Judgment Day May Be Approaching for Jason Kidd

This Nets team is a train wreck. Forget the injuries, forget the older players, the team is an absolute mess. The Denver Nuggets manhandled the Nets in front of their home crowd 111-87. It’s ironic that the coach of the Denver Nuggets is the man I felt the Nets should have hired, Brian Shaw. There is not one super star NBA player on Shaw’s roster, and he is missing his best player, yet his team is playing great basketball; and Shaw has the Nuggets at 11-6 in the ultra deep Western Conference. 

I am sure after the beating Shaw’s Nuggets gave to the Nets tonight Shaw thought to himself, “Phew, dodged that bullet.” And can anyone blame him? I know I can’t. The fans started booing halfway through the third quarter and that is earlier than usual this season. I’m frustrated watching this and I am watching it at home for free, imagine the poor people who actually spent money on this. Not good. 

The Brooklyn Nets are currently 5-13 and are one of the worst teams in an already terrible Eastern Conference. You would think that Nets head coach Jason Kidd who is already out of his depth would do everything to try to steady the ship and find stability. Non-sense, instead he banishes Lawrence Frank to the video room for what Kidd deemed “different philosophies.” That means one of two things, either Kidd has lost the coaches and the players, or Lawrence Frank was behind the scenes asking questions of Kidd’s coaching ability and Kidd didn’t appreciate it. It’s probably a mixture of both.

Lawrence Frank coached Jason Kidd, and has now coached with Jason Kidd, he knows Kidd as well as anyone. Frank would know Kidd’s abilities better than anyone, and Kidd would not have brought Lawrence Frank along if he did not trust him. The relationship seemed great, but now it is no longer Kidd taking the orders from Frank, now it was Kidd giving the orders. 

Kidd has no head coaching experience what so ever, so how on Earth can they have different coaching philosophies? Kidd has never coached anything. Lawrence Frank must see the deficiencies in the coaching because even the casual fan does. 

Kidd may have also lost the most important player on the Nets roster, Paul Pierce. Yes, the most important player on the Nets roster this season on and off the court is Paul Pierce. Pierce is the person who talked Kevin Garnett into coming to Brooklyn; Pierce is also the most productive player on the Nets with a championship ring. When Pierce speaks, younger players listen. 

That also goes for Pierce’s presence on the court. In his first seven games of the season with the Nets, Pierce was playing his heart out and it was great. In the game against the Heat in the Nets home opener, Pierce played that game as if it was game seven in the Eastern Conference finals. He was checked in and ready to go. 

Pierce stayed on that course for a few games more and gave his all for Kidd, and then just like that he stopped trying. I have watched every minute of every game Pierce has played this season; believe me when I tell you the man mentally checked out two weeks ago. Pierce has shot over 40% from the field only once since the game against the Portland Trail Blazer; that game was on November 18^th. I am sorry to break it to Paul Pierce fans but Pierce was basically gone from this Nets team before the injury to his hand. In the game against the Minnesota Timberwolves Pierce was 2-11 with 2 points and 0-4 from 3-point range. He was just taking shots because Shaun Livingston was passing him the ball. 

It was more of an obligatory performance then one of a basketball player who wanted to be there. And once you lose Pierce, you have lost a big part of your locker room. Kidd may not have lost the Nets other future Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett, but twice in the last two weeks Garnett has mentioned “management and changes” in his post game press conferences. 

After tonight’s loss against the Denver Nuggets, a reporter asked Garnett if he felt management would take action because of all the losing. Garnett responded by saying people have to be held accountable for their actions and that nothing is personal, it’s just business. He said the exact same thing two weeks ago after the beating the Nets took in Minnesota. Garnett also said after the Denver loss that it was weird playing without Pierce and that it was a huge blow to the team. Garnett is a 17 year NBA veteran, he has seen and heard it all, when he makes cryptic remarks, he is not doing it for kicks, even he knows something needs to be done. 

And Garnett is correct, losing Pierce was huge a blow to the team because the most important person on this roster was Paul Pierce. Kevin Garnett would be intense playing a game of chess, so he’s never going to give less than 100% in anything he does, regardless of where or when it is. Pierce has always been a professional, but he was always a professional to the Boston Celtics organization and of course to Doc Rivers. 

He has no loyalty to Jason Kidd, a man just 6 months ago he was playing against in the playoffs when the Celtics faced the New York Knicks, a team everyone knows Pierce despises. This is all becoming a perfect storm in Brooklyn and Thursday night might be judgment day for Jason Kidd. 

Mikhail Prokhorov will certainly be flying in from Russia for the game against the New York Knicks on Thursday night. Unfortunately for the fans of both the Knicks and Nets, that game is turning out to be the battle of New York Mediocrity as opposed to the battle of New York Supremacy we all thought it would be prior to the season. 

If Prokhorov flies in from Russia, watches the cross town rival Knicks beat his $170 million dollar roster, and hears his ticket holders boo his team off the court, does anyone really think he will just go down to the locker room and pep-talk Jason Kidd then fly home? Maybe he will do just that and give Jason Kidd more time to fix this mess. 

But I’ll leave you with this; Mikhail Prokhorov fired two coaches in 6 months last season. The second coach, PJ Carlesimo, got this Nets team to the playoffs with Gerald Wallace and Reggie Evans in his starting five. Think about that, Reggie Evans and Gerald Wallace. Together Wallace and Evans averaged 12 points a game total, and Carlesimo got the Nets the 4 seed. And Prokhorov still fired Carlesimo after game 7 against the Chicago Bulls. Thursday Night in Brooklyn may be the nail in Kidd’s coffin, and if it is, can anyone really say they were surprised? With this 5-13, it’s safe to say no.