MANILA — Former Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd kept LeBron James, benched Luka Dončić, and cut Cooper Flagg when asked to sort the three in a start, bench, cut game during an interview with ALL-STAR Magazine released Thursday.
Kidd wouldn’t answer until he knew which James was on the table. James turns 42 on Dec. 30.
“I got to cut, I got to cut Cooper, I got to bench Luka, and I got to ride with LeBron,” Kidd said.
He coached all three. Kidd was a Los Angeles Lakers assistant under Frank Vogel from 2019 to 2021, took the Dallas job that summer, and had Dončić for three and a half seasons before the February 2025 trade sent him back to Los Angeles. Flagg played his rookie year under Kidd.
Jason Kidd On What Separates LeBron James
Last season, Dončić led the NBA in scoring with 33.5 points per game. In April, Flagg was awarded Rookie of the Year, averaging 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 4.5 assists. Earlier in the same interview, Kidd compared Flagg to James and used championships as a benchmark.
Kidd put Nikola Jokić in the same category as James on passing and basketball IQ.
“I’ve talked about the Joker, but since you brought LeBron up, I would say LeBron’s game is probably, my game is the closest to LeBron, even though his game is at a different altitude,” Kidd explained.
“His ability to make plays for his teammates, his IQ, understanding what’s going to happen before it happens, is extremely high,” Kidd continued. “So I would say those are the two players when you talk about passing and just their basketball IQ.”
Jokić led the NBA in assists last season at 10.7 per game.
Over 60 games with the Lakers last season, James averaged 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 7.2 assists. In July he signed a two-year, $8 million contract with the Philadelphia 76ers. He has won four championships.
How Jason Kidd’s Dallas Tenure Ended
Kidd and James were teammates on the United States team that won gold in Beijing in 2008. In his first season coaching the Mavericks, Kidd took them to the Western Conference finals. The NBA Finals followed two years later. The Mavericks missed the playoffs in each of the two seasons after the trade and finished 26-56 last year.
Kidd finished 205-205 in Dallas. He and the Mavericks mutually agreed to part ways on May 19, two weeks after Masai Ujiri was hired to run basketball operations. Dallas hired Dusty May from Michigan in June.
James and the 76ers visit Dallas on Presidents’ Day.
