ShareThisClearly the Denver Nuggets could use Jason Kidd. Any team could, including the one Kidd plays for, New Jersey. The Nets used him to get to the NBA Finals twice.But it would seem that is pretty much over with, Kidd again insisting he deserves better and the Nets shrugging that they will do what they can.Not that anyone should hold his breath because Kidd and the Nets slap each other around like this from time to time without anything changing, except that Kidd sulks, the Nets lose and management sighs.But, for the sake of something other than Tom Brady to think about, let's think about Kidd on the Nuggets.And this is what I think. Kidd on the Nuggets puts the Nuggets into the NBA Finals.It makes so much sense that, whether the Nuggets have talked to the Nets or not, they should.I still have Rod Thorn's phone number, left over from when he explained to me those many years ago that he had no choice but to draft Michael Jordan for the Bulls, what with Akeem Olajuwon and Sam Bowie already gone.And Kiki Vandeweghe, the tinker who redid the Nuggets, helps out Thorn now and should be easy to reach. I'll gladly dial either number.All the Nuggets really have to do is want to do it.Rumors are as unreliable as they are persistent. But if Kidd is out there, the Nuggets should be out there, too.If there is any chance at all of making it happen, the money should not matter (a big luxury tax bite, for sure, $19.7 million this season and $21.3 million next) because the Nuggets have the money.What they do not have is a perpetually open window, closing little by little. Other than Carmelo Anthony and the ailing Nene, the Nuggets' mainstays are as long in the tooth as their shorts.And in a season in which the best team in the West is New Orleans, opportunity is not only knocking, it is shouting through a bullhorn.The Nuggets are not a team with a future, merely a next spring. Allen Iverson, Marcus Camby and Kenyon Martin are generally productive, if not as reliable as their reputations once assured.They are a bit beyond their time, with more yesterdays than tomorrows. So is Kidd, for that matter, to be 35 in March.For the Nuggets, Kidd is the answer, more so than is Iverson The Answer because Kidd does what the Nuggets need most. He gives direction.Kidd is the hub of the wheel, the nail for the picture, the cup for the coffee, the string for the kite. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.As a skilled and total point guard -- not like the stand-in, make-do, limited Anthony Carter there now -- Kidd plays with vision and, to use George Karl's phrase, passion and presence.What the erratic Nuggets lack most -- plus another solid rebounder -- is someone to sort the options, make the choice, run the play, guide the effort.Kidd would free up Iverson and Anthony to coexist easily rather than haphazardly, which is pretty much how they share things now.Left up to each one, and usually first to Iverson, the Nuggets get from their two stars a rather random collaboration, Iverson squirming and bumping in his amazing way until he needs a breath.Anthony then gets his moments to dribble drive or spot up or fly to the basket, while the rest of the Nuggets take what debris might come their way.The extraordinary talent of the two makes it work well enough to hang around the edges of authority, but it is clear the Nuggets will never take the next step as they are.Kidd has made every team he ever joined better. As a rookie in Dallas, he boosted the Mavs by 23 wins from the season before. Traded in the middle of a season to Phoenix, he changed a team losing two and winning one to a team winning two and losing one.By the next season, Kidd had improved the Suns by 16 victories, and in his first season in New Jersey he made the Nets 26 wins better, plus he had them in the NBA Finals the next two years.The Nuggets need a true point guard, and it is not impossible that the last good one they had, Andre Miller, who went to the 76ers in the Iverson deal, could be brought back.Miller would be fine, but Kidd would be great.(Contact Bernie Lincicome at lincicomeb@RockyMountainNews.com.)(Bernie Lincicome writes for the Rocky Mountain News at www.rockymountainnews.com.)
Kidd might be Nuggets' ticket to Finals
Submitted by SHNS on Wed, 01/30/2008 - 14:17
Paying taxes unites us. It also divides us. People can pay five and even six times more in state and local taxes than other folks in similar circumstances making similar incomes.
Who's got your number?
In one of the fastest-growing forms of identity theft, crooks are stealing tax refunds by swiping personal information and using it to trick the Internal Revenue Service.
