NO KIDD-ING AROUND

His name resides on the bottom line of Team USA's statistical sheet for the FIBA Americas basketball tournament. Then again, Jason Kidd attempted just 10 shots in 10 games at the recently completed Olympic qualifying event at Las Vegas.

"I got my quota - a shot a game,'' Kidd said after Team USA routed Argentina 118-81 Sunday in the gold-medal game.

Kidd also helped guide his young U.S. teammates into the 2008 Beijing Olympics, providing just what the club needed - floor leadership, experience and a tangible example of the selfless way the game should be played.

Asked who should have been chosen MVP of the two-week tournament, teammate Carmelo Anthony suggested, "Probably J-Kidd.''

Yeah, the 34-year-old from Oakland, who averaged a mere 1.8 points for a U.S. team that scored 116.7 per game.

"Jason was terrific, man,'' said sharpshooter Michael Redd. "He just played awesome basketball. He was the true engine to our team, the maestro. He got after people and led our team defensively. He was wonderful to have as a teammate.''

The point guard who could dominate play without even taking a shot.

"As much as people could say, 'He doesn't score, he doesn't shoot,' my opponent knows that, too,'' Kidd noted. "That makes it a little bit harder, but that's the challenge. That's the fun part.''

Winning is the fun part for Kidd, now 38-0 in international games with Team USA. His contribution in Las Vegas was more than his 4.6 assists per game in just 16 minutes on the floor, more than his 9.20 assist-to-turnover ratio, twice what anyone else in the tournament assembled.

He imposed his will on teammates, persuading them to focus on just one goal. After arriving at training camp last month, Kidd immediately announced, "I didn't come here to lose.''

The owner of a gold medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Kidd was not part of the team in 2004 at Athens, where Team USA failed to win the gold medal for the first time since NBA players became eligible in 1992.

"Being at home, watching it on TV, knowing we were a lot better than we played, I thought maybe I could help,'' Kidd said. "It wasn't going to be me scoring a lot of points, just getting guys to compete every minute of every game.''

The U.S. squad won by an average margin of nearly 40 points, and addressed myriad issues along the way.

"Hopefully, we have changed some things,'' Kidd said. "There were a lot of question marks when you talked about Team USA ... the inconsistent outside shot ... the defense. Would they be able to guard the pick and roll? Would they be able to talk?

"You had some of the great scoring leaders - Kobe (Bryant), LeBron (James), 'Melo (Carmelo Anthony) - and these guys all passed the ball as much as they scored. Everybody was cheering for one another.''

Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski said Bryant, James, Anthony and Kidd form the core group of the team that will compete in Beijing. Beyond that, it's likely the roster will be tweaked a bit, starting with the addition of Dwyane Wade, who sat out the FIBA Americas event becaue of an injury.

But the basic formula was a good fit for international ball. Team USA shot 47 percent from the international 3-point line, which is closer to the basket than the one used by the NBA.

"Our goal is to take the model of what we just accomplished in these 10 games and duplicate it,'' Kidd said. "It's about us, about continually playing the right way. When we come off the bench, keep that wave of pressure coming.''

Still, Kidd quickly acknowledged the world has learned how to play the game since the first "Dream Team'' prompted awe-struck opponents at the 1992 Barcelona Games to seek autographs and photos with the famous NBA stars.

"We'll never have that '92 fear factor again, but I think this is pretty close to that team in talent,'' Kidd said. "I'm excited. Like I told Carmelo, there's nothing better than to hear that national anthem played.

JASON KIDD - A Pure PG

What makes point guard Jason Kidd so unique is a bit mystical, or musical, depending on your perspective.

"I can't explain it to you," forward LeBron James says. "I don't know what Jason does, I don't know how he does it."

"He sees things," guard Dwyane Wade says of Kidd's sixth sense. "When you're on the court and you see him do some of the things he does it just doesn't make sense."

Last month at a practice in Las Vegas, U.S. Olympic men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski compared Kidd to a jazz pianist who makes the rhythm section around him better. "It's his mind, his instincts, and his feel," Krzyzewski says.

It may surprise some NBA fans that Kidd, at 35 is the oldest member of the 12-man Olympic team, but being the best isn't necessarily about stats, quickness, age or outside perception. What makes Kidd so important to success in Beijing is "crazy, deeper stuff," Krzyzewski says.

"Being the best means that you have the ability to have the biggest impact in the creation of an environment to win, and Jason has that," Krzyzewski says. "With the experience of that many years in the NBA and internationally, coupled with the passion to continue to do it, teamed up with talent around him, I don't think anyone on our team has a better equation."

HIGH BASKETBALL IQ

Inside Kidd's head, there must be algorithms of passing angles and variables of equations burned into his synapses. "His mind is his best talent," Krzyzewski says. "And his ability to instinctively react to situations on the court is at the highest level, as high as anyone who has ever played the game."

Kidd defines instinct as "being able to be creative in a spilt second." When an opponent takes a shot and Kidd's team gets the rebound, he already has analyzed the situation and processed where his teammates will be as well as the defenders before they even know where they will be.

"When somebody shoots, I take a picture of where everyone is out on the court and then go from there with my whole thought process," Kidd says. "There's maybe 100 things I'm going through, a checklist that all happens in two seconds. First is to get the ball, second is, where is the defender? Where are my teammates? Is my teammate tired? If I throw it too far will he quit on me? What type of pass is called for? Is it a bounce pass? Is it a chest pass? If all that isn't there, then what play are we going to run?

"That answer comes where you're probing and trying to find something and that's where your creativity and daring come in because maybe you're going to do something that most people would never think about doing. It becomes a chess match, not with the opponent but with yourself because you're trying to figure out what's the right thing to do in that split second."

Playing with Kidd has been an adjustment, in a good way, for the U.S. stars. "We don't play with point guards like him," Wade says. "I've never played with point guards like him."

"He just sees the game differently," Bryant says. "He grew up being a passer, understanding the angles. He makes very quick reads, very quick decisions. It's a different role for me and makes the game easier. Some of the shots you get you tend to be uncomfortable with because they're so damn easy. You're used to having guys on your arm all the time. With Jason, you get wide-open looks. He puts the ball right on the money."

During shooting drills last summer, Kidd turned to Carmelo Anthony and asked, "Where do you want the ball?"

Anthony, not quite sure what Kidd meant, gave him a puzzled look. "What do you mean?"
Kidd smiled and answered, "when I pass it to, so you can shoot it in rythm." Kidd thinks about things and sees things that other players don't.

THE TEAM LEADER

Though the "crazy, deeper stuff" defines Kidd's game, so too does this: 44-0, his record competing at the senior international level. At the 2000 Olympics, he helped the USA win gold.

During Olympic qualifying last summer, he took only 10 shots in 10 games but was named USA Basketball's Male Athlete of the Year, leading the team to a 39.5 average margin of victory.

"What's fabulous for our team is if you put Kobe, Carmelo and LeBron in the game, you need a point guard who's really just looking to facilitate and that's what Jason does," says assistant coach Jim Boeheim. "Other great point guards have a scoring portion of their game, some of them have it as a large portion of their game, whereas Jason never needs to take a shot to dominate a game."

This approach fits the team-oriented aspect of the international game, with the emphasis on passing and selfless play. "The next level is for them to get on me to shoot the ball because they've become passers and it becomes contagious and that's the fun part," Kidd says.

Because of the respect that teammates have for Kidd, he is accepted as their leader. "Players today as good as they are and as much publicity as they get and the egos they obviously have because they're LeBron, Kobe, Carmelo, it's important that they have someone they can look up to. Those guys don't look up to too many people, but they look up to Jason" Boeheim says.