{"id":653677,"date":"2026-05-20T03:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T03:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/653677\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T03:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T03:50:09","slug":"mavericks-part-ways-with-jason-kidd-after-5-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/653677\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavericks part ways with Jason Kidd after 5 seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dallas Mavericks and Jason Kidd are parting ways, the team announced Tuesday, an abrupt ending to the franchise icon\u2019s five-year run as head coach.<\/p>\n

Kidd was hired in 2021 to lead a team with Luka Don\u010di\u0107 as its centerpiece. The Mavericks went 52-30 games in Kidd\u2019s first season in charge and made a surprise run to the Western Conference finals. Two years later, the Mavericks won the Western Conference and reached the NBA Finals, where they lost a six-game series to the Boston Celtics.<\/p>\n

But the situation in Dallas deteriorated quickly after the Mavericks traded Don\u010di\u0107 to the Los Angeles Lakers in February 2025, only eight months removed from the team\u2019s finals run.<\/p>\n

Former general manager Nico Harrison was the driving force behind the trade, but prominent voices inside the Mavericks organization \u2014 namely, minority owner Mark Cuban \u2014 alleged that Kidd influenced the trade more than he said publicly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t justify it for our coach and our general manager to stand up and trade our best player,\u201d Cuban said on the \u201cIntersections\u201d podcast<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n

Days later, Kidd said he was \u201cnot part of the process\u201d and that he was made aware the deal was happening only \u201cat the 11th hour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mavericks on Tuesday also parted ways with Matt Riccardi, who was the team\u2019s assistant general manager when it made the Don\u010di\u0107 trade and was promoted to co-interim general manager alongside Michael Finley upon Harrison\u2019s firing in November.<\/p>\n

Injuries ruined any chance the Mavericks had of succeeding after they traded Don\u010dic. Anthony Davis, whom Kidd coached on the Lakers, suffered a left adductor strain in his first game with the Mavericks on Feb. 8, 2025. Weeks later, star guard Kyrie Irving tore the ACL in his left knee. Davis and Irving played a total of 25 minutes together in Dallas before Davis was traded to the Washington Wizards in February.<\/p>\n

The Mavericks lost 30 of 37 games to close the regular season. On April 12, following Dallas\u2019 regular-season finale against the Chicago Bulls, Kidd said it was difficult to evaluate the Mavericks\u2019 last two seasons because of their litany of injury issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be healthy at some point,\u201d Kidd said. \u201cWe want that to be next season. If that is, we can be judged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Per league sources, Kidd had interest in moving into a front office role with the Mavericks. The Athletic was first to report in February that was unlikely to happen.<\/p>\n

In May, the Mavericks made a splash<\/a> by hiring championship-winning executive Masai Ujiri as president and alternate governor. Ujiri was noncommittal about Kidd\u2019s future with the Mavericks when asked May 5 if Kidd would be back for a sixth season as coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s done a great job, but we are going to look at this thing from head to toe,\u201d Ujiri said then.<\/p>\n

In the Mavericks\u2019 news release Tuesday, Ujiri said he believed \u201cthis is the right moment for a new direction for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have high expectations for this franchise and a responsibility to build a basketball organization capable of sustained championship contention,\u201d Ujiri said. \u201cWe 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

Last summer, the New York Knicks had interest in hiring Kidd as coach. The Mavericks declined to let Kidd interview for the job, however, and awarded him a contract extension in October. Because of the number of years and money remaining on Kidd\u2019s deal \u2014 four years and $40 million, league sources said \u2014 there was skepticism in some corners of the NBA that the Mavericks would part ways with him now. But sources with knowledge of governor Patrick Dumont\u2019s thinking insisted all along that Ujiri would have full control to shape the Mavericks organization as he saw fit, which Tuesday\u2019s news made apparent.<\/p>\n

Kidd forged strong relationships with both of the Mavericks\u2019 stars, forward Cooper Flagg and Irving, in his time in Dallas. While Flagg, 19, just completed his rookie season and has three years remaining on his current contract, Irving has only one more year left on his deal before he can exercise a player option in summer 2027.<\/p>\n

In his stops with the Denver Nuggets and Toronto Raptors, Ujiri chose to hang on to the coaches he inherited \u2014 George Karl and Dwane Casey \u2014 for multiple seasons. Yet in this instance, Ujiri didn\u2019t push to retain Kidd.<\/p>\n

The Mavericks must now find a coach as they continue building around Flagg. Kidd\u2019s time in Dallas is over 15 months after the Mavericks traded Don\u010di\u0107, the superstar Kidd was hired to work with.<\/p>\n

Kidd finishes his tenure as Mavericks coach with a 205-205 record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Mavericks and Jason Kidd are parting ways, the team announced Tuesday, an abrupt ending to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[760,355,99],"class_list":["post-653677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}