Kidd gloves will come off if coach fails to turn around Nets

Transition from coach to player a rough one for former star point guard

Brooklyn Nets coach Jason Kidd is finding the transition to the bench a difficult one. Al Bello / AFP
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Between the lines, Jason Kidd was a wizard. On the sidelines, he is a jester.

Mikhail Prokhorov, the impatient Russian billionaire who owns the Brooklyn Nets, must have known Kidd would encounter growing pains as he transitioned directly from player to coach. It is doubtful, though, that he expected anything this awful.

The season got off to a bad start when Kidd was suspended for the first two games after pleading guilty to a drunk-driving charge.

The team almost immediately fell to pieces. Kevin Garnett, 37, and Paul Pierce, 36, the veteran stars obtained from the Boston Celtics in exchange for three first-round draft picks, played even older than they are. The Nets are 6-14 and last week suffered the indignity of losing to their rivals, the New York Knicks, who have severe problems of their own.

Kidd has trouble with basic strategy, including the management of timeouts. He needed one he didn’t have in a game against the Lakers and purposely spilled a drink to force a delay so he could set up a play. The NBA fined him US$50,000 (Dh184,000). The stunt also suggests he is ethically challenged.

Last week, he reassigned his top assistant (and former coach) Lawrence Frank, who has a six-year deal worth $6 million, to non-coaching duties after a personality conflict. Kidd felt Frank was undermining him.

He seems to be doing a perfectly fine job of that himself, and absent a quick turnaround, his coaching career could effectively be over before it started.

sports@thenational.ae