Jason Kidd was brought in with great fanfare last week as the point guard with all this NBA wisdom, all this championship pedigree, the perfect mentor for Jeremy Lin before everything Rocketed out of control for James Dolan and the Knicks with an infamous Houston offer sheet.
Before Kidd, behind the wheel of his 2010 Cadillac Escalade after a wild night of partying in East Hampton, rocketed out of control and crashed into a telephone pole at 2 in the morning yesterday and was arrested for alleged drunk driving on Cobb Road near his Water Mill home.
Jasonsanity, replacing Linsanity in the worst possible way.
Or perhaps in this sorry case, gin
sanity.
And once again, there are no excuses.
Once again, we have a big sports star around here who should thank his lucky stars that he didn’t kill himself, make his beautiful second wife a widow, leave their little son and infant daughter without a father.
Only a month ago it was David Diehl, Super Bowl champion Giant, who used his BMW as a battering ram into parked cars on 35th Avenue in Astoria, Queens, after an afternoon of watching soccer and getting soused.
Only two years ago, a former Jets receiver named Braylon Edwards was pulled over in his Land Rover at 5:15 a.m. and blew a 1.6 — twice the legal limit — on the Breathalyzer.
These multimillionaires apparently think they are above the law. Or indestructible. Or both. Their arrogance and/or ignorance is a sobering reminder that while to err is human, looking to your parents as role models is generally a safer idea.
Edwards somehow forgot that the Jets had in place a Player Protect program that provides a 24-hour limousine service at no charge. The Jets were so incensed that Rex Ryan benched him — for all of a first quarter.
The NBA, Techniques for Effective Alcohol Management (TEAM) Coalition, Budweiser and NBA teams across the country work together to “make fans aware of the designated-driver programs at NBA arenas, encourage responsible drinking, positive fan behavior and promote traffic safety.”
When, exactly, do players become aware?
They never learn, do they?
It is time to stop paying lip service to any zero-tolerance policy, time for the commissioners of every professional sport, ideally in concert with their respective players’ unions, to decree a policy of one strike and you’re out for at least one season when it comes to DWI. Enough is enough. And has been enough for enough time.
Hours before the DUI, Kidd tweeted a photo of himself standing alongside his model wife, Porschla Coleman, and wrote: “My beautiful wife.” His beautiful wife left the benefit honoring George Lucas before Kidd became just another reckless 39-year-old who didn’t belong behind the wheel of a car.
Of course, he better apologize to his new team, which just handed him a three-year, $9.5 million deal, and to his teammates, and to his new fans, and to his beautiful wife, and face the music. He better pledge to do a heaping helping of community service and be a sincere spokesman on the horrors of drunk driving.
Drinking and driving is life and death. It isn’t just Kidd’s stuff.