The Dallas Mavericks and coach Jason Kidd have agreed to a multi-year contract extension, the team announced Tuesday. The agreement comes just over a week before the team’s season opener against the San Antonio Spurs. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Kidd, 52, served as Mavericks coach for the last four seasons and posted a 179-149 record over that span. That includes a trip to the 2024 NBA Finals, where Dallas lost to the Boston Celtics in five games. Prior to his time in Dallas, he spent two seasons as a Lakers assistant after three-plus seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks, where he went 139-152. He got his coaching start in 2013-14 with the Brooklyn Nets, where he went 44-38 in one season before being traded to Milwaukee.
Kidd became the subject of several coaching search conversations over the past few years, and the Mavericks denied the New York Knicks a chance to interview him for their vacancy earlier this offseason.
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A Hall of Fame inductee as a player in 2018, Kidd faces a big season with the Mavericks. Dallas stunningly dealt away Luka Doncić to the Los Angeles Lakers in early February 2025, receiving Anthony Davis, among others, in return. The trade was widely panned, and things went from bad to worse in Dallas when Davis was injured in his team debut and Kyrie Irving later tore his ACL. The injury-ravaged Mavericks finished 39-43 and got into the Play-In Tournament, where they beat the Sacramento Kings but lost to the Memphis Grizzlies with a playoff berth on the line.
Then the Mavericks’ fortunes miraculously reversed when they won the NBA Draft lottery despite having just a 1.8% chance to do so. That allowed Dallas to select Cooper Flagg, the consensus player of the year at Duke last season who has already impressed in the preseason.
With Flagg in the fold alongside Davis, Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford, the Mavericks figure to have a fearsome frontcourt defense, with Klay Thompson and Max Christie among key wings returning. Free agent signee D’Angelo Russell will be the team’s lead ballhandler until Irving returns, if Irving returns at all this season.
Dallas is slightly favored to miss the playoffs (-138) at FanDuel Sportsbook, though if things go well health-wise and Flagg can make an immediate impact, the team will likely field one of the NBA‘s best defenses and contend for the postseason.
