You’ve seen these sorts of articles. Lottery winners who lost it all! We’re all familiar with these cautionary tales: a struggling individual gets lucky, but the sudden riches exacerbate some previous underlying issues, leaving the “winner” worse off than before. We swear it could never be us, yet this is a tale as old as time. Ample resources can certainly help one live well, but without a plan, those resources can vanish.
The Mavericks won the lottery. I believe we can confidently say that no sports franchise in history has had its trajectory altered so dramatically on multiple concurrent occassions. The Trade was unprecedented on every level; the lottery luck was unprecedented on several levels. Those events occurred just three months apart. All this after the Mavericks played in the NBA Finals—with Luka Doncic—not even a year ago.
This whirlwind brought into focus how little we knew about how the Mavericks were being run. The general public was not aware of how little Mark Cuban was involved in his new role as a minority governor. (In truth, it doesn’t appear Cuban was aware of how little he was involved.) I’m not sure I can sit here today and tell you I have a better understanding of how involved governor Patrick Dumont is as the dust settles. Coach Jason Kidd and general manager Nico Harrison were hired and introduced together, often being referred to in the media as a “package deal.” And it certainly seemed that way given their shared personal and professional histories.
What exactly that meant, though, no one seems to know. That lack of clarity is why Harrison was able to pounce when the Cuban sale opened up a power vacuum. In a Machiavellian sense, good on Harrison. He appears to have consolidated some power and most likely feels like the most important person in the organization. That’s awesome for him.
Like I said, Kidd and Harrison have known each other for a long time. So I doubt this is going to come as a surprise to Harrison, but Kidd is not going to settle for some sort of lieutenant status, at all. The story will most likely have changed by the time you read this, but for conversation’s sake, the New York Knicks want to hire Kidd to replace the newly fired Tom Thibodeau. They are doing their “active due dilligence.” Marc Stein has a note that the Mavericks could (of course) deny even an interview request, and he has “heard from a few well-placed observers this week who believe that the Mavericks would ultimately do just that.”
In any case, while I certainly don’t know who is telling who what, I do know this is good for Jason Kidd. Whether it smolders a little while longer or not, this report is a signal of what the NBA thinks of Jason Kidd. I sense a sort of recalibration process taking place among people who are still riding with the Mavericks. Is Kidd the right coach for Cooper Flagg, a prodigy? Is he too stuck in his ways, limiting the potential of a Flagg/Dereck Lively II pairing? These are legitimate questions, but while you’re asking them, know that a team that just made the conference finals believes Kidd might be an upgrade for it.
New York’s interest is a reminder for Mavericks fans that Kidd is still rightly considered by most to be a very good coach, despite any of the interpersonal challenges. But the reminder isn’t for them. It’s for Harrison and Dumont, who will have to decide once again what progress looks like and what can be risked to achieve it.
Letting Kidd go, if it gets to that, would bring back assets that the Mavericks, who don’t control their own draft picks from 2027 through 2030, could badly use, both now and to build around Flagg term. But it is no exaggeration to say that the Kidd era could not have gone better since his widely panned hiring in 2021. We have ample reason to believe that Kidd has grown as a human and a coach since his days of… well, a lot of stuff. Outside of Christian Wood, I’m not sure there is a Maverick who would speak negatively about Kidd or about the culture Kidd has created in his time at the top. The Doncic-Kyrie Irving pairing, short-lived as it was, probably doesn’t get off the ground without him. In four years on the job, he’s made more conference finals than any coach in team history. He’s tied for the most Finals appearances, too. And as brutal as the last three months of this season were, they would have gone even worse had he been unable to hold the locker room together. The Mavericks owe a huge amount of their success over the last few seasons to what he’s done and how he’s been able to update his software.
The Knicks understand all of that, or else they wouldn’t have immediately targeted Kidd, someone they need permission to pursue, after firing the coach who took the organization further than it had been been in a quarter century. But do Harrison and Dumont understand it? For that matter, how much does Kidd care whether or not they do?
Perhaps Kidd and his advisers have now fully wrapped their heads around just how little Dumont knows about the NBA. I do not say this in jest: when Dumont was informed that a coach, under contract, can in fact be traded to another team, this novel quirk was most likely news to him. I imagine him saying “Fun! This league!” Maybe that’s why the team hasn’t issued, or issued through a reporter, a statement like this one. The question is, who even issues such a statement? The assumption is that it would be Dumont, but I really don’t know.
Is Harrison Kidd’s boss? I know they play golf together. I know they vacation together. I know they’re good. But for Kidd, Harrison is now an obstacle as much as an asset. Kidd, 52, should be looking at Flagg, 18, joining this roster and imagining becoming among the winningest coaches in the history of the league. For that to happen, he needs to make sure he is viewed as favorably by Dumont as Harrison is, preferably more so.
The Knicks’ interest is an intriguing data point in what will be an otherwise difficult evaluation process for Kidd. Flagg will have growing pains, so there should be lowering of expectations for this veteran roster. But we’ve spent enough time at the Jason Kidd Experience. When Flagg falters and costs the team games, or a series, Kidd will calmly and sarcastically issue some version of, “He’s a young player, he’s growing, what do you want us to do? He’ll get better.”
I don’t know how Kidd will be evaluated. I don’t really know who will be evaluating him. But I know Dumont will be consulted and it will be his call (like with everything going forward, I would imagine). Again, Dumont doesn’t know much about basketball, but I am willing to bet he has heard of the New York Knicks. So as it stands, he’s got a general manager who is and seemingly will remain for some time the Most Hated Man In Sports. And he’s got a coach in the headlines because his stellar resume has put him at the top of a list for most coveted candidates (despite being under contract).
This all just highlights how strange everything is for this team. The Mavericks will most likely deny the request, but at this stage, does Dumont want to get sideways with Kidd, who has two years left on his contract? As Tim MacMahon points out, it’s possible this concludes with another extension for Kidd. Regardless of how many fans you can find who would like to see Kidd run out of town, Dumont desperately needs him. Whether or not it’s a good idea to commit to a two-timelines approach, there will be no pivoting off this veteran core Harrison burned down the Doncic era to assemble as long as he remains in charge. The Mavericks need to win, and there isn’t an available coach better suited than Kidd to help Dallas compete while also developing Flagg.
Kidd has leverage, and he’s a seasoned politician. He is going to do everything he can to separate himself from Harrison, in an attempt to ultimately leapfrog him if he stays in Dallas. Harrison is going to be fired one day. These overtures from the outside are a reminder that Kidd will do whatever it takes to make sure he’s not right there with him. Even if that means warming to the thought of coaching halfway across the country.
Author
Jake Kemp
Jake Kemp
View Profile
Jake Kemp covers the Cowboys and Mavericks for StrongSide. He is a lifelong Dallas sports fan who previously worked for…