The career, in chapters.

Oakland

Born in San Francisco, raised in Oakland. A catcher first — rooting for the A's — before basketball took over on the city's playgrounds. By the end of high school at St. Joseph Notre Dame in Alameda he had two state championships and had been named the best high school player in the country.

Berkeley

National Freshman of the Year, then the first sophomore ever named Pac-10 Player of the Year. Back-to-back NCAA tournaments — the program's first since 1959 — and a Sweet Sixteen reached on two game-winning shots, the second of them against two-time defending champion Duke.

Second pick, first read

The second overall pick in the NBA Draft. NBA Co-Rookie of the Year with Grant Hill, on a Dallas team that improved by twenty-three games the year he arrived. A nineteen-season career begins — one that redefines what the point guard position can carry.

Phoenix

Traded in his third season, and again the team he joined got better. Five seasons, five playoff appearances, a run to the conference semifinals, and three straight years leading the league in assists. It is the stretch he points to as where he learned to win.

In May 1999 his father, Steve — the man who taught him that the thing you want does not arrive when you expect it to — died of a heart attack. Jason came back and played the best basketball of his career to that point. The championship was still twelve years away.

New Jersey, back to back

Two straight NBA Finals runs leading the Nets — a franchise transformed on arrival. The years that made "makes everyone better" a scouting-report cliché with his name on it.

Gold, twice

Olympic gold in Sydney. Then Beijing, as a leader of the 2008 "Redeem Team" that returned the gold to the United States — a team later enshrined in the Hall of Fame together.

The homecoming championship

An NBA title with the Dallas Mavericks — seventeen seasons in, running the floor for the franchise that drafted him.

New York

One final season, with the Knicks. New York won 54 games, took the Atlantic Division for the first time since 1994, and won its first playoff series since 2000. He retired that summer — nineteen seasons, 1,391 games — and was running an NBA bench nine days later.

The bench

Head coach of three NBA franchises. In his first season he became the first rookie head coach in NBA history to win a Game 7 on the road, and took Coach of the Month twice. A second championship ring as an assistant with the 2020 Lakers. Five seasons leading Dallas, including a run to the 2024 NBA Finals.

Springfield, twice

Inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018 as one of the greatest point guards ever, presented by Gary Payton — the man who first pulled him onto the rougher courts in Oakland. And again in 2025, with the Redeem Team.