Business people look for immediate positive results and downgrade "potential greatness" because it is uncertain. A lot of basketball people don't think that way, but they should. Not that George Steinbrenner is to be admired, but he has kept baseball's Yankees successful for years by running the team as a business. In this case, everyone agrees that Jason Kidd could be a great player, a franchise player. But, from a business perspective, the odds of that are not good enough to justify holding him when Phoenix is offering talent that is good right now.

The near future of Kidd, Dumas, and Meyer looks rather bad. All of them are currently liabilities, having major weaknesses in their games that have directly lead to the Mavericks poor record. On the other hand, the near future of Cassell, Finley, and Green looks average or even better. Though the Suns had a losing record this year, they were improving and this is the first year any of the former Suns have played on a losing team. Cassell and Green have made significant contributions to Championship teams as role players. Finley earned significant time last season and had a legitimate shot at the Rookie of the Year Award. Granted, he wasn't much better than an average player last year, but he didn't hurt his team as Kidd did.

In the short term, I think it would be hard for anyone to disagree that the Mavericks got the better of the deal. This is why most people are arguing about the long term.

Let's look at the long term. The primary components of the long term uncertainty are Kidd and Finley. Green's future will probably be like that of Buck Williams, filled with rebounds and diminishing points. Meyer's future will probably end in the NBA within a year or two, but even if it doesn't, he won't be an impact player any more than Will Perdue is. Cassell's future is a little less certain. He could turn in a few very good seasons where he gets some All-Star votes, but he will likely be roughly what he is now, good enough to get a couple Reebok commercials that don't last very long -- if that is how we now judge people. Dumas' future ... well, he won't be doing any commercials.

Kidd's future will probably not be very good. I can hear about 452,371 people all calling me an idiot and moving on to the Days of Our Lives Site, where the fiction is just as good and the guide looks a lot better than I do.

Well, I'm sticking by it. Despite all the comparisons to Magic Johnson, Jason Kidd, I met Magic Johnson and you're not Magic Johnson. Magic could shoot the ball. When he entered the league, he shot well above the league average, not 8% below it. Yes, teams played off Magic because his outside shot was not very good, but he found other ways to beat a defense that thought it could cheat. Kidd has not figured that out after two and a half years in the league. The great players figure out how to be positive contributors pretty quick. In my search for a comparison with Kidd, I could find no great player who shot as poorly as Kidd has in their first three seasons. Not Bob Cousy. Not Oscar Robertson. Not John Stockton. Not Isiah Thomas. Mark Price shot pitifully his first season, but has shot well since; not that I've promoted Price to greatness, but he was one of the few players I found who shot terribly in his first season, then drastically improved. In fact, Kidd is a very special player because somehow his passing ability has allowed him to get more minutes as a pitiful shooter than just about anyone in history.

Based on my comparisons to other players, Kidd will not be a star, but a mediocre journeyman. Based on my watching Kidd, I find this a little hard to digest, mainly because I know there are things he can do to make up for his bad shooting. But I also know that it's getting late. After a few years in the league, players stop improving because they know what they are good at and what their role is. Kidd is approaching that time already, even though he is still young. People are saying that Dallas Coach Jim Cleamons didn't create a running offense around Kidd, but why couldn't Kidd change his style to fit a slower offense? Isn't he supposed to be young and flexible?

Finley's future right now looks pretty good. His rookie numbers were, in many ways, better than Rookie of the Year Winner Damon Stoudamire's. Dominique Wilkins was the first player that came to my mind as a comparison for Finley. That comparison turns out to be pretty close, though Finley probably won't be as good as 'Nique. Purvis Short is another decent comparison and Short was a good player for more than ten years.

Really, we know less about Finley than any other major player in this trade. His rookie year was great, but his senior year in college was awful. But his junior year was tremendous. For the Mavericks, I return to the business perspective -- his current value is not as negative as Kidd's is.

If I look at the present value of players in this trade, Dallas wins. If I look at the potential future in this trade, Phoenix may win, but that uncertainty is large enough to make that future not worth risking.

That is a major reason why I think Phoenix could win this trade.

If Kidd does nothing for the Suns right away, the team will likely get a good draft pick, maybe even Tim Duncan, an instant franchise player. That is not a bad option. Even if they don't get Duncan, they can build the franchise around Kidd by drafting young players who can run with him, as people are saying Dallas should have done.

Ignoring this, Kidd's all around skills are underrated because we focus so much on the passing and shooting. Kidd is actually a tremendous defensive player, one of the best in the league at point guard. He forces turnovers, he gets rebounds, and he can shut down opposing point guards. With all these traits, his shooting doesn't have to get too much better to make him an average player. For example, the Knicks haven't had much offensive talent for a while, but their defense has kept them competitive.

Overall, it is scary to look at the trades that have been made where one high profile player has been traded for several lower profile players, essentially the situation here. The most obvious examples are the Charles Barkley trades. Charles Barkley's departure from Philadelphia and from Phoenix left both teams in dire straits. Conventional wisdom says you need great players, not just a few good ones, to win a title. Kidd could very well be that great player for Phoenix. It seems less likely that Finley will become that great player even if he seems more likely to be simply good. When you're a bad team, as Phoenix is, it pays to try to be great. Take that chance on being great. It can't get much worse. Even if it does, hey, the NBA gives you draft picks...