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Olympics Xing
Xing (pronounced shing or sing) means journey in Chinese — fitting for this blog, which is all about the journey of the U.S. men's basketball team and N&O staff writer Luciana Chavez at the 2008 Beijing Games. She is covering her first Olympics and making her first trip to China. Check in here for Olympic news and for Luci's impressions getting to and being at the Games.
Kidd has non-basketball plans
Submitted by lchavez on 08/23/2008 - 06:32
BEIJING — USA guard Jason Kidd has endured all the old-man jokes he can stomach here with a young USA team that is now 17 hours away from winning the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics.
Probably. Maybe. Most likely.
Kidd still is waiting on that contract extension with the Dallas Mavericks. At 35, having not led the Mavs to the promised land in the 2008 NBA playoffs, and starting but playing second fiddle to youngsters Chris Paul and Deron Williams in Beijing, Kidd knows his NBA glory days are numbered.
Kidd's impact on this team has been subtle and mostly behind the scenes being a sounding board for Paul and Williams. His biggest contribution came Friday night when he settled down the U.S. team against Argentina's zone defense in the middle quarters as the U.S. won by 20 and advanced to the gold-medal game.
On Saturday, Kidd was looking ahead and talking about a possible career working with Las Vegas casino magnate Steve Wynn, the same guy who put Team USA up at the Wynn Las Vegas whenever it came to town the past three summers. That's how the two met, when Kidd joined the U.S. team at the FIBA Americas tournament held in Vegas last summer.
Audios:
Kidd talks about working with Wynn
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