Mavs-Lakers Exclusive: Kidd On Kobe's BBIQ

Mike Fisher -- DB.com

     It's fun for fans to play with what we around here call "BBIQ.'' It's fun when outlets are publishing an anonymous survey on the subject of “Which NBA Players Have The Highest Basketball IQ?’’ But why must it be anonymous? Why can't DallasBasketball.com just ask the man who has a Masters Degree in "BBIQ,'' the Mavs’ Jason Kidd, to rank the top dudes?

      DallasBasketball.com can do that.

      As the Mavs ready to play host to the Lakers, a re-revelation of a DB.com exclusive:

    “Jason Kidd’s Top Four BBIQ Players In The NBA'' -- and what he thinks about Kobe Bryant on that list:

  FIRST, HOW JASON KIDD DEVELOPED ‘BBIQ’:

    Growing up in the Bay Area, soccer was Kidd’s first love. His parents took him to soccer practice every day … and then he supplemented that by wanting to follow up soccer practice by going to basketball practice, where he became a child prodigy.

    Part nature, part nurture.

     “Soccer gave me vision,’’ Kidd tells me. “I learned to see the whole field, and the more you can see the whole soccer field, as big as it is, you can pretty easily see a whole basketball court. Also, for me, I started playing basketball against older guys (including future NBA players Gary Payton, Greg Foster and Antonio Davis as well as members of the Golden State Warriors). That was probably … osmosis. I soaked everything in.

     “And now I just know things,’’ laughs Kidd, about to turn 37, “because I’m so old.’’

     KIDD’S TOP 4 BBIQ PLAYERS IN THE NBA (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

     Steve Nash. Chris Paul. LeBron James. (Read his thoughts on those three BBIQ'ers here.)

     And. ...

     Kobe Bryant.

    KIDD ON KOBE BRYANT

    “He gets all the credit for being such a natural and graceful athlete. But I bet even if he wasn’t a great natural athlete, such a superior natural athlete with such an advantage, I bet he’d still be in the NBA. He’d still probably even be an All-Star.

    "Kobe lives it. He lives basketball. I believe it’s about all he thinks about, really. His dad was a pro and so he grew up with it. So it’s – what did you call it? – ‘nature and nurture.’

    "Yeah. Kobe is the best combination of nature and nurture.’’