Jason Kidd and Lawrence Frank have not had a great relationship since Kidd became the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets. The plan was for Frank to help Kidd make the difficult transition from player to head coach, but it has since backfired. Frank has been demoted to providing daily reports for the team and is no longer permitted to sit on the bench.

So what was the breaking point? For starters, Frank was reportedly angry that Kidd did not choose him to be the team’s interim coach when Kidd was serving a two-game suspension for driving while under the influence. Then, there’s also a report from NBA.com about an expletive-laden rant Kidd hurled at Frank following Brooklyn’s loss to the Orlando Magic on Nov. 3.

“Sit the (bleep) down!” Kidd reportedly said. “I’m the coach of this (13-letter word) team! When you’re on the bench, don’t (bleeping) move!”

After the outburst, coaches facing the Nets reportedly thought Frank may have been ill because he was being so quiet on the bench.

Kidd had supposedly tried to go over things one-on-one with players and had ideas that were different from Frank’s. Still, a coaching source said Frank “wouldn’t stop talking.” Frank, who is getting paid $1 million a year to be an assistant, is said to have practiced “passive-aggressive undermining” with Kidd prior to the demotion.

“You know, I don’t know,” Paul Pierce said Monday when asked about Frank, via ESPNNewYork.com. “That’s something for the coaching staff, I think. He worked hard, he did the things that they asked him to do that I thought were on the court. But obviously some behind-the-scenes things that probably went down that didn’t go well with the coaches and that’s why the decision was made.”

Whatever the case, Frank is under contract for several more years with the Nets at $1 million per season. Something will likely have to change.

Brooklyn Nets assistant coach Lawrence Frank was demoted on Tuesday by Jason Kidd. As a result, Frank will no longer be on the bench during games and will not be coaching during team practices. Instead, Kidd has assigned him to providing daily reports.

Last month, word surfaced that Kidd and Frank were having friction. Frank was initially supposed to handle Brooklyn’s defensive schemes, which have not been effective during the team’s 5-13 start. But according to ESPNNewYork.com’s Ohm Youngmisuk and Marc Stein, the tension between Kidd and Frank began to build at the beginning of the season when Frank was not chosen to be the team’s interim head coach.

Kidd was suspended for two games for pleading guilty to driving while under the influence, and he chose assistant coach Joe Prunty to stand in for him while he was out. Unlike Prunty, Frank has previous head coaching experience. He was the head coach of the Nets from 2004-2010 and the Detroit Pistons from 2011-2013.

“This is the decision that I had to make, and we made it and we move on,” Kidd told reporters on Tuesday night after the Nets were trounced by the Denver Nuggets at home. “This is my decision in the sense of what I had to do. It’s about basketball. That’s it.”

The Nets initially planned to have Frank guide Kidd and help him make the transition from player to head coach, but the plan has obviously backfired. Kidd reportedly did not want someone telling him what to do, and as a result Frank is left with a role that seems much less significant than that of an assistant coach.

Jason Kidd has demoted assistant coach Lawrence Frank.

Kidd announced on Tuesday that Frank will no longer be coaching the Brooklyn Nets during practices. Frank also won’t be sitting with the coaches on the bench during games. Instead, Frank has been “reassigned” to providing daily reports, Kidd said.

The announcement should not come as much of a surprise.

We told you two weeks ago that a rift developed between the two and that Kidd and Frank were having friction.

Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski added this detail:

Kidd lost cool w/ Frank inside a coaching staff meeting in early November, league sources say, and partnership was soon doomed to this end.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) December 3, 2013

Frank was the head coach of the New Jersey Nets from 2004-2010 (and an assistant when Kidd came to the Nets in 2001). He became the interim coach during the 2003-2004 season and took over as the head coach until being fired in 2009. Kidd was his point guard for most of that period, and they had a successful run together.

The Nets brought in Frank as an assistant to help guide Kidd as he worked through his first head coaching job, but that did not work out. A source told ESPN’s Marc Stein that the problem was Kidd needed someone to guide him, not tell him what to do. That could explain the root of the discord between the two.

Jason Kidd and Lawrence Frank are having some friction on the Brooklyn Nets’ coaching staff amid the team’s struggles this season, according to a report.

The Nets lost by 30 points to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday and have been a disappointment this season, going just 3-9. They were expected to contend for the Eastern Conference title, but they’ve had a poor start to the season. Now, Kidd, who is in his first year as a coach of any kind, is being ripped apart for his inabilities.

The New York Daily News says “there is some friction between the two longtime friends.”

A person who knows both told the Daily News’ Frank Isola that “something has changed between them.”

It would be hard for there not to be friction or tension on a coaching staff where there is talk about people potentially getting fired, so I wouldn’t panic too much over this report.

The Nets took a risk by hiring Kidd, who retired as a player after last season and never had any coaching experience, for a playoff-ready team. They figured that he could surround himself with top assistant coaches who had more experience with the daily requirements of being an NBA head coach while he caught up to speed. That plan has blown up in their face so far.

Kidd has admitted to Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski this week that it can all be “overwhelming.”

I think the Nets need to relax and give Kidd time to see this through. They hired him knowing things could be bumpy to start the season, and they should not hold the last four losses against him since they essentially were without Deron Williams and Brook Lopez. They should also realize that Andrei Kirilenko has been out with a back injury.

Now if the Nets don’t start winning a few weeks after getting their whole team back healthy, then they should be seriously concerned.

H/T Beyond the Buzzer