Rare Jason Kidd Footage | St. Joes vs Bishop O'Dowd 1992
- Thread starter SimplyBBall
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What impressed me most about Kidd was the energy he played with. He always just seemed to play with more energy and drive than everybody else in the game
literally nobody would argue that. Zero people. Never. Guy turned out to be a corrupt
Weirdo as well.
Yes, Kevin Johnson was a very nice player. Seemed to be the face of the Phoenix Suns. Underrated career. Multiple All Star if I recall
i give him credit.. his restaurant is good and he has turned Oak Park into a nice area for a few blocks
Agree it would be hard to argue KJs career against a HoF like Kidd. Kidd did it over a much longer career. But if you focused of each players best years, you could at least make an argument for KJ. KJ had a 3-4 year run where he was a Top 5-10 player in a league with MJ, Magic, Barkley, Nique, etc.... He was a 20-10 guy who had hops. He couldn’t rebound like JK, but he could score, and he shared the ball too.
This is silly people. So many intangibles that Kidd has that KJ never did as a leader running a team.
First ballot HOF player and one of the best PG to ever play. Legend in NorCal who was good enough to play in the nba as a soph in Hs.
First ballot HOF player and one of the best PG to ever play. Legend in NorCal who was good enough to play in the nba as a soph in Hs.
Y'all have Kidd ranked waaaaay too high! Let us not place him in the class of Magic, Big O, and Zeeke. Please don't.....Kidd was a incredible facilitator, but he does not sit alone on an island in the NorCal basketball landscape. Not even in the PG category. GP, KJ, and Dame Dolla all belong in that conversation.
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Not true GP has a ring from the Heat when they beat the Mavs in 2006. Hit a huge Jump Shot & Left handed lay-up to seal the Deal!!
Kidd is considered a top 5 PG and one of the the 50 best players of all time. You don’t have him high enough. Guy literally changed bay area basketball where ncs games had to be changed to coliseum and 15k were in attendance. Nobody is comparing him to magic but I would gladly compare him to anybody else at the PG position.
Lilliard definitely shouldnt be in the conversation. Until he beats the warriors hes just another point guard
I disagree Larry. Kidd is the best to come from this area, But he’s not in that top echelon of ‘best ever’ IMHO. I’d have to research, but did he ever even finish in the Top 5 of a MVP vote in his entire career? He never led a team to a title (his one ring wasn’t because of him), and he wasn’t the guy taking the clutch shot at a games end. This is no disrespect to him, he was fantastic. But don’t forget his nickname of “Ason”, because no one could ever find his “J”.
J Kidd. SECOND MCDONALDS AA in NorCal behind Calvin Byrd. Most celebrated player in norcal. Won 2 state titles. Second in mvp voting in NBA.
TOP NorCal PGs.
1a. J kidd. WAS Like an energizer bunny. Non stop motor. You knew he was a pro in high school.
1b. G Payton [my favorite] . SKYLINE HIGH. Was a non stop talker in high school. Shit talker. One of the greatest defensive pgs in nba history. Him or Walt Frazier. Only pg to win DPOY.
3. PHIL Chenier [great player.]..Won title with Washington Bullets.
4. Kevin Johnson. Sac high. Underrated pro. NBA ALL STAR. The NBA prototype current 6-3 pg.
5. Gene Ransome. B high. Gene the dream...Was Mr TOC. Knowledgeable Bay Area hoop heads can attest to his greatness.
6. Damian Lillard [his book is halfway written. Several chapters left to go.]
7. Phil Smith. Washington high. Maybe best hooper to come out of San Francisco. A LATE bloomer. HELPED GSW win first NBA title.
8. Gerald Walker. A highlight-reel in high school. He picked wrong college.
9. Bryan Shaw. BOD...An example that hard work pays off...He played JVs at Odowd as a junior. WAS 6th man at odowd senior year and got a scholarship to St Marys. Your ultimate late bloomer. BLEW UP after transferring to ucsb and giving UNLV the blues. He was known as the unlv stopper.. A BIG pg that was fundamentally sound.
10. Charles Johnson. SEQUIOA. MAYBE best guard to come from peninsula. PLAYED ON warriors and on the Bullets as well.
TOP NorCal PGs.
1a. J kidd. WAS Like an energizer bunny. Non stop motor. You knew he was a pro in high school.
1b. G Payton [my favorite] . SKYLINE HIGH. Was a non stop talker in high school. Shit talker. One of the greatest defensive pgs in nba history. Him or Walt Frazier. Only pg to win DPOY.
3. PHIL Chenier [great player.]..Won title with Washington Bullets.
4. Kevin Johnson. Sac high. Underrated pro. NBA ALL STAR. The NBA prototype current 6-3 pg.
5. Gene Ransome. B high. Gene the dream...Was Mr TOC. Knowledgeable Bay Area hoop heads can attest to his greatness.
6. Damian Lillard [his book is halfway written. Several chapters left to go.]
7. Phil Smith. Washington high. Maybe best hooper to come out of San Francisco. A LATE bloomer. HELPED GSW win first NBA title.
8. Gerald Walker. A highlight-reel in high school. He picked wrong college.
9. Bryan Shaw. BOD...An example that hard work pays off...He played JVs at Odowd as a junior. WAS 6th man at odowd senior year and got a scholarship to St Marys. Your ultimate late bloomer. BLEW UP after transferring to ucsb and giving UNLV the blues. He was known as the unlv stopper.. A BIG pg that was fundamentally sound.
10. Charles Johnson. SEQUIOA. MAYBE best guard to come from peninsula. PLAYED ON warriors and on the Bullets as well.
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Good list superle. played against walker...
Wow. USF wasn’t a good choice.
Jkidd was a 9x all defensive player as well in nba. The guy coach K said he wanted first when he was coaching Olympic team. different beast. He won 2 state Titles at little st joes before super teams were created. Literally willed his team.
Wow. USF wasn’t a good choice.
Jkidd was a 9x all defensive player as well in nba. The guy coach K said he wanted first when he was coaching Olympic team. different beast. He won 2 state Titles at little st joes before super teams were created. Literally willed his team.
Very strong list. Might add at least one more guy: Milky Johnson from Ravenswood (closed), College of San Mateo and Cal. Athletic, quick, creative. But troubled young man. Died way too young.
Kidd is a legend! I'm not denying that. But people rate him waay to high. (Although I will agree, he is one of the greatest facilitators). He is not on the same level as Zeeke and the Big O. A lot of people like to put him on that level but he didn't reach that plateau in his career. (Still had a stellar career). I wouldn't be so fast to compare him to Zeeke. Zeeke beat Jordan, Magic, and Bird! He conquered legends. And the Big O put up the kind of numbers that we were expecting to see from JKidd! (At least I was).
Jason Kidd had a lot of deserving hype coming out of High School. He was a special talent and an incredible facilitator on the court. He was an old throwback PG, which is what a lot of people loved about his game. But let's be honest, Kidd wasn't a gifted scorer and he couldn't shoot.
The game moved away from the traditional PG into the era of Combo Guard. While Kidd remained an incredible leader, facilitator, defender, and rebounder; He couldn't give you 40 on any given night. He couldn't take over a game in the 4th quarter.
Great list! But the most celebrated player in NorCal has to be Bill Russell! He is the King!
We were talking about pgs. Guards. AND kidd was a transformational player. Right behind Zeke. He wasn't the offensive player Zeke was but he could dominate a game without scoring...Those people who put STOCKTON or Nash ahead of Jkidd are on drugs to me. HE took the Nets to 2 NBA championships. They didn't win but he took them there.
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He may have been top 5 when he retired, but he’s still top 10 with 1,988 made.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_National_Basketball_Association_career_3-point_scoring_leaders
Another PG we don't often talk about is Earnest Lee out of Kennedy High School (Sacramento). In 1982, Lee was one of the hottest college prospects on the West Coast. UCLA, USC and Washington wanted him, amongst others. His senior year, he was the Bee's Player of the Year and a Cal-Hi Sports First Team All-State choice after leading Kennedy to a 28-1 record. The lone loss was to eventual NorCal Division I champ Bishop O'Dowd (Oakland, Calif.).
On the subject of 3's and shooting in general...
Before Kidd was a senior at St. Joe's, his shooting was excellent. for example I watched him nail SEVEN 3-pointers in the 2nd half of a game at St. Liz during his junior year (Back then, St. Liz usually had a very good team, and they were actually leading the Pilots by 10 or so at the half in that game). Of course, that was an outlier, but Kidd did shoot 'em well. His shot was almost a set shot, but he got it off very quickly.
His shooting troubles started when he decided he needed to discard that near-set shot. My guess is that he figured that, even though he got the shot off quickly, it would be more blockable at higher levels of play.
So, he worked on a new jump shot and unveiled it at the start of his senior year. He would RISE and fire... Ridiculously high, release right at the top of the jump... Looked fabulous on the release, and certainly wasn't gonna get blocked by anyone... But he couldn't make anything (though he still made most shots when in clutch situations).
Even though his outside shooting suffered, he still scored 30 ppg that year at St. Joe's because he could get to the rack anytime he wanted.
Kidd kept using that high jumper through his two years at Cal and at least a few years in the NBA. I even remember some sportswriters calling him Ason Kidd (No J) during that time. (pissed me off, lol)
Then, he went back to a near-set shot much more like what he used to, maybe a little jump in it, but not much. I don't watch a lot of NBA, but I'm guessing this switch occurred late in his time with the Nets. like 2007 or so.
I have also heard that Dirk Novitski gave Kidd a shooting tip right when J returned to Dallas. J's percentage went way up in his first 3+ years at Dallas, and I think it only went back down when he started to slide physically. Dude played a lonnnnnnnnnng time!
Before Kidd was a senior at St. Joe's, his shooting was excellent. for example I watched him nail SEVEN 3-pointers in the 2nd half of a game at St. Liz during his junior year (Back then, St. Liz usually had a very good team, and they were actually leading the Pilots by 10 or so at the half in that game). Of course, that was an outlier, but Kidd did shoot 'em well. His shot was almost a set shot, but he got it off very quickly.
His shooting troubles started when he decided he needed to discard that near-set shot. My guess is that he figured that, even though he got the shot off quickly, it would be more blockable at higher levels of play.
So, he worked on a new jump shot and unveiled it at the start of his senior year. He would RISE and fire... Ridiculously high, release right at the top of the jump... Looked fabulous on the release, and certainly wasn't gonna get blocked by anyone... But he couldn't make anything (though he still made most shots when in clutch situations).
Even though his outside shooting suffered, he still scored 30 ppg that year at St. Joe's because he could get to the rack anytime he wanted.
Kidd kept using that high jumper through his two years at Cal and at least a few years in the NBA. I even remember some sportswriters calling him Ason Kidd (No J) during that time. (pissed me off, lol)
Then, he went back to a near-set shot much more like what he used to, maybe a little jump in it, but not much. I don't watch a lot of NBA, but I'm guessing this switch occurred late in his time with the Nets. like 2007 or so.
I have also heard that Dirk Novitski gave Kidd a shooting tip right when J returned to Dallas. J's percentage went way up in his first 3+ years at Dallas, and I think it only went back down when he started to slide physically. Dude played a lonnnnnnnnnng time!
Oh, man... That dude was ridiculous! Only game I saw him play was that loss to O'Dowd. Noticed him immediately during warmups... Moving around the 3-point line, receiving passes from a coach... The NBA line. 5 feet behind it... And making almost every shot!
And then the game started... In the first five minutes, Lee was totally CLOWNING the Dragons! But then the Dragons started flopping anytime he got near... Drew enough phantom fouls to get Lee on the bench for much of the game, and he eventually fouled out. I don't remember the stats, but I would guess Lee scored like 25 points while playing 15 minutes tops due to the foul trouble.
Whatever happened to that guy?
Wow... Just researched lee and found out. Tragic. Grades kept him out of D1, and then the streets and drugs...
https://www.espn.com/high-school/boys-basketball/story/_/id/7943261/schooling-people
https://www.espn.com/high-school/boys-basketball/story/_/id/7943261/schooling-people
Very legitimate point about Kidd as an offensive player. Agree about him not being a great shooter, but he was a classic pass first, facilitator point guard.If he had a consistent jumper he'd be rated higher
O'Dowd would have been 2nd loss of year. SM Stockton beat Kennedy in the section semifinals.
Saw him play once in HS, was going to UCD at the time and a buddy was a Kennedy Sac alum and we went to a game. Very impressive player, with nice hops. I understand he died young unfortunately
JKIDD. I first discovered Jason when my alum Sacred Heart played in the island classic. It was not a tournament but it was a two day two game lineup. I was a sophomore at the time and our varsity played in it. So I made the trip over, was lucky to grab a set behind St Joes bench, and the dude was a work of art.
A grammar school buddy went to St Joes, so I started making trips over to watch Kidd play. A majority of the time I was able to score a seat behind the bench. Dude was amazing. If I recall he had a habit to grab a rebound and turn to the left in front of the bench and I saw him throw unreal almost full court bounce passes to Adrian Ealy.
Never in the Bay Area has any of us basketball junkies had to show up at 4:30 to get in a 7:00 game. JKIDD was by far the best high school player ever in the Bay Area. As someone said above, the guy dominated the game and he didn’t even need to score. He was the Nintendo remote control controlling himself. It was amazing.
Funny story. I went years never seeing another JKIDD. Ironically I ended up being good friends turned groomsmen Fontana. Dwayne will tell you JKIDD was the man hands down. They played together in AAU. JKIDD is actually born in SF, they asked him once if you didn’t move where would you have went to high school, he said Riordan. Imagine that, WOW.
On that note I had the privilege to be part of the Riordan program during the Kately Tofi years. One day I was at a USF baseball game. Saw quite a crowd in front of War Memorial, decided to see what was up. On the court was Tofi and Kately and some dude from Akron. I stayed a while but I am not the biggest AAU fan.
The next season at many practices me and Tofi would talk about great players. John says to me hey, we are playing at UC Berkeley and you got to come see that dude play. He is unreal. So that time came, John and Marquise introduced me to this lanky kid named Lebron.
Now l have sat on the floor at Arco watching James Harden (he rolled out of bounds saving a ball and the sole of his foot landed right under my chin). He didn’t apologize, LOL, Anyways seen Trevor Ariza, Klay, man I am getting old and so many others, nobody was better than JKIDD hands down until I sat and watched 15 minutes of Lebron.
I have been following high school hoops since around 1989, graduated in 1991, best high school player in this country is Lebron, second is JKIDD in my book.
A grammar school buddy went to St Joes, so I started making trips over to watch Kidd play. A majority of the time I was able to score a seat behind the bench. Dude was amazing. If I recall he had a habit to grab a rebound and turn to the left in front of the bench and I saw him throw unreal almost full court bounce passes to Adrian Ealy.
Never in the Bay Area has any of us basketball junkies had to show up at 4:30 to get in a 7:00 game. JKIDD was by far the best high school player ever in the Bay Area. As someone said above, the guy dominated the game and he didn’t even need to score. He was the Nintendo remote control controlling himself. It was amazing.
Funny story. I went years never seeing another JKIDD. Ironically I ended up being good friends turned groomsmen Fontana. Dwayne will tell you JKIDD was the man hands down. They played together in AAU. JKIDD is actually born in SF, they asked him once if you didn’t move where would you have went to high school, he said Riordan. Imagine that, WOW.
On that note I had the privilege to be part of the Riordan program during the Kately Tofi years. One day I was at a USF baseball game. Saw quite a crowd in front of War Memorial, decided to see what was up. On the court was Tofi and Kately and some dude from Akron. I stayed a while but I am not the biggest AAU fan.
The next season at many practices me and Tofi would talk about great players. John says to me hey, we are playing at UC Berkeley and you got to come see that dude play. He is unreal. So that time came, John and Marquise introduced me to this lanky kid named Lebron.
Now l have sat on the floor at Arco watching James Harden (he rolled out of bounds saving a ball and the sole of his foot landed right under my chin). He didn’t apologize, LOL, Anyways seen Trevor Ariza, Klay, man I am getting old and so many others, nobody was better than JKIDD hands down until I sat and watched 15 minutes of Lebron.
I have been following high school hoops since around 1989, graduated in 1991, best high school player in this country is Lebron, second is JKIDD in my book.
For all of you bored trivia buffs self-isolating at home these days, arguably the best modern-era NBA backcourt trio was the 1996-98 Phoenix Suns threesome of Jason Kidd, Kevin Johnson and Steve Nash. All three played their college ball in the Bay Area, the first two at Cal and the third dude at Santa Clara. All three were point guards. Talk about a PG cup that was overflowing. Whew.
