"Final deliberations have begun in the long and twisting case of The People vs. The Jason Kidd Trade, as in Western Conference Finals deliberations.With NBA Finals final deliberations likely to follow.And in this next 14 or so games of unexpected spring basketball for this Mavericks team, a verdict finally comes down as to whether trading for an aging JKidd in 2008 was raging genius or epic fail.Win rings = Raging genius.Anything else = Epic fail.Because JKidd was neither traded for nor re-signed in hopes of getting to the Western Finals.He was brought in to win a championship, to help secure a ring for Dirk Nowitzki, to bring closure to the gaping hole left by that gargantuan choke job that was The 2006 Finals in Miami.The facts of the case are simple. In February 2008, the Mavs were staggering.A team that only 20 months before had been 61/2 minutes away from basically locking up rings with what would have been a decisive and crushing Game 3 victory in the NBA Finals seemed to be regressing. And in danger of collapsing altogether.Mark Cuban and Donnie Nelson believed action was needed.So Devin Harris and names nobody remembers and draft picks long since gone were shipped to New Jersey for a then 34 years-and-11-months-old JKidd.As tends to happen in sports trials of heightened public interest, immediate jury verdicts were rendered in print and on radio and on TV and by fans.Victory was declared by most precincts. Almost everybody loved this deal. Of course, I hated it immediately. Contrary to this image I seemed to have cultivated of curmudgeonly local team hater, my dislike of this deal was not caused by a.) My hatred of Cuban -- like him and have been his biggest non-payroll defender most days; b.) My hatred of The Mavs -- The Nash and Dirk days helped me fall back in love with NBA basketball; or c.) My hatred for any and every local team, an attack that is neither right nor justified.No journalist could watch Dirk Nowitzki, the care and respect with which he treats the game of basketball, or talk to a classy dude like Tyson Chandler, or have a sideline seat for Cuban's passion and not root for these dudes."