MAVS 91, PELICANS 107

[mavsluvr]

This concerns me greatly, for two reasons:

1) He was hired at the exact, same time as the new GM, and right before an off-season when the Mavs had some maneuverability. Maybe the last such off-season for some time, actually. Was that not the perfect time to start to get the type of guys he wants in here?

Yes, of course. But -- 

Is he changing his opinion of those moves now due to inexperience and an inability to predict how these pieces would fit (scary) or did he and the GM simply not agree on the plan to begin with (even scarier)?

This is a possibility that I would buy. --

They didn't have a well-thought-out plan. Nico probably didn't even know how to construct such a plan and wouldn't have recognized one if he had met it on the street. Kidd wanted a clean slate to evaluate the players for himself, and even now,  after 20 games, is still trying to decide what sort of plan he wants to implement. He has apparently come to the conclusion that the roster and the way he wants to play are not a very good match. Maybe he's forming an idea of what personnel changes he wants going forward. But he just didn't know before the season.

Also, with an inexperienced GM, a new coach, and very little time to work with, the offseason was operated in a very catch-as-catch-can manner. Maybe they did identify some better-fitting pieces, and weren't able to secure them. Lowry would be an example. But, one way or another, it was more or less a lost offseason. 

There are of course other possibilities, but that seems to be a likely scenario to me.   

2) That comment could ruffle feathers in the locker room, in the front office, etc. That's probably needed from time to time, but idk man, in this case it comes off (at least to me) as "hey, look - it's not MY fault!" Honestly, isn't that pretty close to the picture painted by those complaining about him from the BRK/MIL days? I just don't hold out much hope for him to succeed if he makes it a habit to put himself in an adversarial position relative to the organization publicly. Then again, it's only one comment, so far. 

Totally. His comments may, and probably do, have some validity. But rather than at least publicly taking responsibility, it's, "Don't look at me. The players won't try hard enough. Not only that, but the front office put together a bunch of players who can't do the job."

I agree with @"Kammrath" that his overt but not explicit calling out of Luka the other night was probably a move worth making at this point, but there are only so many bullets in that gun.

Yeah, he has called Luka out for that before, and so did Carlisle. Luka has admitted multiple times that it's a problem, but then he doesn't change. At this point, I don't think anything Kidd says is going to really penetrate. It's something Luka is going to have to come to believe internally, as most players do. I don't know if it will ever completely go away -- a lot of stars work the refs until the day they retire. If I were Kidd, I probably wouldn't keep harping on it very much, even though he would be justified in doing so. Coaching young men is not so different from raising a teenager -- some things, kids just have to figure out for themselves, lol.  

To be clear, I'm not defending any of this, just trying to understand what is going on in reality, whether I like it or not.