I was going through NBA.com and i found this interview/story about Jason Kidd.
Now, I know it is very obvious that a team's veteran leader and captain will always act happy and positive, and to a lot of people this is a PR stunt. Every part of me wants to think this is absolute bull, but for some reason I read it and went with it. I'll provide a link to the piece below, and offer a brief description that skips over the story filling crap material NBA writers always include. I won't write much on the story about Lin, but i will provide the link to it aswell.
Jason quickly touches over the end of last year, saying he felt the team was talented enough to make a deep playoff run, and that they simply ran into a hot team at the wrong time for Dallas. Kidd talks about how he was happy with everything Cuban and Donnie Nelson did to build a contender.
Kidd continues to say that the summer's obvious and main goal was to bring back Dirk Nowitzki. He touches on the new team that was brought in, namely the two new centers. The last thing he said about Dallas was that he likes the team and is happy to go forward. He still really believes Dallas can turn heads this year and make a playoff run.
The rest of the interview is about the Heat's new team. Kidd defends LeBron in two ways, saying that it is normal for a player to try to get on the best team possible, and that a player's legacy needs to be spoken of after their career is over, not halfway there. Kidd also gives the 3 credit for organizing the plan and playing together. Despite the compliment Kidd doesn't think they're "The team to beat" next year as the Lakers are still number one on his radar.
Like i said earlier, this is easy to just look over and think "Well of course Kidd would say this," but something, I don't know what, makes me believe it. The past few years i have been happy about Dallas, but in a way bracing myself for disappointment. For some reason this year is different.
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About Lin, this piece was written by Adena Andrews of NBA.com.
I won't go much into it, but the highlights of it are that Lin has already wow'ed many important people at the summer League. One of them, being the all important Marc Cuban, displayed by this quote found in the report.
"He is deceptively quick, a sharp shooter and he's got a great basketball IQ," Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said, "I haven't administered any test or talked in depth with him to test his other IQ."
I didn't think much of him at first, but it never hurts to have more young talent competing for the few spots. If anything, this can provide a challenge for Jones and Roddy, making them up their game to earn their spots on the roster.