As far as NBA coaches go this season, the smartest guy in the room was unquestionably Steve Kerr, when he picked the Warriors’ coaching job over the Knicks’ coaching vacancy.
The second-smartest coach this season? That’s easy.
Jason Kidd might have badly botched his power-play to take control of the Nets’ basketball operations last summer. But as it’s worked out, he did just fine in going off to Milwaukee.
With his team headed to the playoffs after a 15-win season last year, he is getting some consideration for Coach of the Year honors, an award that should go to Atlanta’s Mike Budenholzer, with Kerr probably doing the second-best job in the NBA. And look what Kidd has left? A terribly underachieving Nets team that is likely to miss out on the post-season, perhaps leading to big off-season changes in the team’s front office.
In retrospect, Kidd had it right in finding a new home in Milwaukee and going to a team that has a bright future because of some very good young talent, starting with Giannis Antetokounmpo. What’s more, he left a franchise that is loaded down with bad contracts and has few assets with which to rebuild.
“I think it is a good marriage,’’ San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich told reporters out in Milwaukee the other day, when looking at the job Kidd has done with a bunch of 20-something players. “I think a young team is probably a great situation because they are in need of knowledge and learning and how it all comes together. Jason is a guy that knows how that works.’’
Kidd’s Bucks are sorely in need of a win tonight when they take on the 11th-place Nets (27-39) in Barclays Center. Milwaukee has lost nine straight road games and have slipped back to the .500 mark for the first time since Jan. 25, when the Bucks were 22-22.
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Only a month ago Kidd had his team riding high, as the Bucks were a season-best eight games over .500, at 31-23. He had a point guard, Brandon Knight, who was having an All-Star caliber season. But the Bucks decided to break up their team, sending Knight to Phoenix and dealing for the Sixers’ Michael Carter-Williams.
The change has not been for the better, as their recent play shows. They're still in sixth place in the East and shouldn’t fall out of the playoff race altogether. But Carter-Williams is as turnover-prone as ever and not a good shooter. And now the former Syracuse star finds himself in a playoff race for the first time in his career after spending his first few seasons in Philly in a losing situation.
But with the teams chasing Milwaukee all sporting losing records, the Bucks are still expected to clinch a playoff berth. That would be a great accomplishment, considering that Kidd lost one of his top young players, Jabari Parker, taken second overall in the draft last June, to a season-ending knee injury only a quarter of the way into the season.
After playing the Nets, Kidd’s team gets to close out the season with nine of its final 14 games at home, where they are 19-13. Even with his team currently struggling for wins, Kidd sees it as a good way for Carter-Williams and others to learn what it takes to make the post-season.
“I think it's great," Kidd told reporters the other day. "You couldn't ask for a better situation for us as a team, as a coaching staff and as players. Being young and understanding the importance of each possession going forward, because this time of the year everyone's fighting for something, if it's a lottery pick or if it's for seeding.... These are all-important minutes for our team to go through."
At least they’re going through this slump with a future Hall of Famer who knows the in’s and out’s of what it takes to win. After leading the Nets to the franchise's greatest NBA moments, back-to-back Finals berths in 2002 and 2003, Kidd finally won a ring in Dallas in 2011.
"He's a competitor of the highest realm," Popovich said, before his team won in Milwaukee. "At the same time, he's knowledgeable and knows what it takes. He is comfortable in his own skin. He will be fair, but he is going to demand. Any kind of battle of doing it the right way, he's going to win the battle."
That’s a plus for the Bucks, who should be elated that Jason Kidd lost his battle in Brooklyn.
Longtime New York columnist Mitch Lawrence continues to write about pro basketball, as he’s done for the last 22 years. His columns for NBCNewYork.com on the Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and the NBA, along with other major sports, will appear twice weekly. Follow him on Twitter @Mitch _ Lawrence.
