EXCLUSIVE: Jason Kidd's Top 4 BBIQ NBA Players

  Every once in a while, a media outlet will publish an anonymous survey on the subject of “Which NBA Players Have The Highest Basketball IQ?’’ The Mavs’ Jason Kidd always ranks near the top these anonymous polls, which is nice. But DallasBasketball.com is taking a different angle.

   Why don’t we conduct a survey that isn’t anonymous? Why don’t we just make Jason Kidd the survey’s one-man panel? And why don’t we make Jason Kidd explain what BBIQ is, talk about his own, and then go on-the-record to explain his choices?

   “I believe you are probably born with it, or at least born with the potential for it,’’ Kidd tells me. “For me, however it got there, I’m glad I’m getting the chance to let it come out. It’s an interesting thing to think about.’’

   Indeed. As the Mavs ready to play host to Phoenix, a team featuring another basketball-smart point guard in Steve Nash, we now present a DB.com exclusive:

    “Jason Kidd’s Top Four BBIQ Players In The NBA.’’

  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 says. “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, 36, “because I’m so old.’’

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

    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.’’

    KIDD ON LeBRON JAMES

    “He’s a physical freak, obviously. But his basketball mind and his instincts are also pretty freaky. Remember the playoff series when he supposedly ‘passed’ on the drive to instead kick out to Donyell Marshall for the 3? And people accused LeBron of not wanting to take the big shot? Ridiculous! That was absolutely the right decision for the circumstance. That was absolutely the right, smart play. Donyell had just killed us (Kidd’s Nets team) with the 3. The play, the decision, the timing, it was all perfect. Everybody else didn’t know it but LeBron knew it.’’

    KIDD ON CHRIS PAUL

    “Chris Paul is moving faster than most of the rest of guys can even think. So he’s always two steps ahead. When you play against Chris, you really need to anticipate where he is going and what he might be thinking. You have to study it, and go deeper than just anticipate his movement; you have to anticipate his thought process. You have to ask yourself, ‘What is he thinking of doing?’

    “What’s amazing about him is that even at his young age, he is in complete control of the game. And what is even more amazing is that that’s been the case when he was a rookie, from the first day he was in the league.’’

    KIDD ON STEVE NASH

    “Stevie is just an old-fashioned gym rat. Going all the way back (Nash was a backup-backup point guard to Kidd when both were in Phoenix in the late 90’s) you just give him a ball and he wants to kick it, throw it, shoot it, whatever. Probably with a puck, too! I think he still probably gets into a pickup game at the gym or in the park not just to play, but to try to get better. I also think he goes into a pickup game and tries to win, of course. But he’s always trying to get better. He’s become relentless about it. And I think one of the things that keeps Stevie going is that in every NBA game he plays, he’s trying to win, and learn, and get better.’’