"Have you heard about this Jason Kidd ... kid?"

I grew up roughly 90 miles away from Jason Kidd's high school: St. Joseph Notre Dame High. It's in Alameda, Calif., an hour and a half away from my parents' house, but it might as well have been in my backyard when Kidd was beginning his legend as a basketball wunderkind. High school basketball tournaments and AAU tournaments would finish, and the murmurs about this big point guard with lightning fast reflexes would pour out from the gyms. He was too big to defend with a quick guy and too quick to defend with a big guy.

A lot of NBA players are high school legends in their own high school circle. They're the best of the best from their talent pool and beat the odds by continuing their hard work and honing their craft to get to the NBA. But being a high school legend in the Oakland area is a bit different. It's not the Mecca of basketball, but it's legitimate enough to weed out those who don't belong with the elite. To dominate all competition in that particular basketball circle means you're a special player.

That's what Kidd was: he was a special basketball player. 

Kidd cut his teeth against guys like Gary Payton, Demetrius Mitchell, Brian Shaw and Antonio Davis among others as he learned how to play the game of basketball. Not only did he learn how to play the game, but he learned how to compete against top-level talent at a young age. If he could compete with these guys as a younger player, what was he going to become as he aged and matured both mentally and physically?

The answer is he became a problem for opposing players.

The legend grew monthly.

"He's grown two inches since last month and is going to be the size of Magic Johnson when it's all said and done."

"He has bear traps for hands and will coerce you into handing the ball to him with his steely glare."

"He's psychic and can see the future. He'll read your palm as he reads your defense. Just ask him what the lottery numbers are going to be when you're out there."

By the time that Kidd was deciding to attend the University of California, Berkeley, you would have expected a creature of Greek mythology to be running the fast break. There wasn't a lot that you could do against him except try to build a defensive wall and hope his shaky jumper was shaking that day. But even then, he worked so well off the ball that it allowed him to work his way into the interior, where his body control was astounding.

If you were bold enough to put a full-court press against his team, you needed to be sure he was denied the ball. In the blink of an eye and the turn of the shoulder, he'd bump your defenders out of the way, sprint easily up the court past everybody and find himself with a layup. Jason Kidd in high school didn't have to make many flashy passes or break you down with tricky moves off the bounce. He was just bigger and better than everybody put in front of him, so things almost looked too easy for him.

Kidd had weaknesses in his game, but he rarely let you take advantage of them. He was a foreseer on the court in a way that you just couldn't believe. He was one of the rare special point guards who could steal the air in your lungs with the flick of his fingertips to deliver a bounce pass that you couldn't see coming. A basketball is 9.39 inches wide. If he had a window of 9.4 inches to throw it through with a bounce pass or just by whipping it through the air, he would deliver it almost every time. 

He went on to be a star at UC Berkeley for two years before jumping to the NBA. He was selected with the second overall pick by the Dallas Mavericks between Glenn Robinson (first to the Milwaukee Bucks) and Grant Hill (third to the Detroit Pistons). Despite horrendous shooting numbers as a rookie, his overall play and consistent threat of being on the nightly triple-double watch helped him win Co-Rookie of the Year honors with Hill.

Kidd put on a show with his ability to beat some of the best athletes in the world down the court, only to deliver a pass that would have required more than two eyes to even know it was possible to throw. He crashed the boards as well as most forwards, he set up teammates with selfish abandon, and he picked your pocket before you even knew he was there. 

He struggled to make shots, but it never kept him from having an impact on the game. He set the bar and gave hope for all of those guards who can do everything except shoot. And even that was something that he learned to do with above-average success later in his career as his motor slowed but his competitive spirit stayed at full speed. 

Jason Kidd will go down as one of the greatest point guards to ever play this game, which most people have heard about him being for a very long time.