There are several teams that have expressed interest in signing Jason Kidd to a multi-year contract. Kelly Dwyer over at yahoo wrote an interesting article asking "Why do teams want Jason Kidd?" One of the bigger issues he tackled was Jason's age and how he is more or less in the twilight seasons of his solid career.

Coming into last season,  his age was potential for statistical decline worried me. I decided to take a more "prudent" route and was probably overly cautious about Kidd, ending up acting like a single malt scotch  (neat of course) an AA meeting. I was concerned that I was not going to get the "bang for my buck" in terms of the rounds he was being projected at.

Ironically, Kidd decided to bounce back and became fantasy relevant - and with a vengeance at that. He wound up finishing the year at 13th (9-cat) and 12th (8-cat) on GMTR's Player Rater. He beat out the likes of Deron Williams (42) and Chauncey Billups (23) in the 9-cat filter. As early as December, last year, I was aghast at how well his ratings were averaging. So I did a Homer Simpson, smacked myself on the forehead and said his proverbial "Doh!" out loud. That was not exactly what I was expecting from the 36-year old PG.

While many other people are wondering where J-Kidd will end up playing, I am trying to detach myself from being too obsessed on speculating on the impact of his playing environment versus the issue of his age. Admittedly, I would prefer to see him play for Mike D'Antoni and the Knicks. On the other hand the fantasy perception that he will "flourish" in Coach D's offense oriented system, is something that I consider to be overrated. Will he be a better fantasy player in NYC? Yes, he probably will. But the differences in the improvement in his stats will be marginal in my opinion. As I said the bigger issue surrounding Kidd is his age. He really is no longer the solid fantasy guard we once depended on him to be. Then why did his fantasy ranking actually improve last season? Where did his value come from?

Let's take a quick look. Well for starters, he was third in the league in STEALS, which by the way I personally consider to be one of the more difficult to accumulate. That is a premium when it comes to those ranking boards out there. Next, he improved the number of turnovers he committed per game (meaning he made less, of course). He reduced his 07-08 average of 3.3 per game (across time in bot Dallas and New Jersey) to 2.3 a game last season. His assists dropped, but were still respectable enough to keep him in the Top10 in that category. His FG% improvement was marginal. The same goes with his three-point shooting. So the bottom line source of his ranking is his steal-to-turnover and assist-to-turnover ratios. Neither of those filters matter as much in the head to head format, if you are employing a small ball strategy and intend to punt the turnovers category.

So by all accounts so far, even if you do downgrade expectations - by not expecting an upside and are open to slight declines - and expect a performance close to what he did last season; Jason Kidd should be drafted somewhere in the late second round to early third. A conservative drafter would still shout "Are you kidding me?!?" So if you are the type of drafter who is truly afraid Kidd will go all coronary (more like ACL) on your fantasy season, then you and I are on the same boat at this point. I feel like I am back to square one with this guy. The age issue obviously did not improve, in fact it moved along the "I'm not too happy" track a notch further along. The conundrum I am in is that I cannot seem to justify an awesome upside perspective for the guy to properly offset his risk factor. Yes, even if he does end up playing for the Knicks and D'Antoni.

If you really want to stay away from Kidd this season, but still wish you had on your team at least some of the goods the guy has to offer. Then allow me to present to you the "Jason Kidd Alternative..."

Now while Rajon Rondo, of the Boston Celtics, may not be able to light it up from beyond the arc as well as Jason Kidd; he will provide you better shooting from the field than Kidd. He is YOUNG! - still in his twenties, and even has the outlook that he still will be able to improve this coming season. Let's take a quick look at some of the stats you may have wanted him (Kidd) for and see how Rondo can help fill up your team's needs this season.

Kidd averaged 8.7 APG, while Rondo dished 8.2 dimes a night = (-0.5). Kidd averaged 2.0 SPG, while Rondo averaged 1.9 pockets picked = (-0.1). In the boards department the discrepancy gets to be a bit bigger; Kidd did 6.2, while Rondo did 5.2 (which by the way is still on the high side as far as PGs go). Turnovers give Rondo a disadvantage of 0.3, as he average 2.6 TOs/G compared to Kidd's 2.3.

While the substitution nor the sublimation isn't a perfect fit, Rondo has the ability to offset those "shortcomings" by being younger and by having a better upside. So, if you want to stay away from drafting Kidd, then you may want to consider picking up Rondo in his stead at the draft position you had Jason at in the first place.

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