r/nba•
LastFirstism

Jason Kidd reportedly tried to trade Jabari Parker before he suffered his first ACL tear

I was reading Gery Woelfel's report on the Bucks' firing of Jason Kidd and came across this interesting nugget:

But don’t believe for a second Kidd had issues solely with Parker, whom sources said he tried to trade even before Parker suffered the first of his two ACL tears.

Interesting take showing that Jabari/Kidd relationship breaking down may have happened earlier than people anticipated. Worth noting that Jabari was banned from shooting threes two weeks into his NBA career.

Other notable details from Gery's reporting:

-He wanted out of Milwaukee before they extended him, wanted to coach Suns

-He had a say in personnel moves, including the Rashad Vaughn pick (which Gery called before it happened)

-He wanted to trade Monroe. Monroe talked with Gery and did not sound enthusiastic about the idea of talking about Kidd.

-Further [states] the infamous team vote to bench Jabari last year [perhaps didn't] happen. Jabari's punishment was for speaking during a team meeting.

-Despite the claim by Kidd surrogates that Giannis was "devastated" by the firing, the reality may have been more complex and Giannis had issues with the coach as well, even if he was one of the few Kidd supporters in the locker room.

Edit: I made a mistake in this post originally. On the fourth bullet point, I said that Gery confirmed the vote to bench Jabari did happen. Gery did the opposite - former players did not confirm that the vote happened and one said that Kidd made the decision himself to bench Jabari and then just blamed the players for it to the media.

Posted Jan 25, 2018, 12:06 AM UTC · edited

1.2K300
Loading comments…