LOS ANGELES -- Nets president Rod Thorn desperately wanted to change the face of his franchise, his beautiful basketball mind believing this ultimately started and ended with getting Jason Kidd on his side. Thorn had met Suns general manager Bryan Colangelo for dinner at the Chicago pre-draft camp a year ago, and when talks turned serious it wasn't long until Thorn had passed the trade possibility past his dizzy ownership.

	Lou Lamoriello saw the wisdom in bringing Jason Kidd to New Jersey.

His discussions with Phoenix stopped principal owner Lewis Katz cold. Trade Stephon Marbury? This was Katz's pet, the star with a direct line to the owner's private phone. For Kidd? Katz didn't know Jason Kidd from Jason Robards.

After just one season on the job, Thorn and coach Byron Scott were privately second-guessed over and over by Katz. Ownership meddled on a couple of personnel decisions, including keeping Kendall Gill, but they could've delivered this franchise back into the dark ages had they interfered with the trade for Kidd. As everyone understands now with the Nets meeting the Lakers for Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night, only the entire New Jersey Nets franchise depended on it.

And oddly enough, the man usurping Thorn's presidential powers, the man YankeeNets emperor George Steinbrenner badly wanted to move beyond duties as the NHL's best executive with the Devils and lord over the Nets, turned out to validate Thorn's vision. When ownership was resistant to parting with Marbury -- it was Lou Lamoriello, sources said, insisting to his bosses: If our basketball people want to make this move, let them make it. They listened to Lamoriello and they'll be grateful forever for it.

If Thorn wasn't thrilled with Lamoriello taking over the CEO job a year ago, imposing his rigid, bottom-line beliefs on the Nets, he never let on. Lamoriello was assigned to oversee the business end, streamline the Nets to share financial operations with the Devils under the YankeeNets empire. And let's face it: He was moved over to instill the fear of God into the employees of this lost-cause franchise.

Everyone insisted Lamoriello couldn't run an NBA franchise like an NHL one, but this wouldn't stop him. He pre-empted the marketing of individuals, took players' pictures off the cover of media guides, billboards and print ads and replaced them with a Nets logo. In this overt way, the message was clear: This was about team now, about the Lamoriello way.

"What there had been with the Nets was an instantaneous objective to get the attention of fans with players who hadn't had any success yet," Lamoriello said. "Because of the past, this was the time to try and get a new message out. And I knew the message would come back in a negative way on me.

	“	I've never seen one player anywhere do for a team what Jason's done this season. He is a role model for all elite athletes. ”
		— Lou Lamoriello

"The whole thing wasn't to do something for today, just to get people in (the arena). Even internally, there (was) some concern among some strong individuals. What I said is, 'Do we want to build a franchise, or do we want to minute-manage what we're doing?' "

So, what Lamoriello expected to be a long, arduous job of restoring credibility to the Nets turned into a season out of his own glorious basketball past. Back in the mid-1980s, Lamoriello had accepted the job as Providence's athletic director, briefly trying to balance his hockey coaching duties while resuscitating the school's floundering basketball program. After one year, the university president suggested he leave coaching and concentrate on the A.D. job. The success was staggering. Lamoriello orchestrated one of the great renaissances in the history of college basketball with the hiring of a brash, young Knicks assistant coach named Rick Pitino.

The program had fallen on its hardest times, struggling to find its way in the Big East Conference. Pitino was the visionary coach, Stu Jackson the star recruiter and Jeff Van Gundy the peach-fuzzed graduate assistant feeding a pudgy point guard, Billy Donovan, a diet of 500 jumpers a day.

Within a month of the Friars' improbable Final Four run, Lamoriello left for the Devils general manager's job and the Knicks hired Pitino. Pitino transformed Providence the way Kidd has done these Nets. But within the organization, there was a fear Lamoriello's marketing tactics could scare Kidd out of Jersey as a free agent in 2003. As the Nets started winning, Kidd's face started popping up on billboards and television ads, the process playing out perfectly for the CEO: Once they started winning, they started promoting the parts responsible for it.

As much as anything, his time as Nets CEO will be judged on holding onto Kidd. This is the litmus test for the franchise's staying power, the superstar promising to do everything for this YankeeNets sporting empire: win games, sell seats and command great ratings on the YES television network.

"Individuals like a Jason Kidd, a Marty Brodeur -- even a Derek Jeter and Roger Clemens -- you don't have to do things or tell them things," Lamoriello said. "They know. Why? They're winners. They're leaders. You shouldn't look for things to tell them. Things have got to get done. They have to be tangible and intangible.

"…I've never seen one player anywhere do for a team what Jason's done this season. He is a role model for all elite athletes."

Far beyond the court, forever in the shadows, Lou Lamoriello played his part for the Nets to reach the NBA Finals. From stamping the Kidd trade, to buying out Jim McIlvaine's contract, to clearing the way for a $34 million commitment to center Todd MacCulloch, the Nets CEO is felt far more than he's ever seen. These Nets are Rod Thorn's vision and Byron Scott's meshing, but make no mistake: This organization belongs to Lou Lamoriello.

Adrian Wojnarowski is a columnist for The Record (N.J.) and a regular contributor to ESPN.com.