Luscious "Sweet Lou" Harris Mix

Yesterday we brought you a mix tape from the Jason Kidd era of Nets basketball that had no Jason Kidd era highlights. What a tease. Today, we deliver the goods, with a Luscious Harris mix that is chuck full-0-Kidd highlights. Of the 18 Luscious Harris highlights, eight are direct passes from Kidd, while several others are probably passes from Kidd, but the passes aren't shown.

Inexplicably, THE Kidd-Harris play AKA The Bowling Ball Pass is not on the mix. I'd scream at the YouTube user who created the video, TheKingMisek, but besides not actually knowing him, he did also make an entire mix devoted to Luscious Harris (and Todd MacCulloch and other magical creatures), so I'll give him a pass.

What the mix lacks in iconic plays, it makes up for in revealing 1. How freaking good Jason Kidd was and 2. How smart Luscious Harris was at utilizing Jason Kidd's magic to become a relevant player on a relevant team, if only briefly. In the first highlight, Jason Kidd navigates a fastbreak, driving down the lane and drawing three Magic players, which leaves a well placed Luscious Harris open for a jumper on the NJ sign at Continental Airlines Arena. The mix replays this play from another angle (2:35), which is lazy, yeah, but it also shows you how Harris anticipates Kidd's drive and moves himself to the right spot.

Other Kidd-Harris highlights include Kidd almost nonchalantly threading the needle between two Lakers with his feathery touch to find Harris at the block for a 2002 Finals lay-in And-1 (0:50).  Or Kidd, dressed in the retro ABA Nets jerseys (that should be worn by Brooklyn at some point, but I digress) thrashing down the lane and going up for a lay-up only to meet a head-banded Brad Miller, so Kidd casually decides, milliseconds from the rim, to pull the ball to his waist and shuffle it to Harris for the lay-in (1:28).

The non-Kidd highlights generally show the same Harris skill of expert court spacing. Occasionally, Sweet Lou will capitalize on an over-committed defender and drive to the basket for an earth-shattering layup.  An example of this is at 0:45, when Knicks guard and yacht enthusiast Latrell Sprewell reaches and Harris then teaches. The mix, committed to matching the length of Mobb Deep's "Survival of the Fittest", replays the play again at 3:00, but again uses another angle to make you think it is a different play. One way to have matched up the song with the highlights without duplicated plays would have been to include The Bowling Ball Pass, but hey, I'm not bitter.

Speaking of the music, A-plus for the selection. The second single off of Mobb Deep's critically acclaimed 1995 album The Infamous, "Survival of the Fittest" features a haunting piano sample over Havoc and Prodigy spitting rhymes about the street life, something I have only experienced through the art of people like Havoc and Prodigy. Tying it to the Nets, Kanye West references the line from the song, "There's a war going outside, no man is safe from" on the track "Murder to Excellence" from Kanye's collaborative album, Watch The Throne, with former Nets minority owner Jay-Z .

Mobb Deep also re-recorded the song with hardcore band Sick of it All for the 2000 album Loud Rocks, which featured collaborations between "hard rock" bands and hip hop artists. I wouldn't blame you for dismissing any disc with Crazy Town and Sugar Ray on it before it ever hit your auditory cortex, but the Mobb Deep/Sick of It All collaboration is worth it.

The song features a vaguely scientific title, which gives me nerd segway license to let you know that today, October 23rd, from 6:02 A.M. to 6:02 P.M. is Mole Day. If you don't know what a mole or Avogardro's number (6.02 x 10^23) are, apparently you didn't pay attention in even basic high school chemistry class and you are a horrible person (No, seriously, I'm not bitter today, why do you ask?). Finally, to conclude "Survival of the Fittest" tangent time, the song features the phrase Halfway Crooks, which my friend named his band after.

What were we talking about again? Oh, right, Luscious Harris. So there you have it, the New Jersey Nets mix tape for Sweet Lou, a 12 year NBA veteran (1993-2005) with the Mavericks, Sixers, Nets and Cavs that made the most out of Jason Kidd's genius as much as any role player the newest Nets coach ever played with.