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.
