The Los Angeles Lakers aren’t finishing their season out well and head coach, Luke Walton could be out as head coach at the end of the season.
Who would replace him?
Don’t count out NBA Hall of Famer, Jason Kidd!
Kidd replacing Walton would be a good fit, according to sources close to him.
It “would be great,” a league source told me by text message back in the fall.
Luke Walton gone in LA? If Walton were fired, Mark Jackson is a likely candidate. So is Jason Kidd. I asked a credible league source this afternoon whether they thought Kidd would be a good fit.
They told me: “it would be great” and “anything is possible.”
The source points out that LeBron James and Jason Kidd have a great relationship. “LeBron James always wanted to play with J-Kidd,” I’m told.
“This would probably be the next best thing to that.”
Another league source told me this afternoon that Kidd himself thought that back in the fall, the retired NBA champion thought becoming the next coach of the Los Angeles Lakers was ‘just rumors’ and that in fact Kidd’s belief is and has said that: ‘NBA language can mean anything.’
The source also shared that things ‘surely change over time’ and that the former Dallas Maverick, New Jersey Net and Phoenix Suns point guard would welcome the idea of becoming the next head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers if the opportunity became available to him.
Well, Kidd is getting his head coach practice in right away.
Just yesterday, Kidd was brought in to New York Knicks shootaround by head coach, David Fizdale to speak with point guards, Emmanuel Mudiay, Dennis Smith Jr. and Frank Ntilikina.
GettyFormer NBA point guard Jason Kidd during Hall of Fame speech.
He and Knicks head coach, David Fizdale go way back.
Per New York Newsday’s Steve Popper:
The last time that Kidd and Fizdale had shared a court as players was in high school, the California State Championship game in 1991. Kidd’s Alameda St. Joseph’s squad from Oakland beat Fizdale’s Fremont team. They had been on opposite sides in the 2011 NBA Finals with point guard Kidd guiding the Mavericks to a championship over the Miami Heat, with Fizdale serving as an assistant coach for the Heat.
But despite the disappointments on the court, Fizdale said they have been close off of it and with Kidd living in Arizona now he reached out to make him the latest Hall of Famer to speak to his young team.
“Yeah, that’s a real big-time one there,” Fizdale said. “We’ve been friends a long time. We go back to high school days together. I figured we’re here, who better to talk to my point guards than one of the greatest to ever do it.
“Unfortunately, he’s killed me twice. He beat me in the state championship and he beat me in the NBA Finals. Although I have him here visiting he’s not one of my favorite people. Nah, we’ve been a part of each other’s basketball lives literally since we were ninth, 10th graders. I was down here and he was the best high school player I’d ever seen or played against. To know that I have that as an asset, as a friend, a guy that I know that can really tell these guys some good information from a high level, I’m lucky to have that.”
Jason Kidd had a 139–152 record in his 291 games coached in Milwaukee before he was fired last season. Before Milwaukee, Kidd led the Brooklyn Nets to a 44-38 record and a second-round appearance in the NBA Playoffs.
Mark Jackson has also been a person of Lakers interest for some time as reported by FS1’s Chris Broussard back in the fall.
Jackson comprised a 121-109 record as head coach of the Golden State Warriors before he was fired in 2014.
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Lakers News: Jason Kidd Would Consider LA Job If Available