Jason Kidd Would Be a Moronic Choice as Head Coach for the Lakers

Jason Kidd is reportedly a candidate to coach the Los Angeles Lakers next season. While Kidd was a great player, picking him to coach the Lakers would be an astonishingly bad choice.

Luke Walton is almost certainly on his way out in Los Angeles. That means one of the NBA’s glamour franchises will have an opening. Plenty of coaches will jump at the chance to take on the Lakers job, especially with LeBron James on the team. So the fact that the Lakers are even considering Jason Kidd is absurd. I get why he’s been attached the to Cal job, but he’d be a horrible fit in LA.

Kidd is a flat-out awful coach. The 46-year-old has had disappointing stops as the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets and the Milwaukee Bucks. Despite a loaded roster in Milwaukee, Kidd took the team to a dismal 23-22 record during the 2017-18 season before getting canned.

A year later, with virtually the same roster, Mike Budenholzer has the Bucks sporting the NBA’s best record at 54-19.

During the 2013-14 season in Brooklyn, Kidd took the Nets to a 44-38 record and they lost in the conference semifinals. The Bucks then send two second-round picks to Brooklyn to make Kidd their head coach. Over the next three-plus seasons, Milwaukee went 139-122 and never got past the first round of the playoffs. Given the talent on the Bucks’ roster, that was simply inexcusable.

Kidd was clearly a phenomenal NBA player. He’s a Hall of Famer, was a 10-time All-Star and a six-time All-NBA selection. He won an NBA title in 2011 and won gold medals at the 2000 and 2008 Summer Olympics. That said, his on-court ability has not translated to his work on the sidelines.

All you have to do to understand how bad Kidd is as a head coach is look at the jump the Bucks have taken since he left.

Milwaukee was terrible defensively on Kidd’s watch, finishing 22nd and 19th in defensive efficiency during his last two seasons. And before he was fired in 2017-18, the Bucks ranked 25th. The team just consistently underperformed on his watch.

There will be better choices out there for the Lakers. Kidd is not the answer.