Travis Best heard the word going around the league. He was done. Finished. Washed up.

Need a back-up point guard? Check if Cousy wants to play again. He’s got to be better than Best.

“The last couple years, that was the word, that I was finished. I couldn’t do this or do that. I thought that was totally ridiculous,” said Best, who has supplied the Nets with a superb backup and fill-in starter at point while Jason Kidd rights himself.

“Where did that come from? Honestly, I have no clue,” said Best, who struggled through injury during a season each in Miami and Dallas after a significant six-plus seasons in Indiana. “I think it was because I hit 30 [years of age]. With Indiana, we went far in the playoffs every year and I was out there for a lot of minutes, playing in fourth quarters. We went through a lot of wars. That stuff took its toll. The last couple years, I was on teams that didn’t make or didn’t do well in the playoffs and I got rest. It’s done me good.”

And so the Nets, knowing Kidd was coming off major surgery, wanted more experience than Zoran Planinic, more insurance than Jacque Vaughn. They brought in Best with a partially guaranteed contract.

“He’s done a terrific job,” praised team president Rod Thorn. “The last year and a half, he struggled and, yes, the word was that he was through. But obviously, we didn’t believe it.”

Best has emerged as more than a security blanket as Kidd works his way back to his normal minutes. Kidd is still at 20 per, despite going 28 Friday then 17 Saturday when the Nets ended a seven-game road losing streak with a 95-90 victory in Atlanta, where Best scored 21 points, becoming only the third Net this season to score 20 in a game (he joined Richard Jefferson and Eric Williams). Best has been so significant, along with Williams, that Jefferson theorized that with the pair “in the last two or three years, we’d probably have an NBA championship . . . It’s sad those guys were probably the missing pieces to our team.”

With Kidd back, the Nets are a team reborn.

“He brings so much confidence,” Thorn said.

“Jason makes it easier,” Williams said.

“I think we’re building something,” Kidd admits.

The numbers don’t lie. Kidd has played four games but has practiced over the last five. In those five games, the Nets are 4-1 (after going 4-12), averaged 22.6 assists (after 16.1), averaged 96.6 points (after 83.4), shot .469 (after .404) and shot .538 on 3-pointers (after .287). Yeah, Kidd has made a difference. And it doesn’t hurt knowing there is an understudy like Best, who also sees the progress the Nets want to put against the Knicks tomorrow night.

“Guys were thinking so much early on because of how much goes into this offense. We weren’t running any pick and rolls, guys were just robots,” Best said, offering a rationale for the improved offense. “Once we came out of that, guys started playing naturally, being aggressive, attacking. That’s when their natural games came out. We’re learning about each other, getting better as a team.”