Jason Kidd to the Mavs

No joke, another blockbuster deal has been completed in the NBA (not really surprising that there are now more Eastern teams unloading big name players while the West is accumulating them). This time it was New Jersey trading All-Star starter Jason Kidd to the Mavs. The other parts of the deal included forward Malik Allen (NJN) in exchange for the Mavs' Devin Harris, Jerry Stackhouse, Desagana Diop, Devean George and Maurice Ager as players as well as the Mavs' 1st rounder for this upcoming draft, a future #1 pick in 2010 and the league max $3 million in cash. There was also a side deal in the works between the 2 teams that sent Antoine Wright for a 2nd round pick.

Now onto the analysis of the deal. Jason Kidd has clearly still been putting up huge numbers as a Net. On the Mavs, he instantly improves them in terms of gameplay. He's been an 1st team all-NBA defender in his career and he's also still one of the best distributing PG's in the game on a team that's still full of offensive talent. The main knock on the Mavs last season (even though they won 67 games) was their team-play. They were one of the worst assisting teams in the league. Even though they scored a ton, it was mostly one-on-one stuff. With Kidd, the Mavs become an elite power again (not that they weren't a top 5-10 team before the trade. Kidd gives the Mavs that "Big Three" that many teams have fallen in love with. With Dirk, Josh Howard and Kidd, the Mavs perhaps have the most balanced trio in the league. Dirk is a dominant inside and outside scorer, Kidd is that great floor general and Howard does all the little things at an All-Star level. This team lost some depth in the trade, but still became a top 2-3 team in making the deal. For New Jersey, they were still in the playoff race, but you have to pull the trigger on a deal like this. They were gonna unload Vince Carter's massive contract, but Vince wasn't the one being a malcontent. That honor goes to Kidd. They got a young point guard in Devin Harris, who still hasn't seen his best years yet and got some depth as well (Stackhouse is reportedly going to be bought out right away, perhaps to rejoin the Mavs) and got an extra pick in this year's deeeep draft pool. I can't really say either team lost in this trade.

As far as fantasy goes, it's a bit different of a story. The trade of Kidd originally would have been believed to have given the reigns to sophomore guard Marcus Williams. Not the case now with a guy like Devin Harris coming in. Harris is going to get all the minutes he can handle at point guard for New Jersey and his owners will reap the benefits. If an owner is dumb enough to try to trade him now, take him (for top 40 value anyways). The other Mavs that got traded over to New Jersey (Ager, Diop, George) I can't see producing anymore than they have all season, which is not enough to get on the deepest fantasy rosters. I will say that Ager's a young talent and New Jersey may choose to evaluate him before the season is over, or they could just ship him to the D-League. For Kidd, his scoring has been sketchy all season at best, but I would expect him to get his FG% up at least a little (from 37%) since there's no need to shoot bad shots with options like Terry, Dirk and Howard in front of him. Antoine Wright will probably be a 8th man bench player for the Mavs so take that anyway you want to.

One last interesting point to note. Now that Kidd's been traded out West, his All-Star spot is an interesting point of interest. In the East, he got more votes than AI did for a starting spot so it'll be interesting to see if he takes AI's starting spot and if he doesn't, someone on that bench (probably David West or Brandon Roy) is going to be very disappointed in getting his spot taken by the new Mavs guard. In the East, I HOPE David Stern gets this pick correct by giving Jose Calderon a spot on the team, but if he gives it to Ray Allen I would understand considering Kevin Garnett's already been scratched from the game. Boston deserves to have 2 representatives considering their accomplishments, but give Jose Calderon some love, PLEASE!