{"id":725372,"date":"2026-05-04T10:45:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T10:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/725372\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T10:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T10:45:17","slug":"jason-kidd-recalls-how-gary-payton-motivated-him-the-first-time-they-met-youre-pretty-good-but-id-kill-you-all-day-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/725372\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Kidd recalls how Gary Payton motivated him the first time they met: “You’re pretty good, but I’d kill you all day long”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jason Kidd\u00a0<\/a>credits what he became as a player to fellow Hall of Famer\u00a0Gary Payton<\/a>, who took him under his wing early in his basketball journey.<\/p>\n

Both from the same neighborhood in Oakland, California, J-Kidd met “The Glove” when he was 14 years old, and Payton was already a collegiate star at Oregon State. Recognizing his potential early, Payton took an active role in helping shape his game, something Kidd still appreciates to this day.<\/p>\n

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In a recent LinkedIn post, the 53-year-old Kidd, now the coach of the Dallas Mavericks<\/a>, spoke about the significant role that Payton played in his development as a player, including the harsh words that the Seattle SuperSonics legend said to him when they first met.<\/p>\n

“Gary’s first words to me were ‘You’re pretty good, but I’d kill you all day long,'”\u00a0Kidd\u00a0recalled<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“He took me under his wing on the Oakland courts. He told me what I was doing right. He told me what I was doing wrong. He pushed me when I needed pushing. He set the bar for toughness and taught me what it meant to work hard,”the one-time NBA champion player continued.<\/p>\n

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Road to a legendary career<\/p>\n

What Kidd learned from Payton prepared him well for what turned out to be a legendary career, widely considered one of the best point guards in NBA history, alongside his mentor.<\/p>\n

Kidd starred at the University of California, Berkeley, for two years, earning numerous individual accolades while helping the Golden Bears reach the NCAA Tournament each time, including a Sweet 16 appearance in his freshman campaign in 1993.<\/p>\n

Kidd was the Pac-10 Player of the Year in his sophomore year at Cal after averaging 16.7 points, 9.1 assists, 6.9 rebounds and 3.1 steals. He also earned first team All-American honors, along with Grant Hill (Duke), Donyell Marshall (UConn), Glenn Robinson<\/a> (Purdue) and Clifford Rozier (Louisville).<\/p>\n

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His stellar college performance earned him selection second overall in the 1994 NBA Draft by Dallas. With the\u00a0Mavericks<\/a>, he made an immediate impact, helping the team make a 23-game improvement while being named co-Rookie of the Year along with Hill of the Detroit Pistons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kidd played 19 seasons in the NBA, including seven with the\u00a0New Jersey Nets<\/a>\u00a0in the early 2000s, during which he established himself as one of the greats of the game, leading the team to back-to-back NBA Finals appearances in 2002 and 2003.<\/p>\n

He won his lone NBA title in his second tour of duty with the Mavericks in 2011, playing alongside Dirk Nowitzki<\/a>. Kidd retired from playing in 2013 and transitioned to coaching, winning another championship in 2020 as an assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a>. Since 2021, he has been the head coach in Dallas.<\/p>\n

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Related: “No one brings their wife to work” – John Salley revealed that Larsa Pippen flew on the Houston Rockets team plane all the time<\/a><\/p>\n

Proud mentor<\/p>\n

Seeing how things panned out for Kidd in his basketball career, Payton could not be prouder of his fellow Oaklander and the hand he had in it.<\/p>\n

“Everybody knows I raised him, too. I had Jason; Jason was from Oakland, too, I had Jason when he was [14]. He wanted to hang out with me all day, every day… It gives great satisfaction to me because I was involved with their lives,”Payton, who had his spirited battle with his former student in the NBA,\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Grantland in 2013.<\/p>\n

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Having benefitted from the guidance that he got from Payton, Kidd said it is also his mission now to show up for the next-generation players, proving once again that in basketball, and life in general, nobody does it alone.<\/p>\n

Related: “When you paid, you were entertained” – Jason Kidd reveals what made Michael Jordan stand apart from all the other superstars in the NBA<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on May 4, 2026, where it first appeared in the Off The Court<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Kidd\u00a0credits what he became as a player to fellow Hall of Famer\u00a0Gary Payton, who took him under…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,188,1105,2989,8277,4108,3716,150,166,6,2337,9774],"class_list":["post-725372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-mavericks","tag-basketball","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dallasmavericks","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-dirk-nowitzki","tag-gary-payton","tag-glenn-robinson","tag-grant-hill","tag-jason-kidd","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-mavericks","tag-nba","tag-new-jersey-nets","tag-oregon-state"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116515905451371149","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}