Jason Kidd's three-plus-year tenure with the Milwaukee Bucks had its share of bumps on the road, and among them was his rocky relationship with several of his players.
Among them, one of the names with the most weight is the team's second-leading scorer, Jabari Parker, who has sat out the entire season, recovering from a second ACL tear.
According to Mark Feldmann of the Racine Journal Times in conjunction with an earlier report from colleague Gery Woelfel, Kidd previously had it in for Parker and even considered trading him when he was coming back his first ACL tear.
“One former Bucks player told me Kidd was “really tough on Jabari when I was there and he shouldn’t have been. He had no reason to do that. Jabari is a good kid.’’ And another former Bucks player claimed Kidd threw Parker under the bus when, after Parker had talked publicly in general and non-critical terms about a team meeting, Kidd disciplined him by not starting him the next game. Kidd told reporters his decision came after the players voted on the matter.
When I asked a Bucks player a short time after the incident if he voted to have Parker sit at the start of the game, he replied, “What vote?’’ When I asked another player about the so-called vote, he replied, “Well … it must be true. It was in the paper and whatever you read in the paper is right.’’ He then started laughing. That incident, several people close to the Bucks said drove a Texas-size wedge between Parker and Kidd.
But don’t believe for a second Kidd had issues solely with Parker, whom sources said he tried to trade even before Parker suffered the first of his two ACL tears. Kidd also butted heads with other players, including [Greg] Monroe.”
Parker is known as a relatively quiet guy that is willing to speak up when needed, as he's done for several cries of social injustice throughout his stint in the NBA. Monroe, another mild-mannered presence, went from signing a buff deal with the Bucks as a starter, to a sixth man, to a mere matchup bench player.
Kidd made plenty of questionable moves throughout his time at the helm, and potentially trading one of his key assets could have been an offense that could have gotten him fired even earlier.
Parker went on to average 20 points and six rebounds per game last season — proving that Kidd was way off on his instinct to send him packing after a first ACL surgery.
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