DALLAS (AP) — Jason Kidd is out as coach of the Dallas Mavericks after five seasons, and two weeks after the club hired former Toronto Raptors executive Masai Ujiri as team president and governor.
The team said Tuesday it was parting ways with Kidd, describing the move as a mutual decision. The Hall of Fame point guard led the franchise to its only championship as a player in 2011.
When asked about the future of Kidd at his introduction on May 5, Ujiri
was noncommittal, saying he would talk to Kidd while evaluating all aspects of the team.
“As we evaluate the future of our basketball program, we believe this is the right moment for a new direction for our team,” Ujiri said in a statement. “We have high expectations for this franchise and a responsibility to build a basketball organization capable of sustained championship contention.”
Kidd made two deep playoff runs with Luka Doncic, reaching the NBA Finals in 2024, two years after a loss to Golden State in the Western Conference finals.
The Mavericks traded Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2024-25 season, getting Anthony Davis as the centerpiece in a deal that backfired badly on the franchise. Dallas missed the playoffs that season and again in 2025-26.
The 53-year-old Kidd had said he was looking forward to developing 2025 No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg, who won Rookie of the Year. Instead, that task will fall to someone else.
Kidd finished with a .500 regular-season record (205-205) with the Mavericks, an appropriate illustration of the up-and-down nature of his tenure.
The run to the West finals came in his first season, when Dallas stunned the favored Phoenix Suns in Game 7 on the road in the second round. The Mavericks lost in five games to the Warriors, who won the title.
Then-general manager Nico Harrison traded for Kyrie Irving the next season, but injuries to him and Doncic limited their chances to be an elite scoring pair. Dallas missed the playoffs.
In their only healthy season together in 2023-24, Doncic and Irving led the Mavericks to the Finals for the first time since Kidd helped Dallas win it all.
Nine months later, Harrison shocked the NBA with the trade of Doncic. Because of injuries, Irving and Davis played together for just 2 1/2 quarters.
Harrison was fired early in the 2025-26 season, after a slow start and with Davis injured again. Davis was later traded to Washington, and despite plenty of brilliant play from Flagg, the Mavericks finished 26-56.
Dallas becomes the fourth team with a coaching vacancy, joining Orlando, Chicago and Portland. The Trail Blazers were led by Tiago Splitter in an interim role this season. Since the regular season ended, Milwaukee has hired Taylor Jenkins and New Orleans brought in Jamahl Mosley.
Of the 12 coaches to take teams to the NBA Finals since 2019, seven are no longer with those clubs — including four who won championships: Nick Nurse with Toronto in 2019; Frank Vogel with the Lakers in 2020; Mike Budenholzer with Milwaukee in 2021; and Michael Malone with Denver in 2023.
The other coaches who went to the Finals since 2019 and are no longer with those teams: Monty Williams (Phoenix in 2021), Ime Udoka (Boston in 2022) and Kidd.
Kidd has a 388-395 record in nine-plus seasons as a head coach. He became a coach immediately after retiring as a player, leading Brooklyn to the second round of the playoffs in 2013-14. He bolted for Milwaukee, where he was fired in the middle of his fourth season.
After two seasons as an assistant with the Lakers, including their 2020 title run in the playoff bubble with LeBron James and Davis, Kidd was hired by the Mavericks.
Ujiri told reporters not to read anything into him being noncommittal about Kidd's return, saying the coach lasted several years in each of the previous times he was hired to run basketball operations, with Toronto and Denver.
This time, Ujiri is starting fresh.
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AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
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