DALLAS — Jason Kidd pledged his allegiance to the Mavericks, but said he was flattered that the Knicks had interest in him over the summer.
“I think it’s safe to say we all enjoy being wanted,” Kidd said. “So that was a nice touch.”
The Knicks targeted Kidd to replace Tom Thibodeau, but were denied permission by the Mavericks to interview the Hall of Famer.
Sources said the interest was mutual, that Kidd was indeed intrigued by coaching the Knicks and Jalen Brunson, but he denied it Wednesday.
“I never was thinking about leaving. I love Dallas, I love working for [Mavericks owner] Patrick [Dumont],” Kidd said. “Understanding that we have a lot of work to be done to be a champion. I’m all in to be able to do that. I was drafted here, I won here, I love the city, I love the fans, so it never crossed my mind to leave Dallas.”
Kidd leveraged the interest by the Knicks into a contract extension with the Mavericks, signed in October, a couple of months after the Knicks hired Mike Brown.
On Wednesday, before coaching against them, Kidd, who was the Knicks point guard for his final playing season in 2012-13, said he enjoyed calling MSG home but was happier pummeling the Knicks as a member of the Nets.
“I would say I enjoyed that one year [with the Knicks]. The car ran out of gas at the end. I had to park it,” Kidd said. “But I really enjoyed that place when I played on the other side of the river in New Jersey, because we owned it.”
Kidd was the top realistic choice, but the Knicks were also denied permission to interview Minnesota’s Chris Finch, Atlanta’s Quin Snyder, Chicago’s Billy Donovan and Houston’s Ime Udoka.
After the Knicks formally interviewed at least five candidates, Brown accepted their job at a reported $10 million average salary, and with the high expectations of guiding a championship hopeful in the biggest media market.
“No matter where I was, whether as a head coach or an assistant, I wanted to win. And I wanted to win my last stop in Sacramento, but it didn’t work out. I wanted to win in Cleveland. And it didn’t work out. I wanted to win in L.A.,” said Brown, who was fired as head coach at those spots. “So the expectations, if you’re competitive, the expectations will come from the individual, first of all, and there won’t be anybody that exceeds that individual’s expectations.
“And then second of all, guys get fired quickly in other places just as easily as this place or that place. So I think the expectations of coaching in the NBA, in general, are high. And they should be. You’re paid a lot of money. And everybody wants to win and other stuff, so you got to bust your ass to do what you can to help the organization or uplift the organization and help them win.
And hopefully you can do it sooner than later. With the money that’s out there and the expectations and all that, you hate to say it, but it is what it is. And that’s what we sign up for. So you embrace it.”
Kidd, meanwhile, was coaching through a messy situation in Dallas, where team president Nico Harrison was recently fired and the team was struggling through injuries. Against the Knicks, for instance, Cooper Flagg (illness), Anthony Davis (calf strain), Kyrie Irving (ACL surgery) and Caleb Martin (illness) were all out.
The Mavericks were also just 4-11 before Wednesday.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
