Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
Recent reports have indicated that just-retired point guard Jason Kidd is pitching himself to Brooklyn Nets GM Billy King as the best candidate to fill their vacant head coaching position.
With a roster built to win now, Brooklyn likely isn’t considering Kidd as a serious candidate to replace P.J. Carlesimo, nor should they. With no coaching experience, any team that hires Kidd as their head coach would notice that their team eerily resembles the 2011-12 Golden State Warriors, who finished 23-43 and happened to be coached by the last great point guard to garner a head coaching job with no coaching experience, Mark Jackson.
Kidd would be best served by re-tracing the steps that Indiana Pacers associate head coach Brain Shaw took in his journey to becoming this summer’s most sought-after head coach and the front-runner for the Nets’ job — outside of mentor Phil Jackson, of course. Shaw has been an assistant coach for nine seasons, seven of which were under Jackson.
An ideal spot for Kidd to earn such coaching chops would be with the Washington Wizards. With the NBA being a players’ league, an assistant coach can gain notoriety around the league by developing players. A look at the coaching staffs of this year’s playoff teams shows this to be true.
With Harrison Barnes and Klay Thompson of the Warriors exceeding expectations, assistant coach Mike Malone became a hot head coaching candidate, eventually becoming the new head coach of the Sacramento Kings last week.
Before Frank Vogel took the Pacers to the brink of knocking off the daunted Miami Heat, he was an unknown assistant coach who garnered the interim head coaching job, after Jim O’Brien’s ouster, because of his work with Roy Hibbert and Paul George.
What these players did for Malone and Vogel, John Wall could do for Kidd.
It’s said that a point guard is an extension of his coaches. If that’s the case, then it doesn’t get much better than having perhaps the best point guard in NBA history coaching him up.
While Wall was a ballyhooed No.1 overall pick after starring on the NBA’s unofficial minor league team, Kentucky Wildcats, his development has stalled in the NBA. For the most part, Wall is the same player he was in college — a poor shooting point guard whose game is heavily reliant on athleticism — making Kidd the ideal coach to work with him.
While he didn’t resemble Wall — the reliant-on-athleticism part anyway — during the New York Knicks‘ fateful playoff run, Kidd’s game was eerily similar to Wall’s prior to undergoing the dreaded micro-fracture surgery in 2004.
Selected No.2 overall by the Dallas Mavericks in the 1994 NBA Draft, Kidd was a one-man fast break, just like Wall. The only thing missing from his game was a jump shot, hence the nickname “Ason Kidd”. He eventually developed a reliable 3-point set shot, but it was way after his prime. As great as Kidd was, he never developed into the unstoppable force he could and should have been.
Wall hasn’t had pundits remove the “J” from his name just yet, but his shooting is rendering him from reaching his vast potential.
While Kidd never could combine his improved jumper with his uncanny athletic ability, the opportunity presents itself for Wall to. That is, if Washington can get Kidd to D.C.
Marcel Davis is a Washington Wizards writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Mar_CelDavis24 , Like him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google+
