NBA Butterfly Effect: Jason Kidd joins the NBA Champion Spurs

The history of the NBA is a tangled web of what-ifs and could-have-beens. This week at The Step Back, we’re going to pull on some of those threads to alternate futures, focusing in on key turning points in the history of players, teams and the league itself, wondering how things could have been different. Welcome to Butterfly Effect Week.

In June of 2001, the Nets transformed their franchise more than anyone could have imagined. General manager Rod Thorn — famous for being the man to draft Michael Jordan — traded Nets incumbent point guard and All-Star Stephon Marbury to the Suns for fellow All-Star and All-NBA point guard Jason Kidd.

While the Nets would be losing their leading scorer in Marbury, their disappointing 26-56 record made the move easier to swallow.

"”I think it makes us better in a couple of areas, defensively and rebounding and really pushing the ball. Jason Kidd is the best point guard in the league for grabbing a rebound and going 94 feet with anybody. That’s the style we’ve been wanting to play since Day 1.” — Nets head coach Byron Scott"

New Jersey was looking not only to erase a three-year playoff drought but also reach beyond the first round of the Eastern Conference — a feat they hadn’t accomplished since 1984 when Otis Birdsong, Darryl Dawkins and Buck Williams led the Nets to the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

It had been a long time. Desperation was setting in for New Jersey.

Kidd not only helped New Jersey make it to the playoffs. He — along with upstart big man Kenyon Martin and high-flying swingman Richard Jefferson — propelled the Nets to the NBA Finals. Though they were swept by Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and the Lakers — the team’s third consecutive championship — the tide was turning in New Jersey.

Hope was alive.

Kidd was showered with accolades at year’s end, coming second in NBA Most Valuable Player voting to San Antonio’s Tim Duncan.

The next season Kidd once again led the Nets to the NBA Finals, this time facing off with Duncan, who had just wrapped up his second consecutive MVP season. Kidd finished 9th in voting. The Nets would meet the same fate, once again falling in the NBA Finals to a superior Spurs team.

After consecutive trips to the NBA Finals, Kidd was a free agent. Instead of playing the market, Kidd immediately put two (and only two) teams on his list: New Jersey and San Antonio.

On his lone recruiting trip to San Antonio, Kidd and his then-wife Joumana were “blown away by the Spurs’ first-class recruiting pitch.” Duncan personally met with Kidd to tell him how things were going to work despite the Spurs already having 20-year-old point guard and steady contributor Tony Parker on the roster.

Kidd was convinced. He agreed to a $87-million deal with the defending NBA champion Spurs.

A few hours later, however, he changed his mind.

"“On my flight home, I think I got cold feet.” — Jason Kidd"

Despite being wowed by the Spurs’ pitch and everything San Antonio had to offer, Kidd’s family wanted him to stay in New Jersey. The six-year, $103-million contract ($16-million more than San Antonio offered) may have helped keep him around too. Either way, Kidd personally cited unfinished business and his goal of winning a title as a member of the Nets.

"“It would have been easy to go to San Antonio and play with Tim Duncan and those guys. I have some unfinished business and that is to win a championship in this league and win it as a Net. This is the best chance for me to win a championship.” — Jason Kidd (2003)"

To help sweeten the pot for Kidd, the Nets would sign former Heat center Alonzo Mourning to a four-year, $22.6 million deal. The Nets, who would hold onto both Jefferson and Martin, seemed primed for a few more years atop the East.

Things didn’t go as planned.

The Nets performed poorly early on in the season and head coach Byron Scott — who had clashed with Kidd during his tenure — was fired. Assistant coach Lawrence Frank was inserted in his place and the Nets immediately took to their rookie coach, winning 13 straight games. This set a new NBA record for most consecutive wins by a rookie head coach.

The Nets got back into playoffs, swept New York in the opening round before falling to Detroit in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

After the season, the Nets traded long-time shooting guard Kerry Kittles to the Clippers. Martin was shipped off to Denver. Rodney Rogers and sixth-man Lucious Harris were released. New Nets owner Bruce Ratner was cutting costs left and right, reducing payroll with the goal to eventually sell the team and move them to Brooklyn.

The Spurs, despite not signing Kidd, had tremendous success over the next few years by winning NBA championships in 2005 and 2007. But enough about what did happen. We’re here to wonder what could have happened … what if. What could have changed if Kidd went to San Antonio? How different would the NBA look if Kidd and Duncan teamed up?

For the Nets, it would’ve probably been business as usual.

Kidd leaving in free agency opens them up to rebuild quicker than anticipated. Mourning isn’t signed and you have to imagine Martin, Jefferson and any other valuable piece are moved as quickly as possible. Without Kidd, the Nets had no chance in the Eastern Conference, so you may as well get the rebuild started. What would be interesting, though, is how long the rebuild would have taken. Would the Nets have still been active in free agency and the trade market if Kidd was history? They went after Vince Carter a few years later, eventually acquiring him from the Raptors. Does that happen if Kidd isn’t around?

They probably don’t acquire Carter and probably don’t have semi-competent years during the mid-2000s. Are they a bottom-dweller for 10 years until they move to Brooklyn? Does the move to Brooklyn and the sale of the team happen faster?

The most interesting what ifs, however, center around the Spurs and what would have become of the franchise if they acquired Kidd.

Team success more than likely remains the same over the next handful of years. They would win two titles in the next four seasons with largely the same core of Duncan, Parker and Manu Ginobili. It’s not hard to imagine Kidd in place of Parker keeps them relevant for that same amount of time, provided, of course, Kidd was a good citizen and fit into the established Spurs culture.

The big question is the long-term, not only with success — we’ll get to that in a moment — but the Spurs’ narrative or the Spurs’ way.

Slam Online’s Peter Walsh described ”The Spurs Way” as “extra-pass, find-the-open-man, give-up-the-good-shot-for-a-great-shot offense and hard-nosed defense ball.” Kidd would’ve fit perfectly into the on-court definition of the Spurs Way, but there’s more to it than that.

The Spurs Way extends to their method of team-building which throughout the last two decades has featured very few major transactions. Aside from their signing of LaMarcus Aldridge in 2015, the Spurs largest non-draft day acquisitions (accounting for the George Hill/Kawhi Leonard swap) were role players like Michael Finley, Robert Horry, Malik Rose, Richard Jefferson and Matt Bonner — players of that ilk and certainly nobody the level of Kidd in his prime.

A signing of Kidd would have radically transformed how we think of Duncan, Popovich and the Spurs. It’s unlikely that Kidd and the Spurs would receive the same level of vitriol that Kevin Durant and the Warriors felt last offseason, but in a relative sense it would have been the talk of basketball. Two dynamos, two MVP contenders and the best player on the NBA Finals runner-up goes to the team that won the NBA Finals. Sure, “hot takes” weren’t quite as hot as they are today, but you imagine there would be a ton of blow-back.

Does Duncan lose anything if he wins two or more NBA titles with another free agent superstar? Do we look at him differently because he won with incumbent stars like David Robinson or shrewd draft picks and acquisitions like Leonard, Parker and Ginobili than we would if Kidd was side-by-side in those title runs? It’s an interesting question to ask. Duncan would still be one of the best to ever do it, but narratives would certainly have changed.

Speaking of one of those running mates, what becomes of Parker?

The “Fiery Francophile” (hey, it’s on his Basketball-Reference page, don’t ask me) was in his second season with the Spurs and at the time became one of the youngest players to ever win an NBA championship. After breaking out in a big way during the prior year’s playoff run, Parker became an established piece during the Spurs’ title run, averaging 15.5 points per game and 5.3 assists per game in the regular season. Parker would net 20 or more points seven times in the Spurs’ playoff run, firmly planting him as San Antonio’s second or third best player.

If Kidd is acquired, what do you do with Parker? Do the Spurs get wild and try the 6-foot-2 Parker at shooting guard despite him just being an “okay” shooter at the time? Do they move Parker to the bench? Would Parker be okay with a bench role?

The mostly likely case is San Antonio trades Parker as it’s not often you have a 21-year-old asset that’s both equal parts valuable and expendable. There’s simply no role that suits Parker well enough with Kidd in town.

If Parker is indeed traded after the Spurs acquire Kidd, what does that do for the future of the Spurs? The Spurs probably don’t miss a beat immediately because Kidd brings a ton to the table. Maybe they only win one title in the next four years, maybe they win more.

The real ramifications comes down the line, specifically the Spurs’ history of success over the next decade. Without Parker in town, the Spurs play out the strings in Kidd’s prime but perhaps become too old, too quick. With Parker, they were able to secure multiple years of competitiveness with a player growing into and through his prime. That Parker was equally as valuable for the Spurs’ 2014 NBA championship as he was for the 2003 one speaks volumes to the stabilizing impact he had on the franchise.

Kidd would have provided a short-term boost and another superstar in the fray, but little did the Spurs know that they had a future star point guard already on hand.

Next: NBA Butterfly Effect: What if Andrew Bynum hadn't gone bowling?

Another team interestingly caught up in this butterfly effect is the Mavericks. If Kidd is a Spur then the Mavericks don’t acquire him for pennies on the dollar (or a sham Keith Van Horn un-retirement). Likewise, Dallas doesn’t have Kidd as their stabilizing factor in a run to the 2011 NBA championship. Dallas doesn’t get their title, Mark Cuban doesn’t get to throw it in the face of soon-departing NBA commissioner David Stern and most tragic of all, Dirk Nowitzki never gets his title.

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