Jason Kidd hasn’t had the best start as a NBA head coach, but which current players could be up the task?
The not-so-long line of National Basketball Association head coaches, who made the gargantuan leap from being a player to directing them, welcomed Jason Kidd to the party this season.
Many thought Kidd was getting in over his head when the Brooklyn Nets traded for an already aged Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry; less coaching experience than Dajuan Blair’s ACLs didn’t help either.
At 5-13, the Brooklyn Nets have proven the critics to be prophets. The latest drama in Kidd’s coaching career involves demoting, or rather “reassigning,” assistant coach Lawrence Frank from his offensive coordinator role.
Frank was once one of the younger, more-ambitious coaches in the league when he got his start with the then New Jersey Nets. But thanks to Kidd, Frank can’t even get past security at the Nets’ games or practices. Essentially, Frank has taken the reverse route that Eric Spoelstra took with the Miami Heat because Frank will be heading down into the video room to organize and break down game film — a job that a 21-year-old intern could do while playing Temple Run.
Ironically, the Nets are only two games behind the first-place Boston Celtics in the Atlantic Division, so there is a real possibility Kidd can take the team to the playoffs in his first season. But if the first month of the NBA season is any indication of how the rest will play out, and I’m not saying it will, the Nets can start watching Kansas Jayhawk games.
I was actually one of the few who backed Kidd. If you’re going to give anyone a chance to coach, why not give it to one of the greatest point guards of all-time? Having 12,091 assists is a great leveraging tool in an interview.
But I analyzed the Nets’ season thus far and got to thinking: which active players could retire tomorrow and do a better, or equal, job than Kidd is doing now? Traditionally, point guards make better coaches because they know how to run an offense, but there are outliers. So I decided to go with the top-three big men and top-three guards.
Big Men:
No. 1 – Tim Duncan
He’s “Mr. Fundamental.” I could walk away right now and be completely confident Duncan could run an NBA team. Who would you rather have teaching your players how to be efficient than the man who’s made a career out of using the backboard and rebounding. Duncan is a product of Gregg Popovich. He’s a four-time NBA champion. Duncan is cool, calm and collected but also fiery and intense. At 37, he’s still one of the top big men in the league. For his career, he’s shot 50.6 percent from the field. I wouldn’t be surprised if the San Antonio Spurs pitched the idea of replacing Popovich to Duncan at some point. Duncan could be the best big man turned head coach since Phil Jackson.
No. 2 – Kevin Garnett
Similarly to Duncan, Garnett has been around for an eternity. In Garnett’s case, he has a slight edge because he came straight from high school at a time when the success rate for NBA teenagers was extremely low — now it’s just really low. Garnett is approaching 14,000 rebounds. Like Dunacn, he’s a first-ballot hall of fame player. His philosophy would differ from Duncan’s because Garnett has evolved into a more-defensive-minded presence in the paint as opposed to the offensive powerhouse he was with the Minnesota Timberwolves. I’m convinced Garnett would coach a team to defensive prominence.
No. 3 – David West
I’ll admit finding this one was difficult because West, as a player, can never compare to Duncan or Garnett. But the question here is not who would win a one-on-one game, but who would coach circles around Kidd? West is a high-IQ player with a consistently good mid-range jump shot. He also has outstanding vision and passing ability. This is a man at 33 who currently has an assist percentage (percentage of teammate field goals he assisted) of 17.4 percent. At age 33, Duncan’s assist percentage was 17.8 percent and Garnett’s was 15.7 percent. A David West coached team would know how to find the open man.
Guards:
No. 1 – Derek Fisher
There was no doubt in my mind on this one. Fisher is a five-time champion and was a key, vocal leader on all of those Los Angeles Laker teams. He’s a crafty, intelligent veteran who can predict the flow of a game better than Storm, from X-Men, can predict the weather. Players are reluctant to drive on Fisher because he has a knack for drawing charges like no one else. He was the President of the NBA’s Players Association for about six years, so he is widely respected by his peers. We’ve seen him hit cold-blooded shot after cold-blooded shot — my condolences to the Spurs and Orlando Magic. I’m not sure if he would run Jackson’s triangle offense, but he would be a players’ coach who demanded respect at the same time.
No. 2 – Steve Nash
It’s really difficult to look at Nash and say he wouldn’t see the same results as Kidd is seeing now because they are so similar as players. Kidd was a better overall player, but here’s why Nash could possibly be a better coach: efficiency. Only nine times has a player shot 90 percent from the free throw line, 50 percent from the field and 40 percent from three-point range. Nash has hit that mark three times in his career. A team with Nash at the helm would score at a more successful rate than Hugh Hefner. Plus, you can’t forget the creativity. How often did we watch Nash play ring around the rosy with big men in the paint and then throw a no-look pass for a wide-open dunk? It happened on a nightly basis. The one knock on Nash is his defense. He’s never been a great on-ball defender, but that can be offset by having players who are lock-down defenders.
No. 3 – Kirk Hinrich
The reason Hinrich made the list is because of his IQ and defensive prowess. He’s been a pesky defender since he was taken with the seventh overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft. His name gets lost in the shuffle because LeBron James, Carmelo Antony and Dwyane Wade take precedence in that crop of rookies. Throw Chris Bosh in there too. But Hinrich has been good. He’s a Tom Thibodeau player — a team defender. Hinrich’s Per-36 minutes statistics are also very respectable. He’s sitting at about two steals, six assists and 13 points for his career. He’s shown the ability to shut down bigger guards and smaller forwards. He communicates well, and with Derrick Rose out, has kept the Chicago Bulls high in the NBA’s power rankings. I believe Hinrich would coach a lot like Thibodeau.
I’m not saying these guys are chomping at the bit to hit the bench, but they could all possibly do so if they wanted to. Chances are they’d show Kidd a thing or two.
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