SANTA CLARA — Three times back in the early 1990s, two prolific assist machines dueled on the same Bay Area college basketball stage.
You might say they were just passing through.
Jason Kidd was the precocious star for Cal, a highly publicized recruit whose talent screamed stardom even before he got to St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda. “He was Magic Johnson in high school, a one-man fast break,” recalled noted basketball agent Bill Duffy.
Steve Nash, in contrast, was still a work-in-progress at Santa Clara, a player whose background didn’t scream stardom — it whispered it.