From coach killer as a player, to coach terminator as a coach himself, Jason Kidd’s dubious power play continues in Brooklyn.
Kidd recently demoted top assistant Lawrence Frank—and former Nets head coach himself from the franchise’s New Jersey days—to a role that requires nothing more than handling daily reports. Frank will no longer have any authority over practices or from the bench during games.
Brooklyn’s head man cited “different philosophies” as the reason for jettisoning Frank, according to reports from ESPN. Frank had ostensibly been hired for his defensive acumen and experience that would guide Kidd through the trials and tribulations of NBA coaching.
Apparently not, as Frank and his sizeable six-year, $6 million contract are now relegated to basketball-coaching purgatory.
In his first year serving as floor general from the sideline—and not at point guard—Kidd is having a rough go at things. We’d deem it an unmitigated disaster.
The Nets are 7-14 following a recent stretch of six losses over their past 10 games. Five of those defeats ended in double-digit margins, with two in excess of 30 points. The second resulted most egregiously against their cross-town rival New York Knicks—an equally dysfunctional and moribund franchise.
Pulling off a recent win over the 5-16 Milwaukee Bucks did in no way represent a positive turnaround toward future winning. The Nets are still only two games ahead of the league’s second-most hapless team in the notoriously bad Eastern Conference.
Their overall league standing is almost as shameful as their coach getting fined $50 grand for purposely spilling a drink on the court—doing so in a failed attempt to prevent a loss to the Kobe Bryant-less Los Angeles Lakers.
Smooth work, Kidd.
Poor defense, zero scoring pop, injuries and a hopelessly geriatric roster have exacerbated the considerable difficulties Kidd was already going to experience as a rookie head coach.
Brooklyn ranks No. 26 in points allowed—including an NBA-worst 41.3 percent percentage from three—in addition to scoring just 94.4 points per game (No. 23). A negative-7.9 point differential keeps the Nets just two spots above the cellar-dwelling Utah Jazz.
Shooting guard Joe Johnson is the only starter who’s suited up in all 21 games. Deron Williams, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Brook Lopez have missed a combined 25 games due to a wide array on physical setbacks.
Lopez, for his part, is the only starter who operates with youthful vitality and an above-average player efficiency rating (28.6). But even the 25-year-old center remains injury-prone with seven games missed already this season.
And Williams, despite his listed age of 29, seems every bit of old, slow and defunct as the plus-36 Pierce and Garnett.
Kidd, 40, might as well don a uniform underneath his suit and rehash his point-guard duties for a starting-five that averages 32 years of age. That’s at least something he can do with reliable success.
(Update: Williams posted a 25PTS, 3REB, 7AST stat line against the Boston Celtics on Tuesday night after this article was published. We’ll give Williams his props and Pierce and Garnett credit for beating their old club 104-96.)
Continual harsh criticism aside, Kidd is simply over his head at his newfound role as, well, head coach.
Passing over the necessary process of developing his craft as an assistant has plagued him in the early goings. Learning on the job at the highest point of authority has not lent itself to any cache-building.
Remember, Brooklyn is a star-laden team that requires extensive smoothing over to generate sustainable chemistry. Garnett and Company have been there and done that—they need a coach that has done the same.
Worrying about their supposed leader while already trying to lead on the court does nothing toward winning on an immediate basis.
With a $102 million payroll and negative-$43 million in cap space, that’s what this Nets team needs—to win now.
Kidd, it seems, just might not be the right man for the job.
We can only wonder if powerful owner Mikhail Prokhorov feels the same.
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