The Associated Press reports: New Jersey Nets point guard Jason Kidd, runner-up in the MVP voting last season, wants to remain with the team for the rest of his career.

Kidd has the option to and likely will be a free agent after next season but cannot sign a contract until then. But he said Tuesday that the Nets remain his No. 1 choice. After spending the summer in New Jersey, the Californian said he considers himself "an East Coast guy.''

Asked if he would sign immediately if league rules permitted, Kidd said: "No. That's too easy. You've got to make them sweat.''

Kidd spoke at a luncheon announcing that he won the Thurman Munson Award, which is presented by The Association for the Help of Retarded Children and honors the memory of the New York Yankees catcher who died in an airplane crash in 1979.

Fred Kerber of the New York Post reports that Kenyon Martin spoke recently about the Finals against the Lakers and the trade of Keith Van Horn to the Sixers. Martin ripped his teammates after being swept 4 games to none by the Lakers. His comments were interpreted to be aimed specifically at Van Horn but Martin insists his comments had no bearing on the trade.

"I didn't trade him. I felt a certain way and I voiced my opinion. I don't think my comments had anything to do with it [trade]," Martin said. "There were rumors before I got here about him being traded, stuff like that. Do I think they thought about it? Maybe. But I don't think because of my comments it totally rested on that."

Martin stressed that he was talking about more than one player after Game 4 when he said some Nets didn't bring their best efforts. "I just spoke a certain way. But I wasn't just talking about him, that's what people don't realize. I wasn't just talking about Keith," Martin said.

Martin was asked if the team lost confidence in Van Horn who was their 2nd leading scorer and leading rebounder in the regular season. "Yeah, I think so, but if he would have come back and proved he could do it, we would have had to ride with him, but that's not the case," said Martin. "I wish him the best in Philly, but I don't know how that's going to go."

Martin loves the changes the Nets have gone through this summer. Bringing in Dikembe Mutombo, Rodney Rogers and Chris Childs and moving Richard Jefferson up to the starting lineup will greatly increase the their team defense. Martin expects to pull double-digit rebounds as the full-time power forward but he does have one concern. The physical toll of playing the "four".

"Over 82 games, it might," Martin said. "But I'm mentally tough. If I have to do it I have to do it. I'm pretty sure if it becomes a problem and the coaching staff realizes it's a problem, they'll make a move. They'll move me back to the 3 and start Rodney or Train [Aaron Williams] or Twin [Jason Collins], one of those guys. I don't think it's going to be a problem, but I could be wrong."

Richard Lezin Jones of the New York Times reports: A New Jersey Superior Court judge set a Feb. 18 trial date today for Jayson Williams, the former New Jersey Nets basketball star accused of aggravated manslaughter in the shooting death of a limousine driver at his Hunterdon County estate.

Lawyers for both sides in the case welcomed Judge Edward M. Coleman's decision, which was handed down during a status hearing in the case here today. Williams, 34, has pleaded not guilty in the Feb. 14 shooting of the driver, Costas Christofi, 55, who prosecutors said was killed by a single shotgun blast to the chest during an impromptu tour of Williams' home.

In addition to the manslaughter charge, Williams is accused of tampering with witnesses and evidence in an attempt to make the shooting look like a suicide. Two of his friends have pleaded guilty to tampering charges and are cooperating with prosecutors.

Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald reports that the Celtics had to let Rodney Rogers go. Owner Paul Gaston is still a very competitive man and wants to win, but he?s committed to run the Celtics as a business. And keeping Rogers did not make good business sense. Celtics Chief Operations Officer Rich Pond explained the business aspects of the Rogers situation.

``People don't want to look at the business aspect, but we have to,'' Pond said. ``And when you're looking at our decision on Rodney, you have to look at what the numbers mean. Using raw numbers and some estimates, let's say our profit could be $10-15 million if we stay out of the luxury tax this year. I'm not sure we could have gotten Rodney for what New Jersey did (a deal starting at some $2.7 million), so let's say we had to give him the full exception of around $4.5 million. Now, if we're over the tax threshold, you double that to $9 million.

``Then by going into the luxury tax area, you're voiding your chance to get any of the tax money back. From the numbers being talked about, that could be around $5 million, so that takes you to a cost of $14 million for Rodney Rogers. We'd also lose our portion of the escrow money that comes from the players, so there's another $2 million. That means our decision to go the way we did with Rodney could have been a $16-million decision for the team.''

``In the long run, what we're looking for is some measure of fiscal sanity, and I think that's what the fans want to see, too. It requires teams to keep their financial house in order. But for now it's going to be difficult as teams get their payrolls in line.

``Once we made our decision to hold our position on the luxury tax and it was clear Rodney was going to be going elsewhere, obviously we would have preferred he'd have gone to a West Coast team,'' Pond said. ``But that was out of our control. There was a lot of talk he was going to go to Philadelphia, and that would have been painful, too. Look, everybody here likes Rodney very much. Not only Rodney, but his whole family and his agent, too. It would have been great if he'd stayed. But we had to make a business decision, and this is the one we made.''