Report: Jason Kidd will become Dallas Mavericks’ coach.
The Dallas Mavericks are making Jason Kidd their next head coach and Nico Harrison their general manager, according to multiple reports.
Harrison, a longtime Nike executive, has a good relationship with Mavericks star guard Luka Doncic and has a long-standing friendship with Kidd, the former St. Joseph Notre Dame and Cal standout who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018.
This is Kidd’s third head coaching job in the NBA. He coached the Brooklyn Nets for one season in 201314, then had his coaching rights traded to the Bucks for two second-round draft picks.
Kidd remained with Milwaukee until midway through the 2017-18 season when he was fired after a 23-22 start and a power struggle with the front office. He went 139-152 overall as Milwaukee’s coach and led the team to two playoff appearances.
Kidd, who has been an assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers for the past two years, has a career coaching record of 183-190.
He has already started to assemble a coaching staff to join him in Dallas, according to ESPN.
Kidd was drafted by the Mavericks in 1994, one of two stints he had with the team. He played in Dallas until 1996 before he was traded to Phoenix after a feud with teammates Jim Jackson and Jamal Mashburn.
He was then acquired by Dallas and owner Mark Cuban in 2008 from the then-New Jersey Nets. Kidd helped the Mavericks win an NBA title in 2011.
Rick Carlisle resigned as the Mavericks’ coach last week but endorsed Kidd to be the team’s next coach. Carlisle became the Indiana Pacers’ coach on Thursday.
There were reports of simmering tension between
Carlisle and Doncic, as the Mavericks finished fifth in the Western Conference but lost to the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the playoffs. Dallas also lost to the Clippers in the first round of the 2020 playoffs.
“My hope is that Jason Kidd will be the next coach of the Mavs because he and Luka have so many things in common as players,” Carlisle told ESPN.
“I just think that it would be a great situation for Luka, and I think it would be an amazing situation for Jason. I’m the only person
on the planet that’s coached both of those guys and that knows about all of their special qualities as basketball players. To me, that just would be a great marriage, but that’s just an opinion.”
Harrison replaces Donnie Nelson, whose expertise came in player evaluation even though he held the title of president of basketball operations longer than that of general manager. Nelson joined the Mavericks in 1998 when his dad, Don, was named coach.
Nelson’s roots were in Europe, where he discovered
Dirk Nowitzki and Doncic as teenagers roughly 20 years apart.
Before the Mavericks, Donnie Nelson spent a dozen years with the Warriors while Don Nelson was the coach. It was during this time Donnie formed a pipeline with international players while scouting for the Warriors. First was Lithuanian star Sarunas Marciulionis, whom the Warriors wound up drafting in the 1987 draft.