The Mavericks are moving on from Jason Kidd.
The team announced on Tuesday that it “mutually agreed’ to part ways with Kidd after he’s led the team for five seasons.
Kidd still has four years and more than $40 million left on his contract, ESPN reported. It was clear that new president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri wanted to take the organization in a different direction.
“As we evaluate the future of our basketball program, we believe this is the right moment for a new direction for our team,” Ujiri said in a statement. “We have high expectations for this franchise and a responsibility to build a basketball organization capable of sustained championship contention. We will conduct a thorough, disciplined search for our next head coach and continue to evaluate our entire basketball operations staff to ensure we compete at the standard Mavs fans expect and deserve.”
Kidd was named Mavericks head coach in 2021 and led Dallas to a number of postseason appearances, including a trip to the NBA Finals in 2024 and the Western Conference finals in 2022.
He went 205-205 during his five-year run with the Mavs, but his record was severely impacted by the presence — and later lack thereof — of star Luka Doncic.
The Kidd-led Mavericks were 136-87 when Doncic was in the lineup and 69-118 when he wasn’t, including the 26-56 record — even with Rookie of the Year winner Cooper Flagg — Dallas had during the 2025-26 season, the first full campaign following the controversial Doncic trade in Feb. 2025. The architect of that trade, Nico Harrison, was fired in November.
Kidd’s future with the Mavericks seemed up in the air after Ujiri took over his post earlier this month and was non-committal about keeping him on during an introductory press conference.
“He’s done a great job, but we are going to look at this thing from head to toe,” Ujiri said. “That’s the right way to look at an organization and evaluate in every single way we can.”
