Decision Making Timelines

[mavsluvr]

State of the Coaching Timeline
 
Are Nico and Kidd a package deal, so much so, that Nico is married to Kidd? If the team greatly underperforms that which another coach was able to accomplish with essentially the same roster, would Nico consider making a coaching change? If so, when will Nico "know what he as" with Kidd. I'd assume Jason gets at least a year. If the team underperforms for the entire year, would Nico give him another year, or partial year, to show something? Or would he make a change?
 
State of the GM Timeline
 
Again, are Nico and Kidd a package deal? How long will Mark give Nico to do something with his franchise? Does Nico get a chance to remake the roster AND the use of a "it was the coaching" card before Mark considers making a change? Does that mean that Nico would have two years to show something? 

Package deal?


If Nico and Kidd are a package deal, then we know this front office is a pit of weirdness and dysfunction. 

Nico is a guy who has never been a GM before, or even worked for an NBA team before. Kidd is a guy who has a negative history as a head coach. Neither one of these guys has anything close to the stature and credentials necessary to impose highly unusual and material conditions like this in any kind of professionally run organization. 

I think they are almost certainly not a package deal. (And if they are, then we've really gone down the rabbit hole, and I wouldn't even know how to speculate on the ramifications of that.)


How much rope do they have?

Your questions carry the underlying assumption that Nico is the one who is going to be primarily assessing Kidd and making decisions about whether he stays or goes. 

I would be really surprised if Nico has the authority to fire Kidd. (In that respect, I would be surprised if any GM in the league had the authority to fire the head coach without the owner's approval.) I think Cuban will be the one to decide whether and when he has had enough. 

I don't know if Nico has enough authority for Cuban to hold him responsible for the assembly and development of the roster and performance of the team. My strong impression is that Cuban is still heavily involved, and that Nico is not the only guy he is accepting material input from. (We know, for example, that he is consulting with Finley, Dirk, and various other guys in the organization, and maybe even out of it.)

If we reword the questions, as how much time goes by until Cuban fires Kidd and/or Nico, that would make sense. It's hard to answer, because I don't think Cubes hired these guys based on their qualifications. I think they were just a couple of old boys that Cuban knew and liked, and so he hired them, maybe partly because they were at least arguably underqualified (and less likely to be in a position to try to impose their will). 

Hence, I don't actually think such a decision would necessarily be related to objective performance. That's not how Cuban historically runs his operation. It might be more along the lines of the upheaval triggered by Bob -- maybe a guy he knows secures his ear and convinces Cubes that he can do better. Or, for example, if Luka turns on some of the people in power, I think Mark would react to that. But, until there is some event that forces him to act, I can imagine him just rocking along with his buds as long as ticket sales remain high. 

As to when or if he decides to cut them loose, who knows? If this were your basic, traditionally run sports organization, I would imagine Kidd would get a couple seasons, maybe three. And that Nico might not be held to account for four or five seasons. But in this environment, who knows? Maybe fifteen years. Maybe six months.

ROSTER TIMELINE

I think they'll continue their attempt to reel in a big fish, whether by trade or free agency, and will make smaller changes on an annual basis. I doubt there is a particular timeline on it, unless Luka forces the issue.