Milwaukee Bucks: Jason Kidd, The Enigma
As a rookie head coach last season, Jason Kidd’s transition from player to coach was anything but smooth. He was entrusted with a team that had championship aspirations. The Brooklyn Nets had an aging roster with the smallest of windows to win a title. Although he’s been a good coach, showing that he can most likely take a very young Milwaukee Bucks team that was expected to be in the lottery to the playoffs, people haven’t forgotten the type of person he is.
Mikhail Prokhorov had the faith in Kidd to lead a team with unrealistic expectations to the promise land. After starting off 9-19, Kidd led the Nets to a respectable 44-38 record with their starting center and franchise building block, Brook Lopez lost to injury early in the season. The Nets’ second round exit to the defending champion Miami Heat was expected, since they clearly lost to a better team. Kidd could breathe a sigh of relief after so much speculation about his job security.
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The way Kidd tried to pull a power play with the Nets in coming weeks is what rubbed many people in the league the wrong way. His failed attempt to seize control of general manger Billy King’s position exposed what kind of person he is. Perhaps it was the fact that he was seeing all the other first-time coaches (Steve Kerr and Derek Fisher) land big deals worth approximately $5 million a season, which was much more than Kidd was earning as head coach of the Nets.
After Kidd’s unsuccessful attempt to dethrone Billy King, he was able to land his job as head coach of the Bucks, a coaching position that was not vacant at the time. When new owners buy a team, the coaching staff in place is usually on thin ice, with their days being numbered, barring extraordinary circumstances. New owners would like to put their imprint on their franchise, something that the Grizzlies and Kings have done recently, having fired fully competent coaching staffs already in place.
It must have been the worst way to hear about losing your job for Larry Drew, as coach of the Bucks. Drew handled the firing with class, knowing that this was the nature of the beast that is NBA coaching. Drew was even at the news conference when Jabari Parker was intoduced, well after new owners Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens started talking to Kidd about the position.
Jeff Van Gundy has said before that he refuses to discuss coaching positions and he wouldn’t interview for a position that isn’t vacant. Van Gundy understands how difficult it is to keep an NBA head coaching job and he respects everyone who has one, having been a very good coach who was fired when he was with the Rockets. Kidd has shown that he thinks none of these rules apply to him and he will say all the right things until things don’t seem to go his way.
Kidd has a history of questionable behavior from domestic violence charges, to driving under the influence, the pathetic sodagate incident, how he treated the Nets and Bucks’ coaching staffs and many other incidents. Especially in the last year, Kidd’s reputation has taken a huge hit. Even as a player, he clashed with coaches many times and Mark Cuban even said he refuses to retire Kidd’s jersey after breaking a verbal agreement to re-sign with the Mavericks.
After a long, Hall-of-Fame playing career in which he made nearly $200 million, Kidd will be remembered as a legend but it may take him a long time to change his reputation as a person.