12:49pm: Dudley has agreed to join the Mavericks’ coaching staff, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic.
8:30am: The Mavericks are in advanced discussions with veteran forward Jared Dudley about hiring him as an assistant coach on Jason Kidd‘s staff, according to NBA reporter Marc Stein (Twitter link).
Dudley, 36, has appeared in over 900 NBA regular season games since entering the league in 2007. He began his career in Charlotte, then spent time with the Suns, Clippers, Bucks, Wizards, Suns, Nets, and Lakers over the course of 14 seasons.
However, Dudley has seen his playing time decline significantly in recent years. In 2020/21, he logged just 81 total minutes in 12 games for the Lakers, and a report last week indicated that L.A. wasn’t expected to re-sign him. Now, it seems as if he’s prepared to move onto the next stage of his career.
While Kidd and Dudley never played together, they have plenty of history. Dudley played for Milwaukee in 2014/15 when Kidd was the head coach, and the Hall-of-Fame point guard was an assistant with the Lakers for the past two years.
Kidd’s coaching staff is still taking shape, but it appears he’s making it a priority to add at least a couple assistants with playing experience. J.J. Barea and Tyson Chandler are among the other NBA vets who have been mentioned as possible candidates.
Garbage player, Thank goodness he won’t be resigned
No one with 14 seasons in the Association can be considered garbage
When his big attribute is “leadership” that says all you need to know. Much more deserving players in g league that deserve a spot over this bum.
You need vets who are going to (or at least supposed to) keep egos in check. You think some fresh faced G League player is going to call out his teammates for playing selfishly/lazy? Of course not, that guy is too worried about keeping a job. Someone like Dudley? He’ll call out LeBron or AD when they’re half-assing it on the court. That’s why Haslem still has a job. He’s gained enough respect from his teammates that they know he’ll help keep egos in check. He’s as big a part of the “Heat Culture” as Pat Riley is.
He wasn’t garbage before ending up in LA. Of course now that he’s 36, like a good number of his former teammates, age has caught up with him. Also the “team president”, LeBron James, is no longer capable of making a “garbage player” into a serviceable one like he did back in his prime 5-10 years ago.
The Lakers envy is strong with you
Envious of a team that got bounced in the 1st round last season?
Dudley was the 14th man on the roster. Every team has a Dudley. None of them contribute regularly.
But they get minimum wage and help the team at practice (the real reason we even have up to 15 man rosters) and act as replacement level patches for injuries.
In the championship year he actually produced at league average EFFICIENCY. That means when he did play he was actually above average production, he just didn’t play except garbage time mostly).
Of course anyone making a comment about Dudley being “garbage” probably doesn’t really look beyond the counting stats.
Btw, Schroeder was much worse considering salary and playing time.
If you can’t hire Tim Duncan, hire his child?
Lol. Has Duncan ever expressed interest in coaching? I assume he’d be hired as soon as he made his intentions known. Or at least within a couple of years.
He was around the Spurs for several more years recently but I guess not his thing.
JJ is Luka buddy
The coaching staff is also a BIG3 team
I guess LBJ didn’t want Dudley back on his team of seniors.
Dudley was an actual NBA player with bulk and movement. He was also physically awkward so had to go to unusual effort to be a player. He has something to say on the topic of getting better, doing so as an adult while being conscious of it… Not just of being a bruiser in the middle getting rebounds and not asking questions.
Presumably he will make adifferent kind of straw-boss than Haslem. For one thing, the title, and, going 8 years getting worse rather than 11 lol.
Good on Kidd for getting him.