If Jason Kidd again has the eye to be a new NBA manager, he can reportedly turn to two of the league’s biggest stars for a recommendation.
For Marc Berman of the New York Post, a team manager described how LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo feel about the Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach.
“LeBron loves Kidd,” the executive told Berman. “But Giannis swears it.”
Kidd was the Antetokounmpo manager for more than three seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks from 2014 to 2018. The team made the playoffs in two of its first three years, but lost in the first round both times. He was fired in the middle of his fourth season after a 23-22 start.
Under Kidd’s leadership, Antetokounmpo began to develop into the superstar he has become. Greek Freak averaged 22.9 points, 8.8 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game in 2016-17, Kidd’s last full season with the Bucks.
Before the Lakers hired Frank Vogel as their coach in May 2019, general manager Rob Pelinka and senior consultant Kurt Rambis interviewed Kidd for the position. He ended up being hired as Vogel’s best assistant and consistently earned top marks from James.
In January, ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz reported that James thinks of Kidd “as the only living person who sees the basketball game with his level of clarity.”
For Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times, the Lakers gave the New York Knicks permission to interview Kidd for their vacant coaching job late last month.
Kidd has a career record 183-190 as head coach with the Bucks and Brooklyn networks. He won records in two of his four full seasons with those teams and led the nets to appear in the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2014.
The Knicks finished this season with a record 21-45 and did not post-season the 2012-13 campaign.