Who does Jason Kidd make better?

You dont make sense. He made his whole team better. Jason Kidd isnt like other pgs that just give up. He hustles his ass off and will get you the easiest shot possible. Basically if you play with kidd, you will get points anytime because he can help you out alot. I bet if you take Kidd off the nets, have of the nets players will turn back to the sorry ****s that they really are.

 

That makes no sense. You put more good players on a team and of course their stats will be lower. You spread the ball and play team-oriented ball, and the stars will probably score less. Making players better doesn't mean giving them more points or whatever. It means making them more consistent, making the offense function properly, getting the ball to where it needs to be, etc. He makes the TEAM function better. That doesn't necessarily mean each individual will have better stats.

If Francis runs the offense and passes to all sorts of players instead of Mobley running iso's, Mobley's numbers are going to drop. However, that doesn't mean he's hurting Mobley or the team's play.

 

According to Byron Scott, his coach, the team. After that, none of our opinions really matter as we don't know how they're thinking/playing any more than he does. I'm with Major... I'm betting Scott thinks his team is playing better. That's not necessarily reflected in individual statistics. Just because your stats go down doesn't mean you're not playing better basketball. You say players were injured last year and aren't this year and you ask who he is making better. As a result of the injuries, you can't argue one way or the other. Because of this, I'll defer to their coach... he has said he has made the biggest difference in this team.

 

You gotta look past the numbers when you talk about Jason Kidd. Stephon Marbury may be an outstanding talent, but the guy's a headcase. Byron Scott has said it, Jayson Williams has said it, countless others as well. He was selfish, he would yell at his teammates whenever they made mistakes, he was a poison in the locker room. Kidd is the exact opposite, he's completely selfless, he encourages the guys, and plain and simple he finds ways to dominate games without even scoring alot. He's given the Nets a positive atmosphere and brought a winner's mentality to the whole franchise.

And Phoenix is markedly better this year? They won 50 games last year without Penny. Now they have Penny back and they're hovering around the .500 mark. The change in the win-loss record with Marbury is glaring.

 

No One Looks at stats when A team is winning. Is The Nets streak all Jason Kidd? no , Is it a contributing factor? yes . The Nets are getting contributions from everyone on that team, Kenyon Martin has played better , Kittles is back from injury . Keith Van Horn is putting up His same numbers even though he is getting fewer minutes . Jason Collins, Lucious Harris, Richard Jefferson aren't just spectators but are a good part of the Offense , The team is playing good smart basketball .

 

Ah, how is this? If Kidd "makes someone better," then this player will perform differently. If he hits a shot because Kidd set him up better than Marbury could have... then his fg% will improve.

Everyone said that Jason Kidd "made" Shawn Marion. Well, turns out Marions' great without Kidd. What happened? Was it an illusion.

I actually disagree with pued, here. But I don't think it's a coincidence that the Nets are finally healthy, either. Remember 3 years back when a lot of pundits were ready to declare them the next dynasty? Well, Van Horn couldn't stay healthy, neither could Kittles... and we all know what happened to Jayson Williams.

Now, they've reloaded a bit, replaced Williams, and they're winning. I'd wager they would be with Marbury as well.

This is not to take anything away from Kidd, who I believe is the best PG in the league right now.

So, in essence, I agree with you DoD... but don't think it's fair to dismiss the argument as you do. I'm unconvinced that Kidd "makes other players better..." I just think he's a hell of a player himself.

 

Ummmmmmm...only EVERY single player and coach he's every had have claimed he's made them better. Guess that doesn't count for much?

 

How's this? If Kidd runs the break better than Marbury did, they could score whereas with Marbury they may have not. That's not necessarily apparent in any stat.

But if you want stats, here you go :

Assists as a team are up about 5 per game over last season.
Steals are up about .5.
Rebounding is up about 5.
FG% is up a about 1.5 - 2%.

Of course then others would counter with "hey, but the team is just healthier". Fair enough. But then you can see it's a no-win argument for either side. Which is why I can only defer to Byron Scott's statements that he has made an impact by improving the play of those around him. He'd know better than any of us. Maybe Kidd's floor leadership takes some of the burden of Byron. Maybe Kidd's demeanor and leadership has brought the team together whereas I remember Marbury pissing people off. Again, it's not all in the stats.

 

Entering this season, I thought that Kidd was the most overrated player in the NBA. I thought he was a borderline All-Star player, with obvious weaknesses, I didn't enjoy watching him play that much and I had issues with him making the cover of the NBA Encyclopedia (he's staring at me right now, dammit).

But watching the way that everyone on that Nets team runs the floor this year, heads up and hands ready, you have to give him the MVP so far. Martin was given the ball on the wing or the low post last season, and asked to do something spectacular while Marbury spotted up on the weak side. He'd make an uncertain move, miss a shot, and as a result he was in a funk the entire season (looked a lot like Croshere). No confidence at all. Van Horn was the same way.

Now this team plays in a flow, moves without the ball because they know Kidd is looking in four other directions before he takes a shot. The attitude is contagious. We all understand how things have changed this year vis a vis the health issues. The Nets, have five new starters this season, as Kenyon and Van Horn played out of position last season at times. But you cannot argue with winning, you simply can't, and we all know that statistics are the most pointless things since those little plastic things at the end of your shoelaces.

Introducing stats in a basketball discussion is like invoking Linda Cohn's name at a poetry slam held in Topeka: draw your own damn conclusions.

 

I'm not a big fan of Jason Kidd or point guards like him myself, but he is what makes the Nets win.

He doesn't make anyone better - their health and the addition of MacCullogh has made a huge impact this season, plus the three rookies they got on draft day - but he allows the team to run more smoothly and with the talent they have there, a nice number of wins is not to be unexpected.

When healthy, Kittles is a top 15 shooting guard. Same for Van Horn at SF/PF. Martin is a developing PF, and Jefferson has potential at SF in the future. MacCullogh, Williams, and Collins are decent at C, but they do provide depth.

However, the way he leads the team is condusive to winning. Given a team of scorers, he would be perfect. That's all he's seen, essentially, his entire career. Since he can't shoot well and doesn't look to score first, he instinctively looks for his teammates.

Stephon, while a gifted scorer, became a focal point of unease in the Nets locker room last season and had he returned, the offense would not flow as smoothly and there would likely be some turmoil within the organization.

I maintain that if you put Kidd on a team lacking scorers, per se, he would not do nearly as well. But, for the teams Dallas, Phoenix, and now New Jersey have had, he is the perfect instigator of their offense. Yet, he really doesn't make anyone better. It's just how the systems he has been in work.

 

But those statistics are irrelevant to your argument.

If you're asserting that Kidd makes other players better, then there should be a difference in their individual stats. Quoting team stats could show A. the individual effect Kidd has had on team performance or B. simply health.

If you could show me that individual players perform better with Kidd than without him, then you'd have validated your claim.

 

<B>If you could show me that individual players perform better with Kidd than without him, then you'd have validated your claim.</B>

Both Kittles and Martin are shooting a higher percentage than last year. Kittles is shooting the best of his career. As a team, they are also shooting a higher percentage.

<B>If you're asserting that Kidd makes other players better, then there should be a difference in their individual stats. </B>

Not necessarily. It could simply change their consistency. Bottom lines is that all the players and coaches (now and on previous teams) say their games are/were improved by having Kidd on the floor, and really, that says more about it than any stats we could try to use.

You hear the Nets players talk about Kidd's impact on them all the time. How often do you hear Suns players talking about how Marbury makes them better players?

 

Once you understand that individual players can be better without it necessarily reflecting in their stats, you can understand the claims people are making. Besides, there's only one claim I need to validate my position... the coach's comments. Period. I said repeatedly in this thread that that stats apparently don't bear out what Byron Scott sees or other players see. I threw the numbers above out as a bone to all of you that just have to see some improvement in numbers.

I love stats, but sorry, they neither necessarily prove nor disprove anything.

 

Kidd doesn't make his teammates better, he makes the opposing team play worse.

 

It's funny how I continue to agree with your overall position, but not at all with how you're getting there.

I consider coaches comments to be one of the least reliable sources of information. This is not to say that Byron Scott isn't a good coach, or very knowledgeable... but rather an acknowledgement of the fact that coaches have an agenda. Coaches, when speaking to the media, are just wearing too many hats. They're representatives of their team (the franchise), their team (the players), and and the NBA. They're also speaking to too many audiences: the media, the fans, their own players (can't tell me coaches don't conduct diplomacy through the media), and management. Sometimes they're probably dropping hints to other teams as well.

Rudy T, has over the years, said many things about individual players that was probably meant to prop up that player. Just the way things work, imo.

EDIT: One of my favorite examples of this: Phil Jackson, last year (or the year before?) said "Robert Horry is our MVP." Did Phil really mean that Horry was more valuable than Shaq or Kobe? Did he mean that Horry couldn'tve been replaced by any # of good defensive, PFs? No. However, Horry did do a good job, and Phil was trying to give him some public credit, soothe his ego, etc. After all, Shaq and Kobe uhh... probably didn't get their feelings hurt. Coaches do this particular thing all the time concerning useful players that... umm... aren't exactly really their team's MVP.

In basketball, I'll actually agree with you here, as well. Stats are probably least important of the sports I actually follow in basketball. Popularly available stats don't record it when a player breaks down a defense, gets double teamed, or when a player feasts off of dumps because someone else was double teams. They don't do a good time representing defense or "the pass that leads to the assist."

But I do think that some things are decipherable by stats. Whether Jason Kidd improves the performance of his teammates, imo, is to a great extent. Do I believe that Jason Kidd makes his teammates better, really? Actually, the more I think about it, yes. But I also think there's a way of quantifying it that we're missing.

Heh... the discussion gets geeky here... but technically speaking, you can reduce any possible action to a mathematical equation. Now, in life, this is practically impossible with many complex activities. Simply too many variables. But in sports, it's much easier since the players operate according to arbitrarily assigned rules. Basketball's more fluid, hence the greater difficulty than in other sports. However, assistant coaches apparently do this - the stats simply aren't available to us. More player actions are quantified, and hence a more accurate picture of a players contributions emerges mathematically.

Maybe these stats would be necessary to fully reflect Kidd's contributions?

 

This is exactly what I think. I think the world of Jason Kidd. He has been one of my favorite players since he entered the league. However, I don't think he is the sole reason for the Nets great play. I think it is a combination of factors--like you do--which include the fact that Kidd's skills better compliment the skills of his teammates. The Nets are winnig because they have CHEMISTRY.

Kidd fits that team--and its coach--like a glove. The Net's don't demand Kidd score big points (something Phoenix needed him to do and one of the reasons Phoenix looked to trade him). The Nets want to fast break ( a la "Showtime") and Kidd is a fast breaking, open court guard who exemplefies the fast break. Marbury is more of a half court guard whose game did not fit what the Net's wanted (it didn't help that Marbury had to play with CBA scrubs most of the time).

Put Kidd in primarily half court offense and he won't be nearly as dominant. Heck, put Kidd on last years Nets minus Kittles, Jefferson, Collins, McCollough, and Van Horn (off an on); replace those guys with NBA cast offs; and replace this years more experiences Martin with last year's hesitant Martin and the Nets wouldn't be winning like they are.

 

What about comments from the players? Nets players have said that they want to come to work now, and have talked about the positive atmosphere now with Kidd.

In his book, Jayson Williams called Stephon Marbury an idiot. (And no, not for breaking his leg)