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\u201cJason has had a meaningful impact on the Dallas Mavericks, both as a Hall of Fame player and as the head coach who helped lead this franchise back to the\u00a0NBA Finals,\u201d Ujiri said in a prepared statement. \u201cWe are thankful for Jason\u2019s leadership, his professionalism and his commitment to the team. In my short time here, I\u2019ve developed an enormous amount of respect for what he has built. He will always be an important part of the Mavericks family.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Kidd led the Mavericks to the Western Conference finals in his first season as coach despite entering the postseason as a No. 4 seed. They lost in five games to the Golden State Warriors, who’d eventually win the championship in 2022.<\/p>\n
Kidd previously had a brief stint as coach of the Brooklyn Nets and spent three-plus seasons as coach of the Milwaukee Bucks. He has a 388-395 career record and has made the playoffs in five of his 10 seasons as a head coach.<\/p>\n
The former Rookie of the Year winner with the Mavericks was hired under Mark Cuban’s ownership and extended twice under former general manager\u00a0Nico Harrison. Kidd is suddenly available on the market one season after the New York\u00a0Knicks’ aggressive pursuit to lure him away from Dallas. Harrison denied New York’s request and Kidd was later rewarded with a new contract extension.<\/p>\n
However, the Mavericks missed the playoffs for the second consecutive season amid a plethora of injury misfortune, another groundbreaking\u00a0midseason trade and inconsistent lineups during Cooper Flagg’s sensational rookie season. Despite the chaotic season, the Mavericks were competitive on most nights, finishing tied for the highest amount of clutch games in the NBA (45). It is currently unclear as to what will happen with\u00a0Kidd’s staff, which includes a pair of former head coaches in Frank Vogel and Jay Triano, along with assistants Popeye Jones, Phil Handy and Mike Penberthy.<\/p>\n
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With Ujiri taking over as team president, the question as to whether\u00a0Kidd would remain in his post lingered. Ujiri was noncommittal when asked about Kidd’s future.<\/p>\n
Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont has entrusted Ujiri with full autonomy of basketball decisions, given his extensive experience and previous success, which was one of the primary goals of the hire. Multiple people familiar with Kidd’s thinking said the former Mavericks coach had a strong desire for the president of basketball operations job but was informed “early in the process” that he would not be considered for the role.<\/p>\n
Instead, Dumont reached out to Ujiri as early as December, when the two met for the first time during a five-hour lunch in Miami. The lengthy meeting was the start of a partnership that led to Ujiri’s hiring.<\/p>\n
Kidd and Ujiri’s paths crossed 12 years ago when Kidd’s Nets faced Ujiri’s Toronto Raptors in the first round of the 2014 playoffs. The former Raptors president infamously shouted a profanity\u00a0at a fan rally before Game 1 began. Kidd was asked after the game about Ujiri’s comment and said he could “care less” about what the former Raptors GM said.<\/p>\n
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“You gotta tell me who the GM is,” Kidd said. “I don’t even know who that is. I could care less what they think about Brooklyn. We have a job to do, and that’s to play the game of basketball.”<\/p>\n
Ujiri said he had a conversation with Kidd after his hiring and projected to have another talk with him to gather his opinion on the future on the franchise. The team’s description as mutual depicts that both believed it was in the team’s best interests to part ways.<\/p>\n
The Mavericks will immediately begin a comprehensive search for their 11th head coach in franchise history. The search for a new coach will mark the sixth coaching change in the NBA since the regular season ended. Milwaukee hired Taylor Jenkins to replace Doc Rivers and the New Orleans Pelicans recently hired former Mavericks assistant Jamahl Mosley, who was fired by Orlando after its first-round exit. The Magic, along with the Chicago Bulls and Portland Trail Blazers are also in need of head coaches.<\/p>\n
Ujiri will hold a media availability Wednesday morning to address his second major decision since taking the helm of the Mavericks. Four days after he was hired,\u00a0Ujiri named Mike\u00a0Schmitz as the team’s new general manager. Kidd’s departure is the latest in what’s been an active offseason for the Mavericks.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAs we evaluate the future of our basketball program, we believe this is the right moment for a new direction for our team,\u201d Ujiri said. \u201cWe have high expectations for this franchise and a responsibility to build a basketball organization capable of sustained championship contention. We will conduct a thorough, disciplined search for our next head coach and continue to evaluate our entire basketball operations staff to ensure we compete at the standard Mavs fans expect and deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n
*This story will be updated as more information becomes available.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd leaves the court after being ejected during the second half of an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,88840,88906],"class_list":["post-300729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-dallas-mavericks","tag-tp-jason-kidd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}