COAST TO COAST

OK, how about Kwame for Jason?

So that’s why Jason Kidd couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel!

The Newark Star-Ledger reported that the Nets turned down his request for a contract extension days before the team’s 102-75 loss in Utah when Kidd made his dire pronouncement.

Last week Kidd missed a home loss to the archrival Knicks, saying he had a migraine . . . while various team officials told various news outlets he was faking.

Unnamed official to the New York Post: “He’s on strike.”

The organization is now backing Kidd 100%, give or take.

“He said he had a headache, had a migraine and that’s what happened,” said Richard Jefferson.

Jefferson then asked media people: “If anyone knows something I don’t know, let me know. I don’t want to feel like a jackass coming out here and defending my teammate.”

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Better late than never, I guess

One-word reaction to the firing of Philadelphia 76ers GM Billy King:

Now?

Why not in 2006 when Allen Iverson and Chris Webber kissed off Fan Appreciation Night, King and Coach Mo Cheeks couldn’t agree on an excuse . . . and respected publicist Karen Frascona was axed as the scapegoat?

Why not before last season’s 17-9 finish while everyone else was tanking, so that instead of a getting a shot at drafting Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, they dropped to No. 12 and got Thaddeus Young?

“We may have been delusional at the end of last season,” said Ed Snider, the NHL Flyers owner who oversees the 76ers for corporate owner Comcast.

“The experts in the game weren’t delusional, but maybe I was because I thought we really showed great promise.”

Too bad the 76ers weren’t wearing skates.

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It was worth it

Proving anything is possible in Serbia too, Minnesota’s Marko Jaric is dating Brazilian supermodel Adriana Lima.

“Ever since he started dating Adriana Lima, he’s a new man,” said teammate Mark Madsen. “He’s flying all over the court. He dunked! I’ve never seen him dunk.”

Said Jaric when the news got out: “I’m scared now. If I have a bad game, that will be the reason why.”

The next game, he scored four points.

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You asked

From an online chat with Dallas Morning News NBA writer David Moore:

T. Keen: I like both players [Devin Harris, Jason Terry] but the Mavericks need a point guard. Is there any way the Mavericks could acquire a floor general?

Moore: You mean a true point guard like Steve Nash or Jason Kidd?

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When games are just games

If Derek Fisher had signed with Portland, he would have gotten a warm welcome from Jazz fans, but joining the hated Lakers was something else.

Owner Larry Miller seemed to have second thoughts about being set up, but at the time he had more reasons than his sympathy for Fisher to tear up the contract that obliged him to pay his backup point guard $7 million a year through 2010.

However, asking why Tatum Fisher couldn’t have been treated at the University of Utah’s renowned Huntsman Cancer Institute, as Jazz fans do, takes local pride too far.

Months earlier, the Fishers had selected New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering to treat their infant daughter’s rare cancer of the retina, a choice no one can begrudge a parent.

-- Mark Heisler