Basketball

Jason Kidd’s third chance at first impression began with Mavericks loss, but ‘it’s a matter of time and growth’


ATLANTA — Jason Kidd is officially one of the top 75 players in NBA history. His record will show he doesn’t rank as high as a coach.

On Thursday, Kidd reached two career milestones and tripped over a familiar rock. The NBA released the final installment of its 75th-anniversary team, and Kidd, predictably was on it. He also debuted as the coach of the Dallas Mavericks, the franchise which drafted him second overall in 1994 and where he won his only title as a player, in 2011.

The Mavericks then got pasted by the Atlanta Hawks, 113-87, dropping Kidd’s record as a head coach to a dubious 183-191.

This is Kidd’s third chance to make a good first impression.

“I’m a different coach from when I was in Brooklyn and Milwaukee,” Kidd said Thursday. “If I wasn’t, then I wouldn’t have this opportunity.”

It would have been nice for Kidd if the Mavericks didn’t shoot 33 percent for the game, if Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis didn’t combine to go 10-of-30 or if the team on the other sideline wasn’t the Atlanta Hawks, an Eastern Conference finalist from a season ago that feels underappreciated and eager to prove their playoff run wasn’t a fluke.

But Kidd, after 1,391 regular-season games as a player and four and a half seasons as a coach, knows the old axiom about Opening Night being just one of 82.





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