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'Jeff, Wes, Marc, Dmitry and Billy started talking and they found a way to strike a deal,” Kidd said. Bucks GM John Hammond and assistant GM David Morway learned of the negotiations with Kidd in the news media. The Bucks sent the Nets two future second-round picks, and the Nets hired Hollins, the former Memphis Grizzlies coach. Kidd said Schwartz was involved in the negotiations among the Bucks’ ownership Prokhorov's top advisor, Dmitry Razumov and Brooklyn GM Billy King on compensation the Nets received for letting Kidd out of his four-year, $10.5 million contract. I liked what I heard from Wes and Marc, and from there, it was taken out of my hands.' 'The process started when Jeff asked for permission, permission was granted and I talked to Wes and Marc,' Kidd said. To those familiar with the union’s rules forbidding such behavior, and the steps taken by many in the industry to disguise it, such transparency was stunning. Upon arriving in Milwaukee to take over as coach, Kidd and Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry matter-of-factly discussed Schwartz’s role in the power play in a nationally televised news conference on July 2. But unlike Hunter, who often kept agents at arm’s length in union business, Roberts said she plans to include them in the discussions about reviewing the agent regulations, a task she described as “really high on the top of our list.” In this regard, she is not vastly different from her bombastic predecessor, Hunter, who was known for incendiary rhetoric. Roberts, elected in July to replace Hunter, has exhibited little hesitance to rattle sabers in her role as a formidable bargaining adversary to the owners. If it appears that the rule is not something that we can work around, then it’s time to enforce it.” “But I also want to try to do it in a way that makes sense for everyone. people to act in defiance of the rule because the rule is the rule,” Michele Roberts, executive director of the NBPA, told Wednesday. “We can’t allow the status quo to remain, i.e.

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The NBPA is the only one of the four major pro sports unions in North America that expressly outlaws the practice.īut under former union chief Billy Hunter’s regime, and even before, the rule was rarely enforced, creating an environment in which agents have wielded unchecked power within certain organizations while allowing themselves to be placed in the ethical quagmire of representing players and their negotiating adversaries simultaneously.

Under review is a rule in the National Basketball Players Association’s Regulations Governing Player Agents, which has long forbidden certified player agents from representing coaches, general managers or “any other management representative who participates in the team’s deliberations or decisions concerning what compensation is to be offered individual players.” The rule has been on the books for decades to guard against the obvious conflicts of interest that would arise if an agent were operating on both sides of a player-management negotiation. They just think you can do whatever you want. “The blatant disregard for people is unreal,” one person involved in the NBA coaching business told “I can’t believe the way these people do business it’s amazing. On Wednesday night, Kidd returned to Brooklyn to face that hostile environment and scored a 122-118 victory for the Bucks in three overtimes. Amid the boos and heckling, the events surrounding Kidd’s departure from the Nets have invited scrutiny from league power brokers concerned about how much influence some agents have carved out within franchises, league sources told .Īt issue is the role that Kidd’s longtime agent during his playing career, Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management, played in Kidd’s attempt to achieve personnel authority with the Nets - and, when the power play failed, his role in ultimately landing Kidd a handsome raise to supplant a coach, Larry Drew, who had not yet been fired in Milwaukee. “… I’ve been in hostile environments as a player, as a coach. “They keep talking about it I don’t,” Kidd said recently. Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov dropped that line about not letting the door hit you “where the good Lord split you.” Kidd, now the coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, lobbed a terse reply as he feigned innocence and ignorance at the same time.

NEW YORK - Much vitriol has been exchanged in the wake of Jason Kidd’s clumsy exit from his job as coach of the Nets, a franchise that he led to consecutive NBA Finals as a Hall of Fame point guard - and one that he left bewildered in his wake after one eventful season as its coach. The events surrounding Jason Kidd's departure from the Nets have the NBPA's attention.

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