The Dallas Mavericks parted ways with head coach Jason Kidd on Tuesday, May 19, ending a five-year tenure that included a 2024 NBA Finals appearance and three missed postseasons. Kidd has four years and roughly $40 million remaining on his contract. The decision came two weeks after Masai Ujiri formally took over as team president — and Ujiri publicly owned it. "Very tough decision," he told reporters Wednesday. "And it was mine."
What ended the run
The on-paper case for the firing is the 26-56 record this season. The real case is what produced that record. The Mavericks moved Anthony Davis to Washington this past year in the second major roster reset since the franchise traded Luka Dončić to the Lakers in February 2025 — the most controversial superstar trade of the past decade. The team Kidd was coaching at the end of his fifth season barely resembled the one he took to the Finals. Two top-five picks (Cooper Flagg at No. 1 in 2025, the lottery luck that came out of the 1.8% odds bounce), a new center, no Doncic, no Davis, no continuity.
You can argue Kidd should have gotten longer with a roster this rebuilt. Ujiri's argument is that the rebuild is going to take three to five years, and the staff that ends a job is usually not the staff that starts one. That is the same logic Ujiri used in Toronto in 2018 when he moved on from Dwane Casey the year before drafting Pascal Siakam into a championship rotation. It worked there. The Mavs are betting it works here.
The Ujiri factor
Masai Ujiri arriving in Dallas was already the bigger story than any coaching change. He is one of two or three front-office executives in the NBA with a real championship track record and the willingness to spend Mavs governor Patrick Dumont's checkbook. His mandate, publicly, was "evaluate every aspect of the organization." Two weeks in, he removed the coach. That is faster than expected and signals he is not interested in giving Kidd a token year to evaluate the new core.
The coaching search itself will be one of the most-watched of the cycle. Ujiri's two most likely targets, based on his Toronto history and current league rumblings, are Nick Nurse (currently in Philadelphia, complicated) and Sergio Scariolo (Spain national team, long Toronto connection). A third name to watch is Mike Brown, fresh off being fired in Sacramento and the kind of system-imposing head coach who would extract the most out of a Flagg-centric offense.
What this says about Kidd's legacy
Kidd took Dallas to a Finals. That is more than most coaches achieve, and it should not be erased by a 26-56 year coaching a rebuilt roster. His exit is less a referendum on him and more a referendum on the era of Mavericks basketball that ended the day Nico Harrison traded Luka — every decision since has been operating in the aftermath of that. Kidd was the on-court face of a front office that lost its franchise player and then traded its replacement star eight months later.
The next coach inherits Cooper Flagg as the centerpiece, a No. 1 pick in 2026 reportedly headlined by Duke's All-Rookie First Team class still in their second seasons, and Ujiri's checkbook. That is not a bad starting position — it is just a different job than the one Kidd was hired to do in 2021.
Source: ESPN, NBA.com, CBS Sports.
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