Clean Start

While leading the Nets from perpetual futility to the best record in the East, Jason Kidd has also come to grips with the domestic abuse that nearly ended his marriage

By S.L. Price

Issue date: January 28, 2002

The day has stretched into night, and still they're all here. Everyone is tired. Everyone wants this finished. "Quiet!" shouts the video crew's director. Then, realizing he may have gone too far, he adds, "Not you, Jason."

Jason Kidd shrugs. "I can be quiet," he says. He means it. He can be. He will be. Anything you want: another take, another minute, hour, evening? No problem. That take was perfect; do it again standing this way? O.K. That way? O.K. It's past 8 p.m., and Kidd has been at the New Jersey Nets' practice facility in East Rutherford for nearly 12 hours, enduring the demands of a still photographer, the long stretches of waiting and now this camera crew shooting an instructional video for Huffy home basketball equipment. Over and over he dribbles, shoots, rebounds and talks to the cameras. Again and again he recites the phrase that sums up his success: "Everybody loves to play with somebody who knows how to pass."

He is the star, of course. All the lights, the technicians, the makeup woman, the three NBA officials and the TV monitors are here because Jason Kidd is the All-Star point guard who has transformed the Nets into this season's most surprising and entertaining success. All are here for him, but somehow it seems the other way around. "How was I?" Kidd asks softly after each take. His face is a study in earnestness. "Did I cover everything? Did I explain it?"

He's so cordial. He's so nice. He stands there on the empty court, practicing his lines between takes. Everyone marvels at his patience, how he can go on, hour after hour, without snapping.

Off to the side, out of the glare, Kidd's wife, Joumana, sits minding their three-year-old son, T.J. The family seems very content. No one from Huffy, the NBA, the Nets or the production crew brings up the fact that a year ago Jason was arrested in Paradise Valley, Ariz., for punching Joumana in the face. Still, everyone is watching the couple, trying to reconcile that night with this one. Joumana and T.J. have been here since midafternoon. At each break Jason calls out to his wife or walks over to her, and the two smile and look perfectly in sync. What does that mean? Maybe plenty, maybe nothing. T.J. runs out to his dad. Already he can imitate Jason's dribble and foul-line stance with astonishing accuracy.

Now it is even later. Most of the gym lights are out. Joumana tries to keep T.J. from interfering in the shoot, but he's the handful that three-year old boys are. He wants to get out there with his daddy, which would mean another blown take, another 10 minutes of everyone's precious time. "Shuush," Joumana says. She holds T.J. back, tries to distract him. "Did you have a nice time at school?" she asks. T.J. wants none of it. He turns and hits her square in the cheek with his right hand. She grabs the hand, her mouth sets, and she says, "Did you have a good time at school today?"

He hits her again. Joumana holds her son's hand tight in hers, stares into his eyes. No one who has seen this says a word. What does it mean? Maybe plenty, maybe nothing. T.J. loses interest and crawls away. Joumana rolls a ball at his butt, and T.J. laughs, and then he stands and starts dribbling like Jason Kidd. On the court his daddy is finishing his sixth and final sign-off for the cameras: "With a little luck and practice -- maybe I'll see you in the pros."

Everyone whoops: It's over. Kidd spends the next few minutes as the perfect host, making contact with all the people in the room, asking what flights they're taking, their plans for the night. One cameraman, a Nets fan, puts out his hand. "Thank you for saving our franchise," he says. But Kidd turns that around too.

"Thanks, guys," he says again and again. "Sorry you had to put up with me."

It began the way it always begins. She was beautiful, and he had to have her. He saw her, and it all became clear: They would get together, and one thing would lead to another. Soon he lost his head a bit and saw the two of them together forever, the ballplayer and the Bud girl. That was what she was then, something she calls a "promotional model," which meant she would show up at Bay Area events wearing less than most other people and push beer in that friendly-but-not-too-friendly way that promotional models learn. He was a 19-year-old and thinking like one, not getting much beyond the fact that, as his best friend, Andre Cornwell, puts it, in the Bay Area in 1992 "she was just it. She was known as the hot thing."

So was he, and that's what made it all so perfect. Jason Kidd was only a freshman at Cal, but he'd been a legend for years. He was the reason that tiny St. Joseph of Notre Dame had won two straight California high school championships, and its crowds had outgrown its gym, and the team had been forced to play in the Oakland Coliseum. He was the reason that Cal basketball suddenly had students camping out overnight for tickets. He'd grown up worshiping Magic Johnson, sitting mesmerized before the TV during Los Angeles Lakers games and then hitting the court to make himself in Magic's image. Now his time was finally coming; he'd be going pro soon, and then he could live what he'd been watching all his life. He would be the game, and she'd be what happened when the game stopped -- the beer commercial come to life -- and that would be that, right?

She hated him. She hated the mention of his name, she hated seeing posters of him in bars, she hated what he represented. At 23, Joumana Samaha had met her share of athletes and had no interest in becoming a cliche. "I didn't want a husband who sleeps around, who thinks the world revolves around him, who's dumb, has no education -- all the stereotypes in one," she says. She hated that Jason sent Andre to talk to her for him, that he invited her to a "party" that ended up being only three other people; she lasted there about five minutes. He was arrogant. "I couldn't get far enough from him," she says.

He won her over. Never was a verb more apt: Kidd, his old friends will tell you, is the most competitive person they've ever met. He made every walk to the street corner a race he had to win. For four years he came at Joumana, even after her suspicions were confirmed by the news, during his rookie year with the Dallas Mavericks, that he had fathered a son out of wedlock; by reports that he had fled the scene of an accident, leaving behind two acquaintances and a wrecked car (he would plead no contest to hit-and-run and speeding charges); by allegations that he had drunkenly hit a woman at a party (due to lack of evidence, no charges were filed). For four years Joumana said no. Finally, in 1996, bored, she agreed to go out with Jason and some friends.

This was his shot. Kidd fashioned himself a winning personality. "He laid it on so thick, just so intelligent and sensitive and meek," Joumana says. "We talked about marriage that night, and he said, 'My goal in life is to be married and have a family.' I ate it up like candy, and then I thought, 'He's laying it on. There's no way.' Every time after, I thought, 'Today I'm going to see his true colors.'"

She didn't. That's because there's no one sweeter than Kidd when he wants to be. He's famous for his acquiescence to the barrage of demands an NBA star faces from fans, autograph hounds, reporters and charities -- and it never comes off as fraudulent, because at that moment of bestowing kindness, no one is more sincere than Kidd. Joumana didn't stand a chance. For their second date he picked the gooiest chick flick he could find, How to Make an American Quilt, and even watched it a few days before so that nothing would take him by surprise. He didn't just notice her shoes; he bought her a pair of boots she liked. He asked if he could hold her hand. "He even took me to Barnes & Noble," she says.

Kidd hears this and laughs. "You don't like to read?" he asks.

"Have we been back since?"

What clinched it for her was meeting his parents, Steve and Anne, middle-class and strong as steel. The father was black and the mom white, but neither carried the bitter defensiveness often seen in mixed-race couples. Steve, then a 32-year employee of TWA, was quiet but strikingly solicitous. Anne, a computer analyst at Bank of America, was firm and suspicious of her son's growing fame. Joumana, convinced that she could read Jason's character in his parents' solidity, allowed herself to fall.

What she didn't think about then, of course, was that neither Steve nor Anne played NBA ball. Nor did Joumana know that being one of the league's best players requires a meanness cultivated like a cherished flower. All great athletes carry the seed of cruelty; it's their job and their passion to beat the other guy, undress his weaknesses, reveal him as a loser in public. How could she know? Kidd's peers speak so lavishly about his unselfishness, his need to put everyone else first, that it's easy to perceive him as the rule's exception, easy to hear his soft voice and see his placidity and miss the fact that, as Nets coach Byron Scott says, "inside he wants to take your heart out." It's not that Joumana didn't see Jason's true colors. He was courting, so she saw only those colors he wanted her to see.

Then, too, there was the flaw that even he didn't know about. How could he? Nearly everyone who matters in the game adores him. Players love how good he makes them look, coaches love how he makes passing contagious and teammates better, general managers love how he instantly turns bad teams into good ones. You've never heard so many macho men speak so openly of love. Kidd is considered the NBA's best point guard, a talent on a par with alltime assists leader John Stockton, as well as a defensive jewel and a rebound hound who will likely end his career trailing only Magic and Oscar Robertson in triple doubles.

"He plays with passion, he plays with love, he's a winner," says Washington Wizards coach Doug Collins. "He's going to win games for you. He transforms a whole team. If I couldn't vote for Michael, I'd vote for Jason for MVP."

"He's one of my favorite players," says former Phoenix Suns coach Danny Ainge. "You look at Jason's fundamentals, they're not great. You look at his shooting, it's not great. The guy just finds ways to win, defensively and offensively. And his greatest asset to an organization, other than his will to win, is that all the players love playing with him."

Yet somehow it all doesn't add up. Despite Kidd's Hall of Fame trajectory, his touch has often been less than magic. As a freshman at Cal he was the biggest name on a team that revolted against coach Lou Campanelli and got him fired. Opinion in the Bay Area is still divided on whether Kidd was a ringleader or a bystander. In Dallas, where he played from 1994 through '96, Kidd feuded with teammate Jimmy Jackson and was traded to Phoenix. Last summer the underachieving Suns dealt him to the Nets for point guard Stephon Marbury. Kidd is on his third NBA team in eight years, too many for someone mentioned in the same breath with Magic and Stockton. He has led a team into the second round of the playoffs only one time, too few for someone whom even Suns general manager Bryan Colangelo calls "a winner." Though Kidd's hustle is unquestioned and his heroics abundant, there's always been an instability about him, a crack in the foundation that, over time and under pressure, has compromised his stature.

At home it was no different. After Jason and Joumana married nearly five years ago, he constantly credited her love with keeping him sane and stable. Each time he took a free throw for the Suns, the cameras zoomed in to show him blowing a kiss to Joumana before the shot. She was a TV reporter and he was a gentle star. Many in Phoenix referred to them as the city's unofficial first couple. At home, though, the tension was so thick, Jason's mother hesitated to visit. "When icicles are around," Anne Kidd says, "it gets a little chilly."

Then the ice storm hit. After the couple spent most of Jan. 18, 2001, arguing, Jason erupted. Just after 5 p.m., Joumana told him not to pick at T.J.'s food, and Jason spit a french fry at her. T.J. stared. Jason then punched the beautiful face he'd chased for so long, and after Joumana's head snapped back and she tasted blood, she ran upstairs to the bedroom. Jason kicked in the door. She locked herself in the bathroom. She had hated him not so long before, and now she knew why.

He has done the unthinkable. Yes, Kidd has instantly transformed the eternally fragile Nets into a tough, selfless, first-place team. Yes, his play has nearly drained the Meadowlands of 25 years of misery. However, his most unexpected impact can be seen on this December night at Madison Square Garden, where the New York Knicks' management absurdly announces its 403rd sellout despite great expanses of empty seats, where a Knicks team plays without cohesion or pride and where, God forbid, the team playing Red Holzman's elegant brand of New York ball hails from across the river. A strange sound echoes through the arena at game's end. "N-E-T-S!" the fans shout. "Nets! Nets! Nets!"

"There's not just one team here anymore," says Scott. "It's not just the Knicks anymore."

It is a perfect rout. The Nets throw in 14 three-pointers, the Nets stampede the Knicks 114-96, the Nets play fun 'n' gun because Kidd makes it possible. His genius reveals itself best on the move; he sees patterns where others see chaos. With New Jersey up 69-64 in the third quarter, Kidd hits a three-pointer, then grabs an outlet pass, takes two steps and finds the streaking Kenyon Martin for an easy layup, leaving Knicks forward Kurt Thomas shaking his head in envy. With New Jersey up 77-69 and only three seconds left on the shot clock, Kidd drives to the basket. He must shoot -- anyone else would shoot -- but as he jumps he sees Kerry Kittles standing alone at the top of the key. At the last second Kidd flings the ball to Kittles, who drops in the killing three. Under Kidd's watchful eye, there's always an extra pass, and each teammate gets at least one moment good enough for the 11 p.m. highlights. Late in the fourth quarter Kidd hits Richard Jefferson with a ridiculous half-court, underhand alley-oop pass, and the Knicks are broken.

"Jason deserves a lot of credit: They're playing together," Knicks guard Allen Houston says of the Nets. "Nobody cares who scores; it's a total team. That's very rare."

Granted, Kidd's brief time in New Jersey has coincided with an injury-free stretch unprecedented for the star-crossed Nets, not to mention that rare moment for an NBA club when no one is playing for a contract and everyone has plenty to prove. Starters Kittles, Martin and Keith Van Horn have come back from major injuries. Still, Kittles says, Kidd's "attitude, his approach to the game, is what really turned things around. He makes me a much better player."

Kidd set the tone on opening night, playing for a half-empty house. Indiana's Jalen Rose erupted for 35 points in the first three quarters, and the Pacers led by 13 in the fourth, but Kidd didn't let the Nets panic. After Rose made two straight jumpers, Kidd said quietly to Scott, "I'll take Rose." Rose scored only one more field goal. Kidd finished with a team-high 10 rebounds, four steals and nine assists, and New Jersey won.

Privately, Kidd had told teammates the night before training camp opened that things would be different this season. After being named one of the Nets' two captains, he stood and spoke as he had never before spoken to a team. "We're going to communicate," Kidd said. "No matter if what we say is good or bad, we have to communicate. If we don't, we'll be in trouble."

A year ago, communicate wasn't even in his vocabulary. "Oh, hell, no," he says. Over Kidd's four-plus years in Phoenix, Ainge and his successor as coach, Scott Skiles, had great success in sharpening Kidd's practice habits but less in making him a great leader. He led by setting an example of energy and tenacity, but as one Suns executive puts it, "Sometimes a team needs direction." As Kidd himself puts it, forcefulness off the court "is not in my blueprint." All his life, his response to any clash with his mother was a stony silence, and while he and his father were best friends, Steve was not one for talking things out. To the moment Steve died, in May 1999, Jason had no idea that his father had a heart problem.

"After I got the call, things began to hit me, like his not being able to get his shoes on," Jason says. "Maybe his feet were swollen. If I'd known that, I would've tried taking him to the doctor right away, but he would've stopped me. He wouldn't tell anybody if he was sick."

It's no shock, then, to hear that Kidd went two months in 1996 without speaking to his last coach in Dallas, Jim Cleamons, or that, at the peak of his 1995-96 feud with Jackson, they played, dressed and traveled together for six weeks without talking. Just before Kidd was traded to Phoenix in December 1996, Jackson says, he sat Kidd down and said, "Jason, I'm not mad at you; I was disappointed because we were good friends. If you had a problem with me, you could've talked to me about it."

A more impartial observer, Popeye Jones, then a Mavericks forward, says of Kidd's tenure in Dallas, "He didn't understand how to lead. He'd let a lot of stuff build up inside him, and sometimes he would explode."

Since the police took him away a year ago, Kidd has been seeing a sports psychologist, Gary Mack, and as he learns how to argue and speak with his wife, he's applied those lessons to his relationships with his friends, his mother, his team. Now he'll pull the volcanic Martin aside to whisper encouragement or to calm him; he'll talk to the rookies instead of ignoring them; he'll call Richard Jefferson on his cell phone from two seats away on the team bus to remind him to play under control. Kidd passes along tips about working the refs in hotel lobbies, about agents, about getting rest. He uses therapy buzzwords such as trust and communication, and if his speech sounds canned at times, there's no doubting that, at 28, Kidd is carrying himself with a lightness that those close to him had never seen.

"He's comfortable with being Jason Kidd off the court," says Jackson, now playing for the Miami Heat. The two spoke warmly before a game in December, and, Jackson says, "I could see it in his eyes. He's not putting the pressure on himself. He's at peace with who he is as a man, and that's the first time I've seen that, period."

This, Kidd says, is why he's playing so well. Although his shooting still hovers at 37%, he has never felt more assertive, more positive in games. "I've learned a lot at home and been able to take what I've learned at home to the court," he says. "My body feels better. My mind's a lot clearer. I feel loose. I'm not aching. All the tension, it built up. I see things better now."

There's a twisted logic at work here, but Kidd and his family and friends all gingerly agree: The best thing that ever happened to Kidd as a husband, to Kidd as a ballplayer, to Kidd as a man, is the ugly fact that he got arrested, endured public humiliation and got shipped out of Phoenix. "At the time I thought there had to be an easier, better way," Joumana says, "but now I look at it and think that's what had to happen. And I'm glad it happened."

Unthinkable. The man hits his wife, and the man, his wife and his new team are happier than they've been in years.

She didn't believe it. Joumana was like anyone else who hears a celebrity apologizing for terrible deeds. She didn't trust him. Here was Jason, calling from the Paradise Valley police station on Jan. 18, 2001, and her first impulse was to go on the attack: Screw you, I did what I had to do, I know you hate me, that's life. But Jason said, "Hold on, slow down, I'm sorry." Then he told Joumana that she was right to call the cops, that he was going to change. Helicopters were hovering over the house; his name would soon be bad news. She was sure this was spin control, someone coaching Jason on what to say. "Who's sitting there with you?" she demanded. "What'd they do in the cop car, drug you?"

She'd seen this act before. They'd been in counseling, off and on, because Kidd's response to any kind of argument was to shut down, go quiet, let Joumana's persistent complaints sink in without response. She would ask him about practice, and he would grunt, turn on the TV and drift away. "He wasn't consistent," Joumana says. "He'd put his mind to it and be this awesome husband, and then all of a sudden he'd be the other extreme. The next day he'd be Awesome Husband again: 'You're right. I'm sorry. You're the priority.' It was a roller coaster where the good times made up for the bad because they were so good. I wanted to think, That's the guy. And this other guy? We can fix it."

It didn't help matters that Kidd is, with everyone, the ultimate point guard. "He tries to please so many people that eventually he starts drowning -- and doesn't know how to deal with it," says Anne Kidd. Before Jason and Joumana got someone to clean their house, in December, he would drop his dirty clothes all over. Now whenever the housekeeper is due, he starts picking up.

"He doesn't want her to think he's a slob," Joumana says. "He tends to take for granted those closest to him. Say, Skiles would poo on him and make him feel crappy. Instead of taking it out on Skiles, he'd come home and take it out on me."

Kidd says he's sure Phoenix traded him not because of his arrest or because the Suns were tired of first-round playoff exits, but because the Phoenix coach "was intimidated by me. The team, in an overall sense, didn't respect him. They respected a player more than they respected a coach, and so there was a threat of, 'If you don't get Jason to believe in it, then the team won't believe in it.' I think he felt threatened."

"I have no idea what that means," Skiles says. Both he and Bryan Colangelo say that in the four years Skiles and Kidd overlapped in Phoenix, they never heard a word of this from Kidd. "It's disappointing," Skiles continues. "I felt we had a good relationship. I was really fond of coaching him, and people in the organization bent over backward to embrace Jason." No, Skiles and Colangelo say, what persuaded them to unload Kidd for Marbury was Marbury's youth (he's four years younger than Kidd) and the fact that the Suns weren't much fun to watch anymore.

Whatever the reason, the ugly spousal-abuse publicity made Kidd easier to cut loose. After Joumana stopped hiding in the bathroom that night, she dialed 911, thought better of it and hung up. The dispatcher called back, and Jason answered. Joumana expected him to lie and say the call had been a mistake, but he handed her the phone and sat down. For a second she thought he was daring her to turn him in; for a second she hesitated. His face showed no defiance. Maybe if T.J. hadn't seen him hit her ... but T.J. copies everything Jason does. He wants to sit how Jason sits. He cries only when someone takes him away from Jason.

Joumana told the 911 operator, in a tape that was quickly made public, "There's just a bad history here. I told him this would be the last time, and he popped me right in the mouth." Asked later if she needed medical attention, Joumana said, "Don't worry about me. This is minor compared to what I usually go through."

Jason and Joumana insist that the assault was an isolated event. He says he's never asked her why she said what she did in the 911 call, but both claim it was her way of upping the ante in their showdown -- "her call card to see if I would play or walk," Jason says.

Joumana prides herself on her frankness, and only when asked about the 911 call is she less than convincing. "That was not intended as in, 'This is nothing compared to fights we've been in in the past,'" she says. "That was not intended at all. This was a sole incident. Yes, right. Yes."

Kathy Redmond, who since 1997 has headed the Colorado-based Coalition Against Violent Athletes, says, "Many times the wife backs down, but the things that come out the first time usually are the truth. The 911 tape perks up my ears because it says there might be a problem. But maybe this is what it took. That could be why he decided to take these steps to get all this help -- the reason for his extraordinary response."

The moment Joumana made the 911 call, Jason says, "I knew she did the right thing. I saw this as a way of getting help and saving my family. Of understanding that I have a great wife and a beautiful son and that they were next to the bottom of my priorities."

Riding in the back of the police car, he says, "as soon as I started thinking about it, and us, my mind was a lot clearer. It was weird. I could see. I felt free. I felt better as a person. I know I did something wrong, and it doesn't sound right, but after everything was done, I knew what was important in life and what came first."

Joumana heard him talking like this on the phone from the police station, and she didn't buy it. It sounded almost too good, and in the days after, she kept expecting him to change back to his "Jekyll-and-Hyde thing," she says. "But he didn't change. That night he remained the same, the next day he remained the same -- I had a restraining order, but he couldn't care less, he wanted to see me. His attorney was begging him to stay in his hotel room, so he had his attorney call me to make sure I didn't leave. I thought, He's for real."

Jason took four games off to devote himself to his family. Suns owner Jerry Colangelo publicly said Jason should take as much time as he needed, although privately, Jason and Joumana say, Bryan Colangelo pressured him to come back. (Bryan responds, "If I was guilty of doing my job, which is monitoring a situation, attempting to determine an outcome while maintaining a competitive product, then I am guilty. But never was there the intent to apply pressure.") Jason calls the Suns' position "two-faced," and Joumana calls the organization "hypocrites." Still, Jason sent a letter of apology to every Suns season-ticket holder.

In his first game back, against the Celtics at the FleetCenter in Boston, Joumana sat in the stands and cried as the boos rained down on her husband. After his first home game she felt both proud and humiliated when he took a microphone at AmericaWest Arena and begged the fans' forgiveness. He was ripped nightly on the news in Phoenix. A fan tossed something at him in Portland. Joumana kept waiting for Jason to erupt, but, he says, "I felt as good as I ever had. I felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off me, and I was doing the right thing, proving to my wife that I loved her."

"It took me a while to catch up to him," Joumana says. "I'm thinking, I did this, I'm such an idiot. It's almost like I wanted him to hate me. But he stayed so humble."

This, in the end, may well be Kidd's greatest achievement. For the first time in his life he stepped outside himself. Growing up in Oakland, he had barely become a teenager before he was living a teenager's most treasured fantasy: The world revolved around him. Recruiters begged for his favors. Agents, women and fans sacrificed all dignity to be near him. His family sacrificed holidays to his basketball schedule. "I wouldn't want to live through it again," Anne Kidd says. "You're never prepared for that. You go to the game to see your child play, and you hear people chanting and you can't even say hello to him because he's so busy. You find he's not your son any longer. You have to let him go. He's not yours."

Most parents learn to live with the loss, and many NBA wives put up with it in a devil's bargain for security and a measure of fame. However, in his pivotal moment -- his marriage was crumbling, he had hit a woman -- Kidd had a flash of insight. "It's not about me anymore," he says. "But when you've heard the opposite for so long, the transition is so hard. You've got to make sacrifices. Some people learn that faster than others, some learn it the hard way."

The court ordered Kidd to undergo counseling for six months. Even now, after that time has passed, he continues to talk to Mack once a week. According to Redmond, it is "extremely rare" for athletes to voluntarily continue counseling. "Usually they don't even complete the six months," she says. Since 1997, Redmond has worked on about 200 cases of violence by athletes, and she says not one other abuser has responded as positively as Kidd has.

"That's why I said it's extraordinary," Redmond says. "The steps he's taken and the fact that he did not blame somebody else, that he didn't say, 'It's nobody's business but ours,' that he got counseling, that she did not suffer any repercussions because of it -- I've never seen that before. Part of me is cynical, and I have to suppress it and say, 'No, no, he's really trying.'"

Could it be so simple? Could Kidd, as he says, actually be "free" of who he was, of who a sports-mad society encouraged him to be? If he has learned to be consistent at home, consistent with his teammates, open, trusting, communicative, will he therefore become the player he always should've been? "Jason has matured so much that he's ready to take on the full scope of what a leader is," Jackson says. Kidd is surrounded by hunger and talent, by teammates tired of losing and ready to sacrifice. Can becoming a better man off the court make him a better man on it?

He's trying. The clock is running out, and Kidd has spent the last 10 minutes taking charge. It's overtime in New Jersey on a night in December, and Kevin Garnett has almost single-handedly dragged the Minnesota Timberwolves out of a deep hole to tie the game at 110 and give the Nets every reason to buckle. As Garnett -- one of those vocal, in-your-face players that Kidd has never been -- wheels inside, Kidd gambles and rips the ball out of his hands. Kidd takes off like a man on fire, dribbles downcourt, jukes Wally Szczerbiak into downtown Newark and lays the ball in. It's his last field goal of a 33-point night, but Kidd has never been just about scoring.

Szczerbiak misses a jumper, and the 6'4" Kidd snakes his way through a forest of taller men to snag the rebound. "How'd he come up with the ball?" Nets general manager Rod Thorn will still wonder a day later. Kidd turns and whips a pass to Martin for the dunk and a four-point lead. Everyone in Continental Airlines Arena, Nets included, is hopping with glee. Not Kidd. The Timberwolves' Anthony Peeler misses a jumper, and Kidd again slithers in for the rebound. Garnett grabs Kidd from behind for the foul, knowing the game is lost, and as he wraps his arms around Kidd, he shrieks in surrender, "S---!"

Kidd doesn't react. With 12 seconds left and a season to play, it's too soon to get excited about anything.

Who could've seen it coming? Who could've read Jason's eyes and delivered the hard words before the assault happened? Maybe his high school coach, Frank Laporte, the man who got Jason ready and wanted nothing in return. That's why it felt so pure, back in 1996, for Jason to keep his longtime promise to the man, pulling up in a big gold Cadillac and handing him the keys; Laporte couldn't speak for crying. So maybe Coach Laporte could've steered Jason straight, except that in '97 bone cancer ate him alive.

Then there was Jason's godfather and his dad's running mate, Big Jim Hadnot, a scout for the Sacramento Kings and, later, the Nets. But prostate cancer got Hadnot in '98, and it was an ugly chase. "I truly think that's what took my dad, seeing his best friend deteriorate," Kidd says. "Mr. Hadnot used to tell Willis Reed about me. He used to send out tape of me when I was in high school. My dad watched him, a seven-foot giant, go down to bones almost. That took the wind out of my dad. He knew my two sisters were fine. I think he felt it was time to go."

Steve and Jason had this routine. Steve, thanks to his TWA job, could fly anywhere for free, so he'd pop into towns where Jason was playing, and they'd stay in the same room, lie on the same bed and snore away the afternoons before games. Steve stayed with Jason during the 1999 playoffs, such as they were; Phoenix got swept by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, and two days later Jason drove his dad to the airport. "I can still see us driving down the street, and I can still see him talking to me: 'Don't worry about this. You'll get them next year,'" Jason says. "I told him we'd be home by the weekend, and he was talking about going horseback riding. It's as clear as day: His getting out of the car, my getting out of the car and giving him a hug, then watching him walk away. It's very weird, like slow motion. That was the last time I saw him alive."

Kidd is sitting on a couch in his family room in Saddle River, N.J. Joumana sits at the kitchen table with her back to him. Christmas is coming, and she's signing and addressing a stack of cards adorned with the family picture. T.J. shoves his Buzz Lightyear doll at Jason, asks him to open the wings so Buzz can fly, then makes his daddy get on the floor to play Pig and Flower. The Kidds' newborn twin girls, Miah and Jazelle, are in bed. Yes, Jason says, he came too close to losing his family. He wonders if things would have whirled so out of control had his dad been alive. "He would've known," Jason says. "He would've said, 'This isn't what you should be doing.' He was my closest comrade. We did everything together. It hurt me that he was gone."

It hurts, too, that Steve never got to see T.J. grow and that the only men Jason ever really cared about impressing won't see him play this season, at his peak. But Christmas and its consolations are coming to the Kidd household, and these holidays will be unlike any others. Jason's sisters will fly in, and for the first time the entire family will be in the same room to open presents. Anne Kidd is coming, too, after a year in which her son has reached out to her as never before. Often she has arrived at work to find a message from Jason. "I'm thrilled," Anne says. "I've never enjoyed my trips back to see them as much as I have this year. I can't wait."

Jason and Joumana still argue. But, Joumana says, he is communicating so well that the arguments never last long, and the silences melt away. She doesn't want to jinx it, but she thinks she might have finally grabbed the brass ring. "This is how life is supposed to be," she says. "You're supposed to be happy, communicate, be best friends, soul mates. I almost want to go around saving marriages: 'Are you sure? Have you tried everything?'"

Jason won't go that far. He's still "under construction," he says. He's happy, the Nets are in first place, and when he's home, T.J. can't go to sleep without Jason lying next to him. T.J. hasn't started snoring yet, but that will come, the father and son drifting off together. Jason knows: He did serious damage, but some things remain. The boy still needs him by his side to sleep. His eyes still shine with the certainty that Daddy is the greatest man in the world.

Issue date: January 28, 2002