Rick Carlisle shockingly resigned as the head coach of the Dallas Mavericks earlier in June after 13 seasons manning the bench, leaving the organization with a huge decision as it relates to finding a replacement.
Shortly after it was reported that Carlisle would become the next head coach of the Indiana Pacers, he took the media. One thing stood out in Carlisle’s words. He actually suggested who should replace him with the Dallas Mavericks.
“It’s hard to put an exact finger on it. It’s just a feeling that I had that it would be mutually beneficial,” the new Pacers coach said, via ESPN’s Tim MacMahon. “My hope is that Jason Kidd will be the next coach of the Mavs because he and Luka have so many things in common as players.”
This normally isn’t something we see in professional sports. Sure, longtime head coaches might suggest an assistant as a replacement. Sometimes, said assistant is groomed beforehand. That’s actually a possibility with Becky Hammon working under Gregg Popovich with the San Antonio Spurs.
However, for a recently resigned coach to point in the direction of an outside candidate while correlating this belief with how it would help his former team’s star player is rather interesting.
