Days after the Daily News’ Frank Isola claimed the Nets were interest in swapping Vince Carter for Memphis’ Pau Gasol, the Chicago Tribune’s Sam Smith — who recommends Da Bulls making a run at Utah’s AK-47 — reports that Jersey’s other icon with domestic problems might be available.
A general manager recently contacted New Jersey about rumors the team might trade Vince Carter, who can opt out of his contract after this season. The Nets asked him if there was interest in Jason Kidd.
And this was before the tabloid frenzy of divorce reports last week when Kidd, previously charged with spousal abuse, accused his wife of abuse. Her filing is due this week.
Kidd is part of the Nets’ three-star circus with Carter in messy public divorce proceedings and Richard Jefferson answering Internet accusations about his personal life and lashing out at reporters last week over rumors of a fight with teammates.
The game of basketball becomes equally curious for the Nets, hanging on in the miserable Atlantic, virtually tied for first though they’re four games below .500. They’re going nowhere with center Nenad Krstic out for the season, internal talk of poor team chemistry and as a lame-duck franchise headed for Brooklyn.
Perhaps now is a perfect time to get something for Kidd, and for a few more losses to assure a lottery pick in a good draft. Kidd, who will turn 34 in March, could be a difference-maker out West.
Though the Newark Star-Ledger’s Dave D’Allessandro had previously expressed his distaste for having to cover the Jason/Joumana soap opera, he’s managing to do so just the same.
The divorce complaint that was filed Jan. 9 gave only a hint of how Joumana Kidd’s behavior affected the team at large. The six-page document states that his wife had become “increasingly controlling and manipulative,” causing her husband “great embarrassment,” and that she has “increasingly harassed (Kidd’s) employer, trainer, friends and family.”
And, in perhaps the most provocative charge of all, the complaint states that “she has had trackers/homing devices put on all (of Kidd’s) cars and computers in order to track his whereabouts at all times.”
According to various members of the Nets’ organization, who requested anonymity because of the divorce proceedings are ongoing, these surveillance efforts became more than just a wife-tracks-husband issue. They claim that since November, there had been very strong suspicions on the part of another Nets player that he, too, was being tailed by a covert operative trying to compile information of Kidd’s social habits, and that the player also believed that Joumana Kidd had spread salacious rumors of his personal life throughout the NBA community.
Though it’s pretty hard to take Walt Frazier seriously when he insists that Stephon Marbury is “having his finest season,” as Clyde opined during today’s Kings/Knicks tilt at MSG, the fashion plate is not without his redeeming moments. As Jared Jefferies airballed a three-point attempt in the 3rd quarter — a shot that missed the rim by nearly two feet — Mike Breem noted that Jefferies had been left unattended.
Deadpanned Frazier, “there’s a reason he’s wide open”.
I’m feeling a little guilty about mocking the good people of Sioux Falls for their reluctance to check out Mouhamed Saer Sene this afternoon. As dead as the Rimrockers/Stampede ambience might be, there apears to be an even smaller crowd watching the Hawks host the Knicks at Phillips Arena today.