The Los Angeles Lakers begin their season and Jason Kidd is on LA’s bench as their assistant coach.
Many believed that Kidd would be the Lakers head coach. Frank Vogel currently has that job.
A popular belief is that the job of head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers is Kidd’s if Vogel is let go.
Kidd had a 139–152 record in his 291 games coached in Milwaukee before he was fired.
Before Milwaukee, Kidd led the Brooklyn Nets to a 44-38 record and a second-round appearance in the NBA Playoffs.
He now joins a Lakers coaching staff that is looking to compete for a championship with LeBron James, Anthony Davis and company.
“I think Jason Kidd is one of the best point guards in the game,” Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes told me on the Scoop B Radio Podcast.
“And was a successful coach in his own right. That can’t be anything but a plus. So, I think it helps extremely.”
Haynes thinks the Lakers has the right folks on the bench. “Remember Magic Johnson wanted to get rid of that old coaching staff,” he recounted from last year.
“He felt like when you have a guy like LeBron on your team; and I have covered LeBron when he was being coached by someone with minimal experience in the NBA and that was David Blatt. We kind of saw how that played out. It was LeBron’s first year in LA, they weren’t expected to compete. LeBron was the only big name guy over that summer, but you could just tell there just wasn’t anyone else on that roster that commanded respect in that position. You can respect them as a human being, but just in that position in authority, it just wasn’t there. Jason Kidd did that. Frank Vogel has that. Phil Handy, who I think is the best individual workout skills coach in the NBA, he comes out and joins LeBron, he has respect and with that comes confidence.”
