When Jason Kidd left the Phoenix Suns to affix the New Jersey Nets on the finish of the 2001-02 NBA season, many believed including a gentle and dynamic playmaker would vault a workforce that missed the playoffs altogether up the standings.
It did. Kidd’s arrival, together with Richard Jefferson, Kenyon Martin and Kerry Kittles, turned the Nets right into a championship contender. They misplaced within the NBA Finals the 12 months he arrived, then misplaced within the Finals once more the next 12 months.
Some basketball followers imagine Jalen Brunson is that lacking piece for a Knicks workforce that has made the playoffs simply as soon as since 2014, that the Knicks have already got their supporting forged in RJ Barrett and Julius Randle, and that Brunson is the regular level guard who can usher in a brand new period of aggressive basketball on the Mecca.
“I love Brunson,” Kidd mentioned, considerably joking, forward of Thursday’s matchup between the Nets and the Mavericks. “But there’s no way you can compare me and him.”
Kidd does imagine Brunson can have a optimistic influence on the Knicks. He pointed to Brunson’s outstanding run main Villanova to the 2018 NCAA Championship. He pointed to Brunson’s regular enchancment year-over-year in Dallas, the place he turned the second prong of the assault final season alongside MVP candidate Luka Doncic.
In his first 4 video games with the Knicks, Brunson has averaged 20 factors, 8.5 assists, 4.5 rebounds and a steal.
“I think Brunson has an impact on any team he plays for,” Kidd mentioned. “He’s a true pro, and so I hope he does have the impact that I had when I came (to the Nets). Even bigger (of an impact than Kidd), that’s great for an individual like that to have that kind of impact. At his size, a lot of time we measure height and weight, but you just don’t know what’s inside. He has a big heart and a high IQ. Those are sometimes not measured, but he’s a winner, and the Knicks are lucky to have him.”
You can inform, nevertheless, Kidd and the Mavericks should really feel stung by Brunson’s determination to depart Dallas for New York. When initially requested about his former level guard’s match on the Knicks, Kidd retorted: “I’ve seen zero. I wish Brunson the best of luck, but I don’t have time to watch him right now.”
And after dropping his beginning guard, it’s an ex-Net filling the void.
The Nets moved Spencer Dinwiddie in a sign-and-trade to the Wizards two summers in the past, and when it didn’t work out in Washington, the Wizards traded him to the Mavericks.
“Losing Jalen for nothing, that doesn’t add up,” Kidd mentioned. “But we have depth, luckily with Spencer being able to start or not start because we can go in a lot of different directions with our lineups.”
Dinwiddie performed a key function offering depth to final 12 months’s Mavericks workforce. He is a Swiss Army knife in Dallas identical to he was in Brooklyn.
“It’s just three games in and at some point we probably will bring him off the bench just to take a look at (Tim Hardaway Jr.) or someone else starting, just to see how it looks and check the box,” Kidd mentioned. “But we are lucky to have Spencer because he’s dynamic, and the things that he can do like getting to the rim and shooting the three, and we’re also asking him to run because some of the times he has other guys who want to score, too, with Timmy and (Christian Wood), so the balance of being able to do that sounds easy, but it’s not.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com