In the most pressurized moments, when Jason Kidd is being stared at as closely as a fingerprint, it has become increasingly difficult to tell whether he is blowing kisses or throwing his voice.
It's a clever trick, one that has served him well for years, proving that there is a lot of genius in Kidd's disingenuous act and a lot of passing in his passive-aggressive tendencies.
Variations of these traits have popped up along Kidd's journey from Cal-Berkeley to Dallas, from Dallas to Phoenix, but here is how the deception has worked in New Jersey:
Kidd pretends to submerge his ego beneath a humble public image while leveraging his star power to operate as a stealth general manager behind the Nets' scenes. With Rod Thorn, the team president, all but on his knees, Kidd is free to call the shots without his voice ever being attached to the decision.
Good gig. This way, Kidd bears no responsibility for a series of botched personnel moves that have left the Eastern Conference champion Nets as a retro version of their former dysfunctional selves.
It was Kidd who threw down the Zo-or-go ultimatum to a Nets front office desperate to please him, but in the days since center Alonzo Mourning ended his comeback last month, the court-vision savant has watched from afar as Thorn absorbed the arrows for handing the ailing Mourning US$23 million in uninsured money.
It was Kidd who insisted that the Nets sign his Suns buddy Rodney Rogers for US$9.3 million over three years only to see him morph into a mime while Thorn deals with the unfulfilled potential of an albatross forward.
It was Kidd who, by insider accounts, was so displeased with Byron Scott's coaching ability last season that he put pressure on Thorn to dismiss The Man Who Wasn't Eddie Jordan -- until the public caught wind of Kidd's diva act.
Under scrutiny, and on cue, Kidd acted incredulous to the accusation: "Me? Want Scott fired?" was his typical response. With his image in a pinch, he blew Scott kisses. "Jason [Heart symbol] Byron" was his message.
Once this contrived love had been formed, it spelled certain trouble for the Nets this season. After all, fake sincerity has its expiration date.
So, of all the self-serving deals Kidd forced on the Nets during the Summer of Jason, he squandered his status and misused his muscle when it came to Scott's coaching future.
Kidd should have shoved Scott off the sideline when he had the chance.
This is not because Scott deserved such a cruel fate -- not when he had coached the Nets to back-to-back NBA finals -- but because Kidd would have saved himself the energy he has spent sabotaging Scott this season.
Coups are consuming. On Saturday night, Kidd was heard lashing out at his team -- specifically the coaches and especially Scott -- after the Nets were left as down and out as a blues tune in Memphis.
"Me? Yell?" was Kidd's pat reply of denial the next day.
Why the copout? Why not validate his venting?
All of this may come down to his precious image, the one he carefully reconstructed after being blamed for instigating the mutiny behind Lou Campanelli's firing at Cal a decade ago; the one he reassembled after his feud with Jimmy Jackson in Dallas in 1996; and the one he rehabbed after the police were called to his Arizona home when he struck his wife in 2001.
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