Top 50 Cal Pros: No. 3 - Jason Kidd, Playmaker Extraordinaire

Why we ranked him here: Selected No. 2 in the 1994 NBA draft by Dallas, Kidd became Cal’s greatest pro, the best the Bay Area has produced since Bill Russell. The 6-foot-4 point guard shared Rookie of the Year honors with Grant Hill in 1994-95, averaging 11.7 points and 7.7 assists. He went on to become a 10-time All-Star, a five-time first-team All-NBA selection and a nine-time choice on the All-Defensive team, including four seasons on the first unit. He finished among the top-10 in MVP voting five times and was runner-up (behind Tim Duncan) in 2002. A passer with flair perhaps second only to Magic Johnson, Kidd led the NBA in assists four times and averaged at least 9 per game 13 times. A poor perimeter shooter when he turned pro, Kidd developed that aspect of his game and had the third-most career 3-pointers in league history with 1,988 when he retired in 2013 after 19 seasons. Kidd played in the postseason his final 17 seasons, but mostly was sent home disappointed. His 2002 Nets team reached the Finals before being swept by the Lakers. They made it back the next season but lost in six games to the Spurs. At age 38, Kidd finally got his NBA title in 2011 with Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavericks, beating LeBron James and the Miami Heat in six games. Kidd’s career averages: 12.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, 8.7 assists, 1.9 steals. He had a career-high 25 assists for Dallas in a February 1996 win over Utah. His 12,091 career assists rank third all-time as do his 2,684 career steals. Only five players were on the court in an NBA game more than his 50,111 career minutes. His 107 triple-doubles are the sixth-most in NBA history. Kidd played for U.S. national teams that were 46-0 in FIBA or FIBA Americas competition and won gold medals at the 2000 Sydney and 2008 Beijing Olympics. He was voted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2018 in his first year of eligibility and also is a member of the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame. In 2021, Kidd was one of 75 players named to the NBA's 75th anniversary team.

At Cal: Kidd already was a household name in the Bay Area when he signed with the Bears. A McDonald’s All-American at St. Joseph High in nearby Alameda, he delivered a spectacular debut season to earn USBWA Freshman of the Year honors. He averaged 13.0 points, 7.7 assists, 4.9 rebounds and an NCAA-best 3.8 steals for the season before hiking those numbers to 16.8 points, 10.3 assists, 6.8 rebounds and 4.3 steals in the NCAA tournament, where the Bears upset LSU and two-time reigning national champion Duke to reach the Sweet 16. As a sophomore, he was the Pac-10 Player of Year and a consensus All-American, producing 16.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, an NCAA-leading 9.1 assists and 3.1 steals, including a conference-record four triple-doubles. The Bears couldn’t duplicate their 1993 run in the NCAA tournament, losing to Wisconsin-Green Bay in Kidd’s final game before he entered the NBA draft. Kidd had 18 assists in a game vs. Stanford and set Cal’s career steals record in just two seasons. Cal retired his jersey No. 5 in 2004 and Kidd was inducted into the Cal Athletic Hall of Fame in 2017. In 2016, he donated $1 million to Cal to establish a basketball scholarship.

Other: Kidd was named head coach of the Brooklyn Nets for the 2013-14 season, his first after retiring as a player. After going 44-38 he jumped to the same job with the Milwaukee Bucks, who traded two draft picks for his rights. Kidd was fired midway through his fourth season with a record of 139-152. He just completed his fourth season as coach of the Mavericks, whom he has directed to a record of 179-149 with a spot in the 2024 NBA Finals. Kidd’s three coaching stints add up to a record of 362-339. In April of this year, Kidd became a partial owner of the English Premier League soccer club Everton.