Bucks coach Jason Kidd didn’t have interest in heading to Milwaukee until the team came after him, as he makes clear to Michael Lee of The Washington Post. Kidd remains proud of the work he did in his lone season as coach of the Nets, who received a pair of second-rounders as compensation when the Bucks hired him this summer.
“We felt that we helped a lot of people get better. As coaches, that’s all you ask for,” Kidd said. “There was a lot of good stuff. Unfortunately, management, ownership didn’t [think so], so they got two second round picks.”
Kidd returns to Brooklyn on Wednesday, and while we wait to see that, here’s more from around the Eastern Conference:
- The relationship between LeBron James and coach David Blatt isn’t fully functional yet, and though Blatt is technically the boss, James perhaps wields greater leverage over him than he has with any of his previous coaches, as Joe Vardon of the Northeast Ohio Media Group examines.
- Knicks rookie small forward Cleanthony Early is set to miss about a month or more after undergoing surgery to remove a “loose body” in his knee, the team announced (Twitter link).
- The size of the role that James Johnson would play for the Raptors wasn’t clear when they signed him this summer, but he’s quickly become a key contributor who’ll be missed while he’s out indefinitely with a severely sprained ankle, as Eric Koreen of the National Post details.