Jason Kidd banished to Milwaukee

[Bob Of Burleson]

With Jason Kidd Shipped off
to Milwaukee, Nets Mull a Hazy Future

By Alex Raskin
The Wall Street Journal

Less than 48 hours after his power grab in Brooklyn had failed, Jason Kidd was gone by midday on Monday, traded to the Milwaukee Bucks for a pair of second-round draft picks.

So for the rest of the afternoon, Nets executives discussed potential replacements for their swiftly departed sophomore coach, several league sources said.

Kidd won't be named president of the Bucks (the position he'd been angling for with the Nets), according to one league source, so it appears to be more of a lateral move for him, with a slight raise attached. And his new team may be young and talented, with second overall draft pick Jabari Parker on his way to Milwaukee, but Kidd won't be coaching future Hall of Famers, as he was in Brooklyn with Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.

Still, the Nets don't appear to be winners in this deal, either.

It isn't known if Kidd timed his power play intentionally, asking to be placed atop the Nets' basketball-operations hierarchy just before free agency begins Tuesday, but he definitely left the Nets vulnerable. Less than a week ago, the team had a coach and a plan to build off a 44-win season. The biggest obstacle was convincing a few players to re-sign, but with so much carry-over from last season, that didn't seem like much of an issue.

Instead, having balked at the chance to give Kidd authority over team personnel, the Nets are scrambling to assemble a new coaching staff or risk losing free agents such as Pierce, Livingston, Andray Blatche and Alan Anderson on top of Garnett, who could still choose retirement rather than return for a 20th NBA season.

The candidates, one league source confirmed, are former Memphis Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins, former Denver Nuggets coach George Karl, Brooklyn native and former Golden State Warriors coach Mark Jackson, and Ettore Messina, an Italian coach who became familiar with Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov while coaching CSKA Moscow, a team in which the Nets owner was previously invested.

MORE