Jason Kidd’s latest viral moment with Mavericks fans comes down to a joke that landed like a brick.
More than three months after Dallas moved on from Kidd, the former Mavericks head coach and 2011 NBA champion suddenly found himself back in the spotlight on Monday. The reason was an interview he did with ALL-STAR Magazine, which was published last week but didn’t really take off until aggregators circulated a clip from it.
In the clip, Kidd was asked about teasing LeBron James while he was an assistant coach with the Lakers and James was on the roster. Kidd said James would bring up the 2011 NBA Finals, when Dallas beat Miami for the franchise’s only championship, and Kidd admitted he would just let him keep talking.
“He would bring it up,” Kidd said. “I would let him bring it up.”
When the interviewer asked what James would say, Kidd gave the line that set off the reaction.
“Uh, that we got lucky,” Kidd responded. “And I just say I agree with him.”
Taken by itself, that quote looks brutal to Mavericks fans. Dallas’ win over the Heat is one of the defining runs in NBA playoff history, and it’s the kind of title that still means a lot in the city. So hearing a former head coach and longtime player sound like he was shrugging it off naturally caused a stir.
But the video tells a different story.
Kidd was clearly joking with the interviewer, and they laughed afterward. Anyone who watched him during his time coaching the Mavericks probably saw this coming, because his dry humor was part of the package. He had a habit of slipping sarcasm into postgame press conferences, sometimes in a way that made it hard to tell immediately whether he was being serious.
That’s what happened here. Kidd wasn’t trying to diminish Dallas’ 2011 championship or side with James on the result. The outrage that followed the quote reads a lot worse than the actual exchange.
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