Jason Kidd Issues Statement on Jaden Hardy After Mavs Tough Loss to Grizzlies

Monday’s loss against the Memphis Grizzlies marked the fourth in five games for Jason Kidd‘s Dallas Mavericks. What was a tightly contested game throughout the first half, wound up being a comfortable 104-88 win for the Grizzlies. Dallas fell behind early in the third quarter and never recovered, eventually being outscored 55-38 in the second half.

The game’s leading scoring was Mavs rookie Jaden Hardy, who tallied 28 points in the March 13 defeat. It wasn’t the most efficient night for Hardy, as he shot just 9-25 from the field, but his coach was still impressed.

Kidd spoke on the rookie’s growth and cited several things he was impressed with on Monday.

“I think he’s growing here, Kidd said via the Dallas Mavericks YouTube channel. “He’s had an incredible run in the sense of work and being able to play. Tonight, being able to get to the paint to score, to be able to shoot, and to play-make to find open teammates when he was driving, and the ball touched the paint.”

Dallas’ coach was then asked about the sort of role he could see Hardy filling during the playoffs. His answer wasn’t the most encouraging, as he somewhat dismissed the idea and turned the focus to the remaining stretch of the regular season.

“Let’s not push playoff minutes yet. We got 13 more games. … Let’s just finish off the season first before we talk about playoff minutes.”

Jason Kidd Discusses Mavs’ Struggles: ‘No One’s Dying’

Again, the March 13 defeat at home against Memphis dropped the Mavericks’ record to 34-35. With just 13 games left to play in the regular season, Dallas sits in eighth place in the Western Conference, which would have them battling for a playoff spot in the Play-In Tournament.

Kidd’s response when asked about his team’s struggles came off pretty apathetic.

“We’re getting better, it’s just a matter of can we be healthy in time to make a stretch run,” he told reporters. “If we’re not, that’s just the season. No one’s dying.”

Jason Kidd Takes Shot at Mavs Fans & Media of Twitter

Kidd also took some time to speak to reporters prior to Monday’s matchup with Memphis.

He had some interesting comments when it came to the team’s big-man rotation of Dwight Powell, Maxi Kleber, and Christian Wood.

When discussing the rotation, he took a jab at the fans and media, joking that the team always checks Twitter to see how they can please the community.

“I think there was a report today where you saw that our best big is Dwight Powell,” Kidd said via Nick Angstadt of the Locked On Mavs Podcast. “When you look at that, you look at him with Ky(rie Irving) and Luka (Doncic), he’s the best big. And then I think it was Maxi (Kleber) and then C(hristian) Wood. So, we take the analytics and look at everything you guys write to figure out if we can please you guys.”

Kidd’s snarky rant was in response to some stats that Angstadt had tweeted earlier in the day. He had broken down the net ratings of lineups involving Dallas’ star duo of Irving and Doncic, along with each of Powell, Kleber, and Wood.