|
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/sports/basketball/as-a-coaching-candidate-jason-kidd-is-no-slam-dunk.html?_r=0
Kidd as Nets’ Next Coach? Not So Fast
By HARVEY ARATON
MIAMI — In the interests of understanding Jason Kidd’s iconoclastic mind-set, Chauncey Billups was a suitable stand-in after news circulated Sunday night that Kidd was pursuing the Nets’ head coaching vacancy. And what veteran point guard worth his handle wouldn’t think himself capable of making the transition from player to coach in seven seconds or less?
“For a point guard, you’ve got to be thinking for everybody out there,” Billups said. “You’ve got to massage egos, got to deal with all the politics of the whole team. You’re basically already doing it.”
Billups proceeded to endorse Kidd’s candidacy, which was first reported by Yahoo Sports. “Obviously, Jason is a guy I think would do well with that,” he said.
Bill Russell won championships as a player-coach of the Boston Celtics in 1968 and 1969. Dave DeBusschere was handed the same role with an unwatchable Detroit Pistons team at 24. In semirelated news, a wrestler was elected governor of Minnesota and an action-movie actor occupied the California Statehouse.
Making Kidd the coach just weeks after he walked out of the Knicks’ locker room in Indianapolis and retired as a player would not be the most radical transaction in the history of the N.B.A., much less the country.
That does not mean it would be the best choice for the Nets as they attempt to build on this season’s successful residency in Brooklyn, or even a very wise one. In terms of giants among men, Kidd is certainly not Russell. As a leading man of unquestioned character, Kidd has a 19-year N.B.A. track record that suggests that he is no Billups, either.
The Nets should be careful not to confuse visionary point guard play with the ability of a person to see life’s big picture. Even at the advanced playing age of 40, Kidd has provided reasons to wonder just how much of a grown-up he really is outside the lines.
This is a man who, last July, drove his car into a light pole, reportedly after a night of drinking, and has been accused of everything from chronic coach killing to domestic abuse.
Before Miami routed San Antonio in Game 2 on Sunday to even the N.B.A. finals, the league honored Billups as the recipient of a new leadership award named for Jack Twyman and Maurice Stokes.
Asked about his postplaying aspirations, Billups, 36, said: “To be honest, my desire has been the front-office-type thing — president, general manager, put the team together. But it’s funny that I say that because I’m actually coaching while I’m playing now. So, do I think I could be a good coach because of my experiences now? Of course. Of course.”
No doubt Kidd expressed the same confidence when he met on Monday with the Nets’ general manager, Billy King, according to reports. Doc Rivers and Mark Jackson will hover over continuing discussions. Both were savvy point guards who, like Kidd, passed through Madison Square Garden as players and have become successful head coaches (to varying degrees) without the benefit of an assistant’s apprenticeship.
But there is an important difference in the approaches Rivers and Jackson took from the one Kidd is apparently proposing. Both transitioned out of playing by working in broadcasting. Calling games on television did not hurt their analytical skills and, in Jackson’s case, certainly raised his profile. The true benefit was that it allowed them to evolve from the lifestyle of a player and the culture of entitlement.
Kidd may think like a coach, but he still acts like a player. As he often has done when the result did not suit him, he left without talking to reporters after the final game of his career last month in Indianapolis. Is he ready to deal with hard questions every day next season and three times on game days?
It is one thing to coach talent on the court and another thing to coddle it behind closed doors. Being Deron Williams’s pal is not like having to call him out for bad body language or shot selection.
As Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich said in a parsed but mostly positive assessment of Kidd, “If he’s crazy enough to want to be a head coach in this league, I wish him all the best.”
There would be less hesitancy here to question such a move if it were made by the likes of Billups, who did not receive the inaugural Twyman/Stokes trophy by accident. Having toured the league as a young journeyman before emerging as a championship point man in Detroit, Billups was never a playmaker in Kidd’s class. But nobody had to question his character or his understanding of authority.
With Kidd, you do have to wonder about a guy who was traded for Stephon Marbury. Kidd was always a big enough star to call the shots along with the plays in Dallas, Phoenix and especially New Jersey, where his greatest hits included leaning on management to oust Byron Scott as the coach after consecutive runs to the finals.
The Nets were still a franchise run on a shoestring then. Kidd was a revelation, the best player they ever had after Julius Erving. In Brooklyn, with a handsome new arena and the Russian owner Mikhail D. Prokhorov’s billions behind them, the Nets are a joke no more. But having fired two coaches in the past six months, they should not act hastily to land a big name and tweak the Knicks.
Kidd no doubt knows the game, but do the Nets really know Kidd? Bringing him back in some capacity would be a good idea. Indulging him by putting him in charge without an intermediary step would be an unnecessary risk for the team and possibly a disservice to Kidd.
After 19 years as the brilliant maestro of basketball games, he could first use a taste of the real world. If a first-rate and overdue candidate like Brian Shaw is available, Prokhorov’s team should tell Kidd nyet, or at least not yet. And you will know MY JACKET IS GOLD when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
|
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
Okay Sports
. I wish him all the best. 
