After parting ways with the Mavericks, former head coach Jason Kidd is on to his next venture in the basketball world: television.
Kidd fielded a handful of questions, including his thoughts on Mavericks star Cooper Flagg, how Kidd would fare in today’s NBA as a player and how he’s adjusting in his first season out of the league.
Here are the highlights of the conversation, edited lightly for clarity.
What makes a rookie a Rookie of the Year? Talk about the guy that you coached in Cooper Flagg.
I think when you talk about rookie of the year, I had the opportunity to coach Cooper Flagg, understanding all the hype, all the pressure, all the challenge to come into a marathon. It’s different than college, understanding the season’s longer, a lot more talent on the floor, and Cooper, again, didn’t start off as well as people would like, but I thought Cooper was in a great seat again. Being a marathon runner, understanding it’s not how you start but how you finish, and I thought he did an incredible job. We made him uncomfortable. It was alright to be uncomfortable. He was up for that challenge, and again, he did an incredible job. I thought him and [Kon] Knueppel played the game the right way. It came down to those two, and Cooper Flagg won. But the one thing I want to share is, I think when you talk about Rookie of the Year or this young group, we talk about the Tim Duncans, the LeBron James, the Cooper Flaggs. But there’s a Steve Nash out there, someone who sits on the bench and has to be patient. Steve averaged 3 points, 1 rebound, and 2 assists his rookie year, and I think he had a pretty good career.
It’s been a long time since you haven’t technically had a job in the NBA. How have you been able to manage and adjust to having all this free time? What’s that been like?
Kidd: It’s been great. One, I have two in high school that are playing sports, so I get to spend time, to be a dad. I think a lot of times people don’t understand as a coach or a player when you have a family, kids playing sports or singing or acting, you miss a lot, and so now I have an opportunity to catch a lot of the sporting events, help with homework, but then also look at basketball from a different seat as a fan. We have the greatest players in the world. We have the best coaches, and again, I think the first the opening night was incredible with that 41-year-old playing at a high level, and then just watching last night, there was some incredible games. Some of the players that have been hurt coming back to play. So, watching basketball from a different seat, a lot less stress.
We always talk about different eras. If 22-year-old Jason Kidd came into the league, how would you dominate the league? Because the league doesn’t play traditionally the way you were great.
Kidd: Well, if you’re asking me if I were coming in today, just the speed of the game. Again, I think in the 80s and 90s, if I was playing with [Shaquille O’Neal], our job – you played with an incredible center in Hakeem [Olajuwon]. We gotta wait for him. We gotta let him get the ball. We gotta get him touches, and then we’ll play off of the big. The game has changed, a lot more threes. We’re seeing 45 to 50 threes taken. Everyone shooting the three. I would love to be playing this time in this generation. The physicality, hopefully, as you can see, we’re starting to maybe get back to that without hurting someone. But it’s alright to be physical, to guard defensively, and so hopefully, if I was playing now, I think I could dominate.