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Former Bucks coach Jason Kidd moves closer to NBA Finals as Mavericks win Game 1

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The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals on Wednesday and are now just three wins away from advancing to the NBA Finals. Head coach Jason Kidd, who coached the Bucks for three and a half seasons from 2014 to 2018, has been with Dallas the past three seasons and reached this stage of the season twice, along with the Mavericks in 2021-22.

If Kidd leads the Mavericks to a series victory, he will be the first Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer to coach in an NBA Finals since Paul Westphal with Phoenix in 1993 – although Westphal was not inducted until 2019. Other Hall of Fame players have coached in the Finals (including Billy Cunningham, KC Jones, Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn, Bill Sharman), but none were already enshrined when they led a team to the Finals.

Kidd was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame as a player in 2018.

When and why did the Bucks fire Jason Kidd?

Similar to Adrian Griffin in 2024, Jason Kidd was released in January, in this case back in 2018.

The Bucks entered the 2017-18 season with high expectations, but were barely above .500 when Kidd was fired. Milwaukee finished the year 21-16 under interim coach Joe Prunty and lost 4-3 to the Boston Celtics in the first round of the playoffs.

“I evaluated it, made a recommendation and ultimately made a decision that was unanimously supported by the owners,” Bucks general manager Jon Horst said in his first season in the position. “This is how we come to all our conclusions and decisions. …”

“It’s a very, very proactive move,” said team co-owner Wes Edens. “We don’t think the season is over. We are a winning team at the moment. We believe that with Jabari (Parker) returning, we have a playoff rotation that is as deep as any in the East. We want to give. “We have the best chance to be in a great position in what we believe will be a very successful postseason.”

The Bucks viewed themselves as one of the top five defenses in the league, but instead were in the bottom five.

The Bucks actually traded draft picks for Jason Kidd, and guess who ended up getting one of the picks?

Before Milwaukee could name Kidd head coach for the 2014–15 season—less than three months after Edens and co-owner Marc Lasry purchased the Bucks from Herb Kohl—the club had to negotiate a trade with the Brooklyn Nets, where Kidd had just completed his first year as head coach.

Milwaukee sent two second-round picks to Brooklyn in trade, including one in 2015. The player selected with that pick was future Bucks guard Pat Connaughton, who was drafted by Brooklyn and then immediately traded to Portland.

Connaughton played three seasons for the Blazers, signed with the Bucks in 2018, won a ring in 2021 and remains with Milwaukee to this day.

Kidd's first year was a success, going 41-41, a year after the club posted a franchise-worst 15-67 record under first-year coach Larry Drew. It was only the second time in NBA history that a team had gone from the worst record to the playoffs in two consecutive seasons.

The success may have washed away some of the tension that came with the hiring, just as Drew said he was “blindsided” by his firing and Kidd reportedly tried to use a power play to gain more control in Brooklyn before moving on Milwaukee was sent.

The Bucks never took another step forward in terms of records. Milwaukee posted a 33-49 record in 2015-16 and a 42-40 record in 2016-17 before firing Kidd the following year with a 23-22 record. A season later, the Bucks took a quantum leap forward under Mike Budenholzer in the 2018/19 season and won the best record in the league with 60 games.

Did Jason Kidd have a lasting impact on Giannis Antetokounmpo?

Then, in his second season, Antetokounmpo immediately expressed his disappointment over the firing and indicated that he would pull out all the stops possible to change the outcome. Kidd assured him that this change was for the best.

“It's kind of uncomfortable, especially for a guy like me — like I said, one of my characteristics is that I'm loyal to the people around me,” Antetokounmpo said in his first public comments since Kidd's firing. “That's one of my characteristics, but it's kind of uncomfortable knowing that before it happens.”

In the years since, Giannis has credited Kidd with helping him develop into a dominant player, including earlier this year when he talked about his development as a “point forward.”

“The person who improved it the most was probably J-Kidd because he said, no, no, no, he's the one who gets the ball,” Antetokounmpo told the Journal Sentinel. “I was The Point guard of the team. And I enjoyed it. I learned a lot, I learned how to play with the ball, I learned how hard the job is.

“The last year he was here (2017-18), I was the point guard. That's not easy. That's not easy.”

Some of these views were reflected in the Giannis biography, “Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an MVP,” by Mirin Fader, which hit bookstores in 2021. However, Kidd was criticized for some of his training methods described in the book, including his insistence on training on Christmas Day.

One could argue that Kidd had a similar impact on Knicks star Jalen Brunson, who broke out under Kidd with the Mavericks in the 2021-22 season before signing a free agent contract with New York.

What has Jason Kidd's coaching record been like since leaving Milwaukee?

Kidd became an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Lakers and immediately won a ring with the Frank Vogel-coached team in 2019-2020, securing the “Bubble” playoff title. However, the development was disappointing for Kidd's former employer; The Bucks entered these playoffs with the best record in the East, but lost to Miami in the second round.

Kidd became the head coach in Dallas in 2021-22 and led the team to a 52-30 record, his best season. After a 38-44 record last year and missing the playoffs, the Mavericks went 50-32 this year and earned the 5th seed in the Western Playoffs.

Dallas defeated the fourth-seeded Los Angeles Clippers and top-seeded Oklahoma City in six games before winning Game 1 against third-seeded Minnesota.

Jason Kidd signed an extension to stay in Dallas

Earlier this month, the 51-year-old Kidd signed a contract extension a day before opening a playoff series against Oklahoma City. Kidd's name had appeared in some reports about the Los Angeles Lakers coaching vacancy created when the organization fired former Bucks assistant Darvin Ham.

“I have known Jason for a long time and cannot imagine a better, more qualified candidate to lead this team in the future,” Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison said in a press release about the contract extension. “As a former NBA Champion Hall of Fame player, Jason brings a wealth of experience and expertise to this role that cannot be matched. He has earned the trust and respect of our players and so many others around the league, and I look forward to working with him as we continue to build on the culture and foundation of success that he brought during his tenure as head coach built up.”

Is Jason Kidd one of the best coaches in the NBA?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. At least as far as Coach of the Year honors go, Kidd received third place as NBA Coach of the Year once this season, placing him in ninth place. He understandably wasn't among the 14 coaches chosen last year when the Mavericks missed the playoffs.

The year before, Kidd finished sixth in the voting in his first year with Dallas. His best finish came third that first season with Milwaukee, well behind Atlanta's Mike Budenholzer (who replaced Kidd in Milwaukee) and Golden State's Steve Kerr.

The Mavericks finished the 2023-24 season 10th in offensive rating and 18th in defensive rating after finishing sixth and 24th in those departments last year. The year before, when the team reached the Western Conference finals, the roles were reversed, finishing 15th in offensive rating and sixth in defensive rating.

This season has not been entirely free of dissatisfaction either. The Mavericks were ahead 34-28 on March 5, but then won 16 of 18 games and secured their playoff spot.

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