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Subject: "Kidd's failed coup (swipe)" Previous topic | Next topic
Rolo_Tomasi
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Sun Jun-29-14 07:33 AM

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7. "Kidd's failed coup (swipe)"
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I know Tim Bontemps on the NYPost broke the story (two days after someone posted the exact same thing on a sports web-forum) but here is Woj's story

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/jason-kidd-in-talks-to-run-bucks--basketball-operations-after-failed-power-play-with-nets-072327526.html

Jason Kidd in talks to run Bucks' basketball operations after failed power play with Nets

After a failed power play in Brooklyn, Nets coach Jason Kidd has entered into serious negotiations to become president of basketball operations for the Milwaukee Bucks, league sources told Yahoo Sports.

Kidd made a failed coup to Brooklyn's Russian ownership to usurp the power of Nets general manager Billy King – and failed spectacularly. The Nets and Bucks are discussing compensation for Milwaukee hiring Kidd away, which will likely include second-round draft picks, sources told Yahoo Sports.

"The Russians are done with Kidd," one high-ranking league source told Yahoo Sports on Saturday night.

Former Memphis Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins – who had been considered as an early season replacement for a foundering Kidd – is a strong candidate to be considered for hiring as the next coach, sources said.

The New York Post first reported the failed power play and talks with Bucks.

Kidd is selling Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry, a close friend and past financial partner, on giving him a lucrative package to do what the Nets have refused: Give Kidd full control of basketball operations. For an NBA figure with such a damaged personal reputation – never mind no front-office experience – the possibility of Kidd being afforded this kind of power and responsibility is being met with downright mockery among NBA owners and executives.


Jason Kidd helped guide the Nets into the second round of the playoffs. (Getty Images)
Jason Kidd helped guide the Nets into the second round of the playoffs. (Getty Images)
It is a humiliating turn of events for the coach and his agent, Jeff Schwartz, who had wielded incredible power and influence with Nets billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov. Nevertheless, Kidd understood he had an admirer on the hook with one of the Bucks' new ownership partners, Lasry. Kidd has had a personal and financial partnership with Lasry, and now he's leveraging that relationship into talks to run the Bucks franchise, sources said.
Kidd isn't angling to immediately take over as president and coach, sources said, but is intrigued with the higher-paying, lower-workload life of an executive, sources said.

For Milwaukee's general manager John Hammond and coach Larry Drew, revelations of the franchise's negotiations with Kidd weren't known to them until the story broke on Saturday night, sources said.

Kidd's thirst for more power and money began to escalate with Golden State's and New York's hirings of Steve Kerr and Derek Fisher, respectively, as coaches, league sources said. Kidd was livid they were paid contracts substantially higher than what the Nets paid Kidd as a rookie coach.

"That got him – especially Fisher," one official told Yahoo Sports.

Kidd was hired for three years, $10.5 million, only to be livid over Kerr and Fisher getting four-year deals guaranteeing more than $4 million dollars per season. Lost on Kidd was this: His dicey history made him unappealing as a coach, except with the Nets.

Despite Kidd's greatness as a Hall of Fame point guard, he had a long career of clashing with front-office executives and coaches, a domestic abuse charge and a DWI guilty plea that left him suspended for his first two games as an NBA head coach. Kidd had little leverage upon his hiring as coach, which is why the Nets refused to overpay him market value.

Within management, there was strong consideration given to firing Kidd near the end of December, league sources said. Some Nets officials wanted to bring Hollins into Brooklyn as head coach, but ultimately ownership decided to stay the course with Kidd, sources said. For Kidd's part in the power play, there's a sense of betrayal within ownership that'll make his return beyond difficult, bordering on the impossible, sources said.


Kidd had no coaching experience before the Nets hired him. (AP)
Kidd had no coaching experience before the Nets hired him. (AP)
After all, the Nets hired Kidd upon his retirement as a player and delivered him a star-studded roster with the steepest payroll in NBA history – $100 million, plus $90 million more in luxury tax. They had listened to Kidd plead with them to make Lawrence Frank the highest-paid assistant coach in the NBA, only to have Kidd inexplicably demand that Frank be demoted within weeks of the start of the season.
Management hated the idea, and believed Frank had done the job they'd hired him to do, but played along with the demotion like it was a unified decision. Only, it wasn't – it was all Kidd, "all his insecurities and need to place blame," one source said.

For a short time in November, Kidd had declared he would pay the balance of Frank's six-year, $7 million-plus deal out of his own pocket – only to backtrack quickly, sources said. Ownership let Kidd have his way and demote Frank, and ultimately has been left to pay the balance of Frank's contract.

For a time, the franchise's faith was rewarded with a dramatic turnaround in January and February that pushed the Nets into the playoffs and ultimately to an Eastern Conference first-round victory over Toronto. Brooklyn lost to Miami in the conference semifinals, but ownership had been thrilled with Kidd's progress as a young coach, sources said.

Management had met with Kidd often this offseason, working with him on roster changes that appealed to him in free agency and trades, league sources said. Throughout his history, Kidd has seldom had graceful exits – out of Dallas and Phoenix, out of New Jersey and Dallas again, and finally New York. There have often been hard feelings and acrimony necessitating a move, or the cause of him forcing his way out.

Before the Nets traded Kidd to Dallas in 2008, franchise officials believed he had faked a migraine headache and missed a game against the New York Knicks. Within the NBA community, there was little surprise about the apparent Shakespearean ending to Kidd's brief, but tumultuous coaching tenure with the Nets.

The coup failed, and Kidd appears to be on his way once again.

  

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2014 BK Nets Offseason Post [View all] , SoulHonky, Sat Jun-21-14 09:27 PM
 
Subject Author Message Date ID
Decisions, decisions
Jun 22nd 2014
1
oh yeah, Joe Jeesus earned that bread
Jun 22nd 2014
3
      AK47 has a player option
Jun 22nd 2014
4
Jason Kidd - building on a good foundation
Jun 22nd 2014
2
RE: Jason Kidd - building on a good foundation
Jul 02nd 2014
31
if The Jack/Thornton deal happens, I'd assume they know S.Liv is out
Jun 23rd 2014
5
AK47 is returning to the Nets
Jun 23rd 2014
6
Only a 2nd rounder? nets better pry a 1st rounder or rights to swap
Jun 29th 2014
9
      I'd like to agree but they really dont
Jun 29th 2014
10
      reassign him like frank...go get mark jackson
Jun 29th 2014
11
           seems like nets are fighting for the 1st rounder. Bucks don't
Jun 30th 2014
21
      NBA should charge Bucks with tampering
Jun 29th 2014
13
           there's no tampering as the nets granted permission
Jun 29th 2014
15
                RE: there's no tampering as the nets granted permission
Jun 29th 2014
17
                     what specifically did mil do that falls under tampering?
Jun 29th 2014
20
BK next coach?
Jun 29th 2014
8
Mark Jackson
Jun 29th 2014
12
      No Way Mark Jackson
Jun 29th 2014
14
           How is Mark Jackson homophobic?
Jun 29th 2014
18
                might have something to do with his homophobic comments iono.
Jul 02nd 2014
25
                     ^^
Jul 04th 2014
33
Shaun Livingston will be gone
Jun 29th 2014
16
Real GM broke the Kidd story two days before anyone else
Jun 29th 2014
19
well he said he has inside sources and he probably does lol
Jul 02nd 2014
26
Young God off to GSW
Jul 02nd 2014
22
Sad to see Livingston go. But my man says I shouldn't even be
Jul 02nd 2014
24
Damn smh. Dude balled out for us
Jul 03rd 2014
32
No Extension for Blatche
Jul 02nd 2014
23
Nets finalizing deal with lionel hollins
Jul 02nd 2014
27
He was great for the Grizz
Jul 02nd 2014
28
      i wish more coaches were as open as hollins after they get canned
Jul 02nd 2014
29
      Hollins confirmed as Nets coach
Jul 02nd 2014
30
Bojan Bogdanovic signed for mMLE on three year contract
Jul 08th 2014
34
Jarrett Jack and Sergey Karasev to the Nets
Jul 09th 2014
35
The Truth Will Out (Pierce to Wizards)
Jul 14th 2014
36
Management and Ownership have no clue what they are doing
Jul 14th 2014
37

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