Devin Harris may never reach the heights that Kidd has as an NBA player - face it, few players do - but he has a chance to be very good for a long time. And if you aren't convinced that the Nets didn't get the better of the deal that sent Kidd to Dallas, you are either:

A) Mark Cuban.

B) Not paying attention.

Kidd is going with the second option now, despite his reputation as a player who closely follows the NBA. When asked yesterday about the perception that the Nets had won this trade in a landslide of Reagan vs. Mondale proportions, Kidd raised his eyebrows.

"What am I going to say?" he asked.

Your opinion would be fine.

"I don't look at the East," he answered. "I have too many things to worry about in the West."

Maybe he missed the Nets' recent trip into his neighborhood, when Harris torched Utah star Deron Williams for 34 points, or his performance in Phoenix one night later, when he scored 47 against Steve Nash. Or maybe he is already getting a little sick of the comparisons.

"Devin is playing great," Kidd said. "You're measured by wins and losses in this league, and that at the end of the day, that's what you're counted on to do as an employee. We'll see what happens."

So far this season, Kidd has the Mavs at 14-10 with a much better supporting cast, while the left-for-dead Nets are 12-12, even if recent results at home do not bode well for any run at a surprise playoff berth.

Kidd has often looked out of place in the Mavs offense; the Nets, meanwhile, have built their entire system around Harris' ability to get to the basket. Kidd's numbers are way down, while Harris' scoring average has spiked to a level nobody saw coming, an impressive 23.8 a game.

But all of that is beside the point. With a gun to his head - one that Kidd loaded and cocked - Nets president Rod Thorn managed to trade his expensive, aging point guard for a dynamic young replacement, two first-round draft picks and cap space to boot.

All the returns are not in, but right now it looks like the second-best trade in franchise history - behind the trade, of course, that brought Kidd here from Phoenix in the first place.

"He was the player who took us to a level this franchise had never seen," Thorn said from his office yesterday. "The guy played his heart out every night. Nobody played harder than he did."

Thorn was not about to slap an asterisk on that, to point out the events in Kidd's last half-year in Jersey ... the fake migraine, the trade demands, the perception that he had given up on his teammates. He called it "an emotional time," and for Thorn, that emotion was mostly anger.

Thorn thought Kidd would play out his career in a Nets uniform, but his star player couldn't wait to get out at the end. That he comes back on a flawed team, that he may never get as close to a championship as he did those first two seasons in the swamp, offers Thorn no satisfaction.

He said he has forgiven Kidd, and you can bet that the fans will follow suit tonight. There are no plans for a video tribute - still too soon for that - but Kidd will be introduced first, and there will be a pause after his name is called to allow the fans to salute him.

And why not? We have seen few athletes as transcendent as Kidd come through Jersey - he would join Lawrence Taylor and Martin Brodeur on that list, but not many others. Kidd played 506 games with the Nets, averaging 14.6 points, 7.1 rebounds and 9.1 assists and making a triple-double a regular occurrence.

Most importantly, he made the Nets matter. He led what had been a joke of a franchise to a 292-214 record - including a 177-78 mark at home - and those two runs to the NBA Finals. The Nets are back on the three-year plan now, and on most nights, all their fans have are those memories.

"I had a good run here in Jersey," Kidd said. "The things we accomplished while I was here, nobody can take that away. ... For me, Basketball is business, so I have no hard feelings about the trade.

"I think both parties are happy with it."

One party probably more than the other. Kidd will get a loud ovation tonight at the Meadowlands, and he deserves it. But in a few years, if his replacement keeps playing like this, those fans will be cheering just as loudly for Devin Harris long after Kidd has retired.