INDIANAPOLIS -- If Rod Thorn had had his way, Jason Kidd would be in Portland right now, and the Nets point guard of the future would be Jarrett Jack.

Not that the Nets president has any regrets: He believes Devin Harris is the ideal candidate to help take his team into the next five years. Thorn just didn't like to negotiate while stuck in a box -- which essentially was constructed by Kidd's big mouth.

"It was a box, and it didn't help it when Jason went public -- it sort of killed a lot of his value," Thorn conceded. "There was a team I was talking to that had interest -- more than cursory interest, let's say. And once he did that (announced he sought a trade), they totally quit on it."

Thorn would only identify the team as "a midlevel team out west," but several league officials confirmed it as the Trail Blazers -- which, in fact, is the only midlevel team out west nowadays.

The Blazers were to send Jack and Raef LaFrentz to the Nets along with other cap-fillers for Kidd, but the Nets captain sabotaged the deal by publicly requesting a deal on Jan. 28 -- either inadvertently or otherwise.

According to those league officials, who chose to remain anonymous in order to avoid meddling in Portland's affairs, the Blazers never wanted to assist Dallas in obtaining Kidd; they wanted the 34-year-old point guard for themselves to help raise a team of promising kids in the midst of a 3-5 slide.

But as soon as Kidd announced that he could no longer play in New Jersey, Blazers officials concluded that he wouldn't be content playing for an up-and-coming team in Portland, either.

http://www.nj.com/sports/ledger/index.ssf?/base/sports-1/1203744972220970.xml&coll=1

I applaud Pritch for targeting Kidd. A Jack/LaFrentz (plus change) deal would have been another "slap!" But only if Kidd wanted to be in PDX, and "cap fillers" didn't include the name Outlaw. The irony is that Dallas is less of contender now that JK is there, and the Blazers will be looking at the Mavs in their rear-view mirror for many years to come.