Since the police took him away a year ago, Kidd has been seeing a sports psychologist, Gary Mack, and as he learns how to argue and speak with his wife, he's applied those lessons to his relationships with his friends, his mother, his team. Now he'll pull the volcanic Martin aside to whisper encouragement or to calm him; he'll talk to the rookies instead of ignoring them; he'll call Richard Jefferson on his cell phone from two seats away on the team bus to remind him to play under control. Kidd passes along tips about working the refs in hotel lobbies, about agents, about getting rest. He uses therapy buzzwords such as trust and communication, and if his speech sounds canned at times, there's no doubting that, at 28, Kidd is carrying himself with a lightness that those close to him had never seen. "He's comfortable with being Jason Kidd off the court," says Jackson, now playing for the Miami Heat. The two spoke warmly before a game in December, and, Jackson says, "I could see it in his eyes. He's not putting the pressure on himself. He's at peace with who he is as a man, and that's the first time I've seen that, period." This, Kidd says, is why he's playing so well. Although his shooting still hovers at 37%, he has never felt more assertive, more positive in games. "I've learned a lot at home and been able to take what I've learned at home to the court," he says. "My body feels better. My mind's a lot clearer. I feel loose. I'm not aching. All the tension, it built up. I see things better now." There's a twisted logic at work here, but Kidd and his family and friends all gingerly agree: The best thing that ever happened to Kidd as a husband, to Kidd as a ballplayer, to Kidd as a man, is the ugly fact that he got arrested, endured public humiliation and got shipped out of Phoenix. "At the time I thought there had to be an easier, better way," Joumana says, "but now I look at it and think that's what had to happen. And I'm glad it happened." Unthinkable. The man hits his wife, and the man, his wife and his new team are happier than they've been in years. She didn't believe it. Joumana was like anyone else who hears a celebrity apologizing for terrible deeds. She didn't trust him. Here was Jason, calling from the Paradise Valley police station on Jan. 18, 2001, and her first impulse was to go on the attack: Screw you, I did what I had to do, I know you hate me, that's life. But Jason said, "Hold on, slow down, I'm sorry." Then he told Joumana that she was right to call the cops, that he was going to change. Helicopters were hovering over the house; his name would soon be bad news. She was sure this was spin control, someone coaching Jason on what to say. "Who's sitting there with you?" she demanded. "What'd they do in the cop car, drug you?" She'd seen this act before. They'd been in counseling, off and on, because Kidd's response to any kind of argument was to shut down, go quiet, let Joumana's persistent complaints sink in without response. She would ask him about practice, and he would grunt, turn on the TV and drift away. "He wasn't consistent," Joumana says. "He'd put his mind to it and be this awesome husband, and then all of a sudden he'd be the other extreme. The next day he'd be Awesome Husband again: 'You're right. I'm sorry. You're the priority.' It was a roller coaster where the good times made up for the bad because they were so good. I wanted to think, That's the guy. And this other guy? We can fix it." It didn't help matters that Kidd is, with everyone, the ultimate point guard. "He tries to please so many people that eventually he starts drowning -- and doesn't know how to deal with it," says Anne Kidd. Before Jason and Joumana got someone to clean their house, in December, he would drop his dirty clothes all over. Now whenever the housekeeper is due, he starts picking up. "He doesn't want her to think he's a slob," Joumana says. "He tends to take for granted those closest to him. Say, Skiles would poo on him and make him feel crappy. Instead of taking it out on Skiles, he'd come home and take it out on me." -- "I don't look at favorites. That's for (reporters) and fans. I just go out and play."---- Jason Kidd --

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