In his first game back, against the Celtics at the FleetCenter in Boston, Joumana sat in the stands and cried as the boos rained down on her husband. After his first home game she felt both proud and humiliated when he took a microphone at AmericaWest Arena and begged the fans' forgiveness. He was ripped nightly on the news in Phoenix. A fan tossed something at him in Portland. Joumana kept waiting for Jason to erupt, but, he says, "I felt as good as I ever had. I felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off me, and I was doing the right thing, proving to my wife that I loved her." "It took me a while to catch up to him," Joumana says. "I'm thinking, I did this, I'm such an idiot. It's almost like I wanted him to hate me. But he stayed so humble." This, in the end, may well be Kidd's greatest achievement. For the first time in his life he stepped outside himself. Growing up in Oakland, he had barely become a teenager before he was living a teenager's most treasured fantasy: The world revolved around him. Recruiters begged for his favors. Agents, women and fans sacrificed all dignity to be near him. His family sacrificed holidays to his basketball schedule. "I wouldn't want to live through it again," Anne Kidd says. "You're never prepared for that. You go to the game to see your child play, and you hear people chanting and you can't even say hello to him because he's so busy. You find he's not your son any longer. You have to let him go. He's not yours." Most parents learn to live with the loss, and many NBA wives put up with it in a devil's bargain for security and a measure of fame. However, in his pivotal moment -- his marriage was crumbling, he had hit a woman -- Kidd had a flash of insight. "It's not about me anymore," he says. "But when you've heard the opposite for so long, the transition is so hard. You've got to make sacrifices. Some people learn that faster than others, some learn it the hard way." The court ordered Kidd to undergo counseling for six months. Even now, after that time has passed, he continues to talk to Mack once a week. According to Redmond, it is "extremely rare" for athletes to voluntarily continue counseling. "Usually they don't even complete the six months," she says. Since 1997, Redmond has worked on about 200 cases of violence by athletes, and she says not one other abuser has responded as positively as Kidd has. "That's why I said it's extraordinary," Redmond says. "The steps he's taken and the fact that he did not blame somebody else, that he didn't say, 'It's nobody's business but ours,' that he got counseling, that she did not suffer any repercussions because of it -- I've never seen that before. Part of me is cynical, and I have to suppress it and say, 'No, no, he's really trying.'" Could it be so simple? Could Kidd, as he says, actually be "free" of who he was, of who a sports-mad society encouraged him to be? If he has learned to be consistent at home, consistent with his teammates, open, trusting, communicative, will he therefore become the player he always should've been? "Jason has matured so much that he's ready to take on the full scope of what a leader is," Jackson says. Kidd is surrounded by hunger and talent, by teammates tired of losing and ready to sacrifice. Can becoming a better man off the court make him a better man on it? He's trying. The clock is running out, and Kidd has spent the last 10 minutes taking charge. It's overtime in New Jersey on a night in December, and Kevin Garnett has almost single-handedly dragged the Minnesota Timberwolves out of a deep hole to tie the game at 110 and give the Nets every reason to buckle. As Garnett -- one of those vocal, in-your-face players that Kidd has never been -- wheels inside, Kidd gambles and rips the ball out of his hands. Kidd takes off like a man on fire, dribbles downcourt, jukes Wally Szczerbiak into downtown Newark and lays the ball in. It's his last field goal of a 33-point night, but Kidd has never been just about scoring. Szczerbiak misses a jumper, and the 6'4" Kidd snakes his way through a forest of taller men to snag the rebound. "How'd he come up with the ball?" Nets general manager Rod Thorn will still wonder a day later. Kidd turns and whips a pass to Martin for the dunk and a four-point lead. Everyone in Continental Airlines Arena, Nets included, is hopping with glee. Not Kidd. The Timberwolves' Anthony Peeler misses a jumper, and Kidd again slithers in for the rebound. Garnett grabs Kidd from behind for the foul, knowing the game is lost, and as he wraps his arms around Kidd, he shrieks in surrender, "S---!" Kidd doesn't react. With 12 seconds left and a season to play, it's too soon to get excited about anything. -- "I don't look at favorites. That's for (reporters) and fans. I just go out and play."---- Jason Kidd --

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