Jason Kidd's coaching skills called into question
NBC SPORTS - Jason Kidd was given a Herculean task: Take six current or former All-Stars, a team with a ridiculous $100 million payroll, and meld all of it into a team that can win a title...
Jason Kidd was given a Herculean task: Take six current or former All-Stars, a team with a ridiculous $100 million payroll, and meld all of it into a team that can win a title — and by the way, you have pretty much a one-year window to do that.
Hiring Kidd as a coach fresh off his final season as an NBA player may have been the boldest — if you prefer, riskiest — move the Nets front office made last summer. Nobody questions Kidd’s basketball IQ, but understanding how to play the game and teaching others how to do it are very different things.
Brooklyn is off to a 3-7 start with a bottom 10 offense and defense, and after an ugly Monday night loss to the Trail Blazers Nets players called a team meeting to talk about their issues.
But around the league, some people are starting to whisper Kidd is the problem, reports Howard Beck at Bleacher Report.
A veteran scout, interviewed earlier in the day and speaking on the condition of anonymity, called Kidd’s bench comportment “terrible,” observing that the play-calling has fallen mostly to his top assistants, Lawrence Frank and John Welch.
“He doesn’t do anything,” said the scout, who has watched the Nets several times. “He doesn’t make calls. John Welch does all the offense. Lawrence does all the defense. … I don’t know what Kidd does. I don’t think you can grade him and say he’s bad. You can give him an incomplete.”
The same scout said he had counted only 15 plays run by the Nets in the games he has watched.
Click here to read more.
