THE CRUCIFIX: Cato: Wood isn't thrilled w/ his role...Will depart in the summer

[mvossman]

I think Kidd COULD have continued with starting DP, but the writing was on the wall. Kidd was backed into a corner IMO with the poor performance of the team overall and the good performance of Wood. The media had been hounding him about starting Wood for literally weeks and there was no way he could hold out IMO without sabotaging his own place in DAL to an extent.

This is what I still believe about Wood and Kidd:

1) I think it is clear Kidd wanted McGee and thought he was what this team needed and promised him the starting role (and a three year contract---absolutely embarrassing from every angle).

2) I think Kidd was not 100% behind the Wood trade and that he did not see Wood as a center or a long term fit for this team. 

3) I think Kidd played his favorite players (I think there is a long track record of this being the case) to start the season in a way that ultimately hurt the win/loss record of this team. 

4) I think Kidd finally changed up, only because of injuries and him realizing that he was sabotaging himself and the team.

5) I do not believe Kidd was trying to "sabotage" Wood, NOT ONE BIT. I just think Kidd truly believed he knew best on the personnel front and he was going to prove that to people. But time proved him to be wrong, REALLY wrong. Thankfully injuries happened and he adjusted and did not completely sink the ship with his ego. 

6) I think this team would be about 26-11 (and top of the West) if Kidd would have played Wood like he is now off the bat. There would have been growing pains (of course!) but I think about 5 more wins were there for the taking. 

7) I think Kidd is really poor in personnel evaluations overall. I think he is an average coach, having some strengths for sure, but some really clear weaknesses. I think his ego and his belief in his own rightness is his greatest weakness.

Kidd has always taken his time in making lineup changes to the point where fans get impatient with him.  The fact is almost every major lineup change he has made this season is generally approved by the board, it just sometimes took longer than desired.  He has:

Removed McGee from the starting lineup and the rotation all together.  I actually think he pulled the trigger on this fairly quickly
Ramped up Greens minutes as he got more and more confident.  I thought he handled that perfectly
Removed Bullock from starting lineup.  Could have done this sooner, but now we have no point of attack defender in starting lineup
Added Timmy to the starting lineup.  Not many folks were clamoring for this, but it certainly seemed to work
Ramped up Woods minutes and moved him to the starting lineup.  Clearly not as soon as folks wanted

Kidd's only real big mistake was starting (or even playing) McGee, which probably caused them a couple of losses (don't think it was 5).  Powell was terrific in taking over that role and based on net rating or on/off he is actually more positively impactful than Wood.  There is not a lot of evidence to suggest that starting Wood instead of Powell would have significantly changed our current win/loss record.