“I think the one thing you know not to do as a coach is to talk about another job while it is still occupied,” one veteran NBA coach told Sporting News. “You just don’t do that. This is a tough business, there are only 30 jobs and no matter what you think of a guy, every one of us puts his heart and soul into what we do every day. And so you learn to respect your colleagues. But nothing is more disrespectful than gunning for someone’s job while he is still in it.”
Kidd appears to have done this three times in a matter of days. First, Kidd attempted to usurp the general manager’s role with the Nets from Billy King, having seen Stan Van Gundy get the same broad powers in Detroit and Doc Rivers granted that title with the Clippers. But Brooklyn team ownership, led by Mikhail Prokhorov, had no interest in giving Kidd that level of power.
New Bucks owners Marc Lasry and Wes Edens then came into play for Kidd, receiving permission from the team to speak to him last week — Lasry was a former minority owner with the Nets, and knows Kidd personally.
That’s when Kidd attempted to sell the Bucks on an arrangement by which he would both run and coach the team. Problem is, the Bucks have two people doing those jobs already — coach Larry Drew and general manager John Hammond.
King. Drew. Hammond. That’s three employees Kidd attempted to oust. Kidd eventually came away with the job as Bucks coach, with Milwaukee sending 2015 and 2019 second-round picks to the Nets, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports first reported. Drew was never informed of the negotiations with Kidd.
Jason Kidd (AP Photo)
What’s worse, it appears that one of Kidd’s motivations was resentment over the bigger financial packages awarded to Steve Kerr in Golden State and Derek Fisher in New York, each of whom reportedly got five-year, $25 million deals. Both of those coaches, like Kidd, are former players who have never been on a coaching staff before — not only as a head coach, but not even as an assistant.
...“That’s the worst part,” the head coach said. “What’s the bible say? ‘Don’t covet your neighbor’s possessions?’ As a coach, you always look at it as, ‘If this coach does well financially, it raises all of us up.’ You just have to believe if you do your job, you win games, you make progress, eventually, what some other coach is being paid is going to come back to you.
"Don’t you think every coach in the league looked at Steve Kerr’s deal and said, ‘Wow, so he has no experience?’ But you don’t begrudge anyone in the business. You can’t conduct yourself that way. He will pay a price.”
...“I don’t think anyone is going to just forget what he just did to Larry Drew,” the coach said. “You expect the unexpected in this line of work, but that is a lot of back-stabbing.”
But he's going to bring some storm to their game and I'll look forward to watching him play.
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