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Translation: Wen Ruo #14
Given your age and age level, maybe you just heard about Kidd coming to the Mavericks in 1994 when he was a 21-year-old point guard.
But no doubt more of you remember him returning to Dallas from New Jersey in 2008 through a deal. Every Mavericks fan knows Kidd's shrewdness and excellent game control, and he helped the Mavericks win the 2011 NBA championship at the age of 38.
Kidd is not only a member of the Mavericks' family, but also a "royal", an eternal legend. However, when he was about to make his regular season debut as the Mavericks' 10th manager of season 41, the fans' anticipation seemed like a mixture of excitement and apprehension.
Coach Kidd, 48, wears Clark Kent glasses and a gray-striped beard, what exactly can he bring to the team?
He has the pedigree of the Hall of Fame, championships and Olympic gold medals, and he's old-school but also modern. He assembled an impressive and diverse team of people, and his roster includes MVP hit Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis, who is finally recovering.
But......
Does Kidd have the patience and temperament to admit his shortcomings in coaching the Nets (2013-14) and Bucks (2014-18) and prepare to create a long-term prosperous era in Dallas?
"I learned a lot," said Kidd, who likens his current and then coaching roles to "two very different people."
How to say it?
"He's very calm and composed now." Mavericks assistant coach Jared Dudley said.
Dudley has a unique advantage in witnessing Kidd's transformation, and his only season with the Bucks (2014-15) coincided with Kidd's initial stages with the Bucks, while Dudley has played for the Lakers over the past two seasons, during which time Kidd was Frank Vogel's assistant who won the 2020 NBA championship.
Kidd's treatment of Bucks players in the 2014-15 season was briefly but infamously described in the August release of Giannis: The Abnormal Rise of an MVP, a biography of Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The most disgraceful story is that it describes a grueling three-hour training session on Christmas Eve 2014, a game he ordered after losing home to the Hornets on December 23.
Center Larry Sanders told author Mirlyn Fadell that he was reprimanded as "pathetic" by Kidd, who was "convulsing all over" at the time and went to the hospital for one night. Former Bucks and Mavericks center Zaza Pachulia told Fadal that the players were too tired to open Christmas presents.
In the season before Kidd arrived, the Bucks won 15 games, and in 2014-15, they recorded 41-41 under the leadership of Giannis, 20, and Middleton, 23, despite losing the league-winner Jabari Parker.
Kidd finished third in the NBA Coach of the Year vote that season.
"We're a young team," Dudley said, "Kidd is more about working on the players, like 'Giannis, you're not allowed to shoot three-pointers,' and he's training them for the future, and what you're seeing in these guys now, Giannis and Middleton, is what they've been grooming over those years." ”
"Here," Dudley said, "Kidd doesn't need to do that, these guys are already fine, and his role is veteran." ”
Dudley said one aspect of Kidd's coaching has remained the same: his attention to detail, especially when coaching defensive plans and tactics.
While he's best known for his passing talent (12,091 assists, second in NBA history), Kidd's 2,684 steals are also second in NBA history, and he's been selected in the first or second defense nine times.
Dudley said he thinks Kidd's days with the Lakers also remind coaches and players of the importance of maintaining peace of mind throughout the long season, minimizing distractions and extreme orgasms and underestimations.
Then, the Lakers generally win, which is also very helpful, when the Mavericks inevitably suffer a season losing streak, the real test of Kidd's patience in coaching will not come?
"Yeah," Dudley said with a laugh, "to be honest, that's what I'm waiting for, but Jason will succeed, he's always open the door, you've seen the relationship between him and the players and I don't think he's done that before." ”
A different atmosphere
After a summer of unofficial training and a three-week training camp, the Mavericks players were positively evaluated.
They've been using one word to describe the overall atmosphere, and that's energy, and Tim Hardaway Jr., who's already a veteran of the team, said, "In this arena, there's a different atmosphere, it's positive, it's good. ”
Porzingis, who was relegated to role players in the series that lost to the Clippers in the first round of the playoffs last season, said players have a better sense of their position than Kidd's predecessor Carlisle is on.
"There are a few things, I can say, that are clearer than last year," Porzingis said.
Perhaps part of the difference can be said to be a generation gap, Carlisle is now the head coach of the Pacers, he is 61 years old and has been in charge of the Mavericks for 13 seasons.
Carlisle, like Kidd, won the NBA championship as a player with the Celtics in 1986. However, Carlisle was a substitute player who played only 6 seasons, while Kidd spanned 19 seasons as a Member of the Naismith Hall of Fame and didn't retire for long.
Hardaway Jr. noted that most of the NBA's generation has watched Kidd and Michael Jordan play, and they've also watched Kidd and Dirk work together to win the NBA championship, beating the Miami Heat led by the more talented LeBron James.
"So I think it gives the players a better understanding, I would say, look forward, listen to Kidd and then understand what he's saying," Hardaway Jr. said.
'But you can't erase everything Carlisle has done for the team, it's remarkable.
When Carlisle came to Dallas in 2008, he coached the Pistons and Pacers to the division finals and was a proven coach.
In contrast, Kidd is just a wild card, a coach with a record of defeats and a coach who has won only one series victory — the Nets beat the Raptors in 2014 — taking over a team that hasn't won a series since the 2011 Finals.
But maybe Kidd, the coach, has improved with age and experience — like Kidd, who shot just 38 percent from the field in his first three seasons as a Mavericks player, he shot 1,988 three-pointers throughout his career, ranking 11th in NBA history.
Kidd said his failures as a coach at the Nets and Bucks made him feel ashamed, and his two seasons under Lakers coach Vogel were constructive.
As a point guard, Kidd's greatness lies in his ability to control the game, amplify the strengths of his teammates and reduce their weaknesses. As the Bucks' coach, his failure was that he didn't realize he couldn't control everything and didn't have a big picture view.
"Frank showed me a lot of things," he said, "and Frank did a great job of communicating with the stars, the role players and the players at the end of the bench, he treated everyone fairly, he trusted them." ”
"He showed me that failure is normal and it's okay for them to get mad at you if they don't like that fact, and at the same time, everyone knows where they are, which is one of the biggest takeaways I've had with Frank over the last two years."
Natural leadership
In Kidd's 1994-95 season, less than a month after the start of his rookie season, Mavericks head coach Dick Motta said he could be a great coach if Kidd one day chose that path.
Motta, 90, said he noticed that Kidd had many of the qualities he saw with another player during his time coaching the Bulls in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Great training habits, focus in meetings, natural leadership, the ability to execute the coach's instructions during the game, but also to anticipate the opponent's counter-attack moves and adapt when necessary.
The Bulls player Motta was talking about was Jerry Sloan. Kidd still has a long, long way to go to get closer to being a Hall of Famer who went from player to greatest coach, but Motta saw that potential early on, and he didn't say so just because Kidd thanked him for his speech in the 2018 Hall of Fame inductance.
"That's the kind of leadership I see in Jason Kidd," Motta said, "I just think he has that ability, and when you're a quarterback on the floor, you feel different." ”
Hall of Famers becoming head coaches of the NBA may be more common than fans realize, with 25 people now, including Mavericks head coach Kidd and Former Mavericks player Steve Nash of the Nets.
Of those 25, 16 have coached teams they've played for, including some players who have been successful in both roles: Lenny Wilkens, Bill Russell, Dave Coarnes, Dolf Shays and Bob Petit.
Kidd was the 14th Hall of Famer to coach the team that had selected him, with only seven men winning more than losing, with four coaches winning championships: Wilkens, Russell, KC Jones and Tom Heinthorne.
Meanwhile, Hall of Famers such as Cowes, Shays, Maurice Cheeks, Dick McGuire, Isaiah Thomas, Bob Cush, Elgin Baylor and briefly coached Magician Johnson (5-11) have all lost more than they have lost in charge.
Homecoming
For better or worse, this isn't the first time Kidd has coached the team he's played for. As a player, he led the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets to his first 50-win season and reached the Finals twice (2002 and 2003).
He was very beloved there. He was named head coach 10 days after announcing his retirement as a player, and on October 17, 2013, the Nets retired his No. 5 jersey ahead of a preseason game.
Kidd's personal relationship with then-Nets point guard Delon Williams was widely seen as a positive factor, with Kidd winning division coach of the year in both January and March, and the Nets beating the Raptors in the playoffs and a rare seven-game win on the road.
However, when Kidd and Nets general manager Billy King had a power struggle, the seemingly happy honeymoon period ended abruptly, and the Nets traded Kidd to the Bucks in exchange for two second-round picks.
What's the difference now? Kidd and Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison have a 20-year personal relationship, and their hiring is almost the same package deal, and Kidd has made it clear that his decision to bring in players is entirely at the discretion of Harrison and Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
Kidd understands Cuban's "Jerry Jones-esque engagement" as much as anyone else.
"I really like this team," Kidd said, "and I think Nico and Cuban gave me the opportunity to have a different squad combination, to partner with the team." ”
Now, he's headed to Atlanta on Friday Beijing time to make his debut as Mavericks head coach — 26 years, 11 months, and 16 days after his first game as a rookie at reunion arena.
The plot of the story is remarkable, with the Mavericks' first NBA Rookie of the Year returning to coach 2019 Rookie of the Year Doncic, whom Kidd described as "young Picasso."
Kidd joked that some of the passes he tried in his rookie season could drive Motta crazy, and even much later, in the early days of the Mavericks' 2010-11 season, Kidd and Carlisle sometimes clashed over game command.
It wasn't until a few members of the Mavericks— not including Kidd— went to Carlisle and persuaded him to give the reins entirely to Kidd that the Mavericks' motivation to win the title came into play.
"We all understand that the ball is going to be given to the number 41," Kidd added with a smile as he said of Nowitzki, "and I'm not going to shoot with the ball, but we all understand that it's easier to play in a more random way, so the opponent can't defend Dirk aggressively." ”
Kidd also recalled that he went to Carlisle privately to come up with a reason why Deshaun Stevenson should start, and Carlisle adopted that as well.
The lesson Kidd learned as he entered his third Maverick era is that no Maverick player would need to ask Kidd to hand over the reins to Doncic.
Coach for young stars, overall champions and Hall of Fame members.
"I've learned that you have to listen," Kidd said, "and like your communication, you have to listen to what the players and the people around you are saying." ”
'As a player who's transitioning to being a manager, you tend to think you know everything, well, that's not right.'
Original: Brad Townsend
Translator & Editor-in-Charge: Wen Ruo #14
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