Jason Kidd’s fate as head coach of the Dallas Mavericks depends on this
Masai Ujiri was given every opportunity to say it, but he didn’t for a reason — he doesn’t know.
And the man who hired him has empowered Ujiri to make his own decision. How novel.
The most encouraging development of Dallas Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont hiring Ujiri as the team’s president of basketball operations is that Dumont plans to trust him to run the team. Of course, Mark Cuban did that (sorta) with Nico Harrison, which was fine until Nico’s ego got in the way, and Dumont didn’t know enough to stop him.
That development, which included a minor trade involving the Los Angeles Lakers a while back, is ultimately why Tuesday’s announcement was necessary. No franchise in sports has gone through more in the last two years than the Mavericks, and while 98 percent of their pain is self-inflicted, they are still not “through” it.
And they won’t be through it until they start winning again.
On Tuesday at the American Airlines Center, the Mavericks introduced Ujiri, who made it clear they are lucky to have forward Cooper Flagg, but he would not say if the Mavericks will retain Jason Kidd as the head coach.
“We are going to look at this thing from head to toe,” Ujiri said during his introductory press conference when asked if Kidd would be back.
Ujiri didn’t say yes, or no. An obvious conclusion to this first query is that Kidd is likely gone: When the GM, or owner, won’t verbally commit to a coach, well, it usually spells bad news for the coach.
I asked Ujiri a follow-up question, to clarify.
“If you go back to my history I’ve done the same thing everywhere I’ve been,” Ujiri said.
Ujiri still would not say if Kidd will or won’t be back. But after the mention of Ujiri’s history the safe bet is to plan that Kidd will return for his sixth season as the Mavs coach.
When Ujiri was named the general manager of the Denver Nuggets in 2010, he inherited head coach George Karl and kept him for the length of Ujiri’s tenure there.
When Ujiri left Denver in 2013 for the Toronto Raptors, he inherited coach Dwane Casey, who had already been in Toronto for two seasons and had not achieved a winning record. Ujiri kept Casey for the next five years, all playoff seasons that included a trip to the Eastern Conference finals.
Kidd would have to torpedo his extended sit-down conversations with Ujiri to lose this job; think full-on QAnon-level conspiracy rants about the NBA, society, and the real reason why traffic in DFW is so bad is because of the government.
Jason Kidd is not stupid. Whatever anyone wants to say about Jason Kidd, below “brilliant passing point guard,” is “survivor.”
Kidd has been in the NBA since 1994, and he knows the game, and the business of the game. No one within the Mavericks thinks Kidd will be fired.
“I’ll wait to hear Jason Kidd out; his thoughts on everything,” Ujiri said.
It’s a fair, safe, sentiment. Ujiri has to give himself some space for another direction, just on the off chance he does not like what Kidd says; or, the two don’t think they will work well together.
Whether this is a good idea is a different matter. Ujiri mentioned repeatedly the need for the Mavericks to move forward — which may not be possible where the head coach who was here when Luka Doncic was traded is still around.
Virtually every sentence on Ujiri’s resume says that this is a great hire of a professional basketball executive who built himself up from so little to be where he is today.
Between this hire as well as convincing Hall of Famer Rick Welts to come out of retirement to be the president of the team in December ‘24, Dumont has hired accomplished, respected basketball people to run both the business side, and the basketball side, of the Mavericks.
Dumont and the Mavericks are doing everything they can to “move forward,” but they are not through this until they finally start winning.
Ujiri’s first priority is determining if moving forward is possible with Jason Kidd.
This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 6:38 PM.
