Why the Nets and Bucks both look like losers in Kidd deal

Jason Kidd is reportedly headed to Milwaukee to be the Bucks’ new head coach after a falling out in Brooklyn, but it’s tough to pick a winner from the losers involved.

When the Nets mortgaged their future to bring in Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry – a trade that robbed them of financial flexibility and future assets - they went into as desperate a win-now mode as they come. And yet just prior to that they had gambled on Jason Kidd as a head coach less than a couple of weeks after the future Hall of Fame point guard had retired from playing.

They overpaid Lawrence Frank to be an assistant coach, reportedly at Kidd’s behest, then watched Kidd summon Frank to glorified report-writing duty after a fallout. There was the infamous drink spilling saga. They let Kidd work his way through a terrible start to the season, eventually watching the rookie coach succeed with a small-ball lineup he was forced into following another Brook Lopez injury.

At the end of the day, though, Brooklyn’s gamble on its expensive new team and their unproven new coach never really paid off. The Nets won five less regular season games in 2013-14 than they did in 2012-13 and won two extra playoff games, beating the Raptors in a hard fought seven-game series before falling to the Heat in five games.

Now just over a year after that questionable hiring, after Kidd proved to be an average NBA head coach at best (and that might be generous) during his first season as a bench boss, the 41-year-old reportedly wanted more control of basketball operations, if not all of it. And he’ll soon be shipped out of town because the Nets rightfully wouldn’t give it to him.

That the Nets could use a more prudent decision maker than Billy King is besides the point – Kidd has done nothing to earn that decision making role thus far in his post-playing career. If he can’t handle being rebuffed in his quest for power, then the Nets should say good riddance and be happy to acquire a couple of second round picks out of the situation. Brooklyn could use anything in terms of draft picks and assets.

Nonetheless, the plan a year ago was to compete for a championship, not to recoup a couple second rounders, and there’s no denying that this whole thing seems to have blown up in their faces.

As for the Bucks, they obviously feel they could use an upgrade over Larry Drew, but is Jason Kidd really the answer? Is Kidd the best option available to them? He almost surely isn’t under normal circumstances, and definitely isn’t when you consider that they have to compensate the Nets for his services.

A pair of second round picks may not seem like much, but when you’re in the early stages of a necessary rebuild like the 67-loss Bucks are, you should be collecting and hoarding any kind of future assets, not giving them away for an average, still unproven coach.

Not to mention, if the Bucks are anywhere near as bad next season as they were this season, that 2015 second round pick would land near the top of the second round heap, where a second rounder carries the potential value of a late first rounder without the guaranteed long-term money of one.

When it comes to Jason Kidd’s reported move from Brooklyn to Milwaukee, the asset-less Nets gained a couple of draft picks and the rebuilding Bucks gained a new coach, but both teams come out looking like losers for now.