Jason who?

At the start of the Nets' clash with the Dallas Mavericks last night, the 9,899 fans who braved stormy conditions and journeyed to the Izod Center may have felt a tinge of nostalgia. Triggering those sentiments was the return of Jason Kidd, the man whose 2001 arrival in New Jersey signaled the dawn of the franchise's greatest years since it won a pair of ABA championships in the 70s.

By the end of last night's game, however, as the clock wound down on a 121-97 drubbing of the Mavs, the sparse crowd was singing a different tune. "Thank you, Cuban!" it chanted, a nod to the Dallas owner who took a disgruntled Kidd off the Nets' hands in February and gave them Devin Harris and two first-round picks in return. With those cheers, a night that began as a celebration of the Kidd era ended with fans embracing a new chapter of Nets basketball, the face of which is undoubtedly the 25-year-old Harris.

Mired in the relative obscurity of the Swamp, Harris has flown largely under the radar this season. But thanks to Kidd's much-ballyhooed return to New Jersey, Harris finally had a captive audience before which he could strut his stuff. He didn't disappoint, torching his former club to the tune of 41 points, 13 assists, and 3 steals.

It might be the signature performance in a season that has seen the shoo-in All Star thrive under the total freedom afforded him by coach Lawrence Frank's unorthodox dribble-drive offense. Harris is one of three players -- LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are the others -- to average at least 23 points and 6 assists per game this season. He has developed an uncanny knack for getting to the free-throw line, trailing only Dwight Howard with 10.5 attempts from the charity stripe per game. Most impressively, Harris has been at his best against superior competition. At the tail end of the Nets' West Coast trip in late November, Harris outplayed Deron Williams and Steve Nash on back-to-back nights, totaling a combined 81 points and leading New Jersey to two impressive road wins.

And then there's his flare for the dramatic. In a Nov. 7 game against Detroit, in which all the pregame chatter surrounded Allen Iverson's first game in a Pistons uniform, Harris stole the show, tallying a then-career high 38 points. A week later, nursing a badly sprained left ankle, he dropped 30 and 8 on Atlanta. Most notably, in a Nov. 26 game at Sacramento in which he was held to just 2 first-half points, Harris rebounded to drill a game-tying three-pointer at the end of regulation before nailing a go-ahead 16-footer with 12 seconds left in overtime, leading the Nets to their first win at Arco Arena in over a decade.

There's no question that the Nets' surprising 13-12 start, which has included a 6-4 mark against the vaunted Western Conference, has been a team effort. Contrary to what some prognosticators believed at the beginning of the season, Vince Carter has not sulked his way into a trade to a contender and has in fact strung together arguably his best season in New Jersey (23 PPG, 40.5 3P%). Brook Lopez and Ryan Anderson, the team's two first-round picks in the 2008 Draft, may not be scoring in droves, but they've made contributions on defense and on the glass. The bench, led by Jarvis Hayes and Keyon Dooling, has been solid. But Harris is the engine that makes it all run, something that started becoming apparent when the Nets went 0-3 while he was sidelined with an ankle injury earlier this season and continued through last night's dazzling performance.

If Kidd's legacy was defined by the unprecedented team success the Nets experienced under his stewardship, then Harris has a lot more winning to do before he matches his predecessor. Officially handed the torch last night, Harris proved he's up for the challenge.