Kidd. Why he choose those points for his argument is beyond me.
Here is my argument for keeping Kidd.
It is unlikely that trading Jason Kidd improves this team in the short run or in the long run. Any trade of Kidd should achieve at least one of these goals: really compete for a championship this year or enable us to compete for a championship for the next couple of years.
Given the likely trading partners, you probably don’t get equal value back for Kidd and you probably don’t get good long term contracts back for Kidd. So, you should probably keep him. Especially since he is generally well liked on the team and is not a cancer in the locker room.
Okay, so it isn’t a very interesting argument and might not land you on the front of the sports section (congrats JJT). But, at least it would be a sound argument.
