Jason Kidd beefed his way into being called a “coach killer”

Jason Kidd may or may not have gotten his coach fired when he was with the New Jersey Nets. We’ll leave that up to your judgment. He DEFINITELY had beef with coaches, though, and carried it with him through several different stops as an NBA player.

Written and produced by Seth Rosenthal
Directed and edited by Jiazhen Zhang, Michael Das, and Phil Pasternak

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– [Narrator] Jason Kidd is one of the best point guards ever. Dazzling passer, triple-double machine, superstar, gold medalist, NBA champion, and, according to a lot of people, perhaps also this. “Coach killer” is an epithet for a player who uses their influence to get the boss fired. Kidd really started to wear that label around 2004, when reports said he caused the firing of New Jersey Nets coach Byron Scott. That was Kidd’s 10th NBA season. At the time, Kidd made this counterargument,

That, while basically true, misses the point. To get your coach fired, you need motive and opportunity, and you need the means, power, you gotta be a valuable, undeniable superstar. To have beef with your coach, you only need one or two of those things, and in the years before Kidd wielded enough power

To quote, unquote, “Kill a coach,” he generated quite a bit of beef. We are here to talk about the NBA, but Jason Kidd’s college career offers an important reputational backdrop. In 1992, the hotly recruited Kidd spurned all the top programs to attend college close to his home in the Bay Area. The California Golden Bears weren’t good before their massive recruiting victory,

And early in Kidd’s freshman season, still weren’t that good. In a sudden move, Cal’s athletic director fired Coach Lou Campanelli mid-season. That is a long story with a lawsuit attached, but for our purposes, this is what matters. Amid rumors and reports about Campanelli’s transgressions, Jason Kidd’s father spoke out. Jason kept quiet, but his dad very much did not, and perhaps people assumed he spoke on his son’s behalf. Phrases like, “player mutiny,” got thrown around. So, that’s college. In the NBA, Kidd’s real coach beef began. Not at first. In 1994, Kidd got drafted by the Dallas Mavericks, coached by Dick Motta. Kidd and Motta had their disagreements, but there is zero evidence that Kidd and his first pro coach feuded,

And when new ownership reassigned Motta, technically not a firing, it wasn’t because he had drawn Kidd’s ire, it was the second guy who did that. In May, 1996, the Mavericks announced their new head coach, Jim Cleamons. This was a problem for young Jason. See, Kidd was already embroiled in a complex beef

With co-star Jimmy Jackson. Jackson had a long-standing relationship, dating back to his college recruitment with Jim Cleamons. So, the Mavs hiring Cleamons looked like them taking a side in the player battle. Publicly, Kidd approved the hire, and then, privately, he demanded a move: Get rid of Jimmy Jackson.

Cleamons obviously didn’t accept those terms, so Kidd went public: Trade him or trade me. Kidd said his talk with Cleamons wasn’t good, and that was the last conversation they had for months. Kidd seemed to back off his demand, but then he spent the beginning of the ’96, ’97 season making Cleamons’ job difficult. He skipped mini-camp, he played poorly, he second-guessed decisions, His agent complained about Cleamons’ slowed-down offensive system. Finally, months after Kidd made his demands public, Dallas got rid of him. So, Kidd had the motive, beef, but at 23, he didn’t have the means to win a power struggle with his new coach. Kidd flourished over his next few seasons as a Phoenix Sun.

He got back into the fast-paced style he liked, he got to play his first post-season basketball, he got back on the all-star team, he got a contract extension, and a new co-star, and, apparently, an appointment with Cisco’s hairstylist. All the while, Kidd’s relationship with Suns’ coach, Danny Ainge, seemed fine. In fact, when Ainge suddenly resigned in 1999, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family, Kidd tried to blame himself and his teammates instead. Kidd and Ainge remained friends, no beef. No, just like in Dallas, it was the second guy, Suns’ assistant Scott Skiles stepped up, becoming the youngest head coach in the NBA, young enough to have played against Kidd. Skiles was well known as more of a hard-ass than the outgoing Ainge, but, unlike in Dallas, Kidd showed basically no signs of beef while playing for Skiles. The worst you’d get from Kidd was gentle ribbing at Skiles’ obsessiveness, And, in the other direction, Scott Skiles basically never had an unkind thing to say to or about Jason Kidd, and he certainly could have. After being arrested in 2001, Kidd admitted to domestic violence against his wife. Skiles kept vouching for Kidd as a player and a person well after that,

But, at the end of the 2001 season, Suns’ management didn’t want Kidd anymore. They traded him to the New Jersey Nets for Stephon Marbury. Kidd believed his off-court behavior was the reason for his dismissal, but that blame would shift over time. There’s very little to suggest that Coach Skiles

Asked the Suns to trade Kidd, but he did approve the deal in advance, and, after the fact, Skiles’ praise of the incoming Marbury seemed to diminish Kidd for his relative lack of scoring ability. Later that off-season, you could find vague, unsourced claims that Skiles, and even Ainge, had their frustrations with Kidd,

But that’s really the extent of what was out there to provoke what, uh, came next. December 5th, 2001, lovely East Rutherford, New Jersey. Jason Kidd has his first matchup against his old team and old coach. On his way to Continental Airlines Arena, Kidd has an idea. “You know what? “I’m gonna try and beat the Suns without scoring. “It’s something unheard of and weird.” Kind of sounds like a response to the stuff Skiles said when comparing Kidd to Marbury, and Kidd basically executed his plan, that is, a measure of revenge. Kidd made a point with his play. Fine, it’s not beef. This, however, is beef. Throughout the victory, during live action, Kidd could be seen and heard

Cursing at Skiles from the court. Asked what Kidd said, teammates were like, “Ha ha, he was talking about how warm the weather has been.” Oh, okay, Jason. Kidd gave his reasons, however vague, for lashing out at Skiles. Skiles kind of shrugged, “I’ve always been a Jason Kidd fan.”

So, it was one-sided beef, but beef just the same. Skiles moved on to coach the Chicago Bulls. By that point, Kidd insisted he didn’t care about his old coach, but when the Nets played the Bulls in 2003, people could tell Kidd still held a vendetta. Reporters could tell, Skiles could tell,

And Kidd’s teammate, Kenyon Martin, could clearly tell. In 2004, Kidd stopped denying the beef. While Skiles only had positive stuff to say about Kidd, Kidd called Skiles a, “back-stabber,” said Skiles was the reason the Suns traded him, said Skiles always wanted to beat him, always thought he was better than him, but, wait, why was Jason Kidd even getting asked

About relationships with old coaches? Well, friends, we have entered the domain of the coach killer. Let’s backtrack. After getting traded from Phoenix to New Jersey in 2001, Jason Kidd experienced the peak of his career. It helped to have an excellent, ever-improving team around him, and it certainly helped

That Coach Byron Scott ran a league-best defense. The Nets won consecutive Eastern Conference titles in ’02 and ’03, which, even without a ring, constitutes the best stretch of that franchise’s NBA history. During that stretch, Kidd established himself as one of the NBA’s very best players, a real MVP candidate.

Throughout, he and Byron Scott seemed to be on the same page. Cool trophy. Cracks didn’t really form, or at least show, until the spring of ’03, around the time of that second straight NBA finals defeat. During that loss to the Spurs, Kidd and Kenyon Martin were quoted second-guessing their coach here and there,

And, uh, maybe Kidd thought his four-year-old son could coach better than Scott. Kidd was about to become an unrestricted free agent, the biggest available name in that summer of ’03, so even a peep of friction with his coach raised eyebrows, and if that raised eyebrows, this blasted them straight off your face.

Reports said that Kidd gave the Nets an ultimatum: either fire Coach Scott or I’m going to sign with the team that just beat us in the finals. Scott expressed dismay and insisted he had no beef with Kidd, but rumors immediately swirled. Maybe, the Nets would actually consider acquiescing to Kidd’s demands.

Maybe, Kidd was upset because his favorite assistant coach, Eddie Jordan, had left Scott’s staff. For days, Kidd kept quiet, while every single other Nets-affiliated person vehemently denied everything in the post-report, and then, Kidd re-signed with the Nets. Huh, “Unfinished business. “The story was wrong. “I wouldn’t do that stuff. “Our relationship is great.

“We played golf.” It wasn’t totally convincing. For one thing, while he wasn’t fired, Scott didn’t receive an extension on his expiring contract. Kind of a lame-duck situation, despite what Byron said, and then, the season began poorly. The twice-defending Eastern Conference Champions hovered around 500 for weeks.

Kidd was worried, Scott was frustrated, tension built, and on December 13th, 2003 in Memphis, it snapped. The Nets suffered one of their worst losses in franchise history, and after the game, Kidd went off. Reporters didn’t have to search for beef, they could hear Kidd screaming through the locker room door. Initial reports said Kidd’s tirade was directed at his teammates. Scott said, “You know what?

“I think it’s good that Jason was screaming.” Jason said, “Actually, I wasn’t screaming, “and actually, it’s your fault for listening to me scream “through the door,” and then, on December 17th, boom, Nets players finally corrected the record. Jason was shouting, and he wasn’t shouting at us,

So much as he was going after Coach Scott. Aha. Yet again, Kidd had beef with a coach. This time, he also had star power. Everyone made the same assumption. Even Nets’ Executive Rod Thorn couldn’t quite deny Scott’s fate. Again, Kidd went quiet, while Scott was left to insist everything was okay.

The coach even defended Kidd in his ongoing beef with Scott Skiles. The Nets got back in the win column, and when Kidd finally spoke, he downplayed the whole thing. It seemed like Coach Scott might survive a second round of Kidd beef. This is the very same month, But once those tides turned again, and after a team sale, Scott was toast. Kidd insisted he had no say, no power over his coach’s fate. Not a soul believed him. Kidd could argue he’d never been a coach killer before, but he had a track record of beef, motive, and, this time,

He had the means to get what he wanted. Only years later, in a new job, did Scott really fire back. He basically accused Kidd of instigating a mutiny. Kidd responded thusly, and then maybe kinda ninja-turtled the next coach, Lawrence Frank. Kidd got himself traded back to Dallas, where, after a coach got fired,

Things turned out quite well. Anyway, all this coach beef comes with a punchline. Immediately after retiring in 2013, Jason Kidd became a coach, and the beef persisted. With the Nets, Kidd hired his old coach, Lawrence Frank, as an assistant, and then promptly demoted him. One season later, Kidd suddenly decided he wanted to leave the Nets for the Milwaukee Bucks. Interesting, because the Bucks already had a coach, Larry Drew, under contract. Kidd somehow still got his way,

With Drew and his staff, including assistant Jim Cleamons, fired to make room for the new guy. When Kidd’s Bucks faced the Lakers, coached by Byron Scott, Scott had this to say about Kidd’s reputation. That was a reputation built when Kidd was a player. Kidd had a lot of beef, which,

When combined with burgeoning star power, emboldened him to exert pressure, pick fights, and perhaps even overthrow coaches. As a coach, Kidd suffered his first firing in Milwaukee. It didn’t seem like that had anything to do with the Bucks’ star. His next job brought him back, yet again, to Dallas.

There, fascinatingly enough, he would coach one of the league’s very best point guards, a true superstar, a player with a lot of power, and a bit of a reputation.