Hey, Jason Kidd: Learn how to take a compliment – Gudstory

Jason Kidd was in a bad mood yet Dallas Mavericks Winning 121-115 over Houston Rockets Wednesday. This was the final game of the season-opening tournament for the Mavericks, as they would not advance beyond the group stage. Their loss in the knockout round would be a more legitimate reason for Kidd to be upset than a simple question from ESPN’s Tim McMahon.

The Mavericks were one of the better teams at the start of the 2023-24 season. They’re 11-6, which is good enough for fourth place in the Western Conference. A start that stands in stark contrast to the way the Mavs imploded last season after acquiring Kyrie Irving via trade.

McMahon asked Kidd about one particular area for improvement for the team: clutch situations. Kidd asked how the Mavs were able to improve in those moments, when they were the worst in the league last season after trading for Irving. Kidd gave a questioning response.

“Tim, it’s probably the stuff you guys thought should have happened on day one,” Kidd said at the press conference. “It is that they have to succeed immediately, and that takes time.”

“As I just mentioned [the Mavericks are] One of the best, if not the best, in clutch time. But that was a big thing that you guys wanted to make a big deal about last year. But you won’t care much about that this year, because things are going well. Okay, so write some positive words.

The reason the Mavericks’ clutch woes were so frequently discussed last season is that when they traded for Irving on February 6, 2023, they were fifth in the West and three games above .500. Dallas finished the season with a 38-44 record and missed the play-in tournament. NBA The franchise was fined $750,000 for failure to compete seriously The final match of the season. They had the opportunity to play if they won.

Bringing in a player of Irving’s caliber near the trade deadline should improve the team. The Mavs went 9-18 the rest of the season. The end of the 2022-23 season was a complete mess, and those of us who cover the NBA were curious about how and why it happened so quickly.

If anything, McMahon was praising the Mavericks. Who knows, maybe he was working on a story about the team’s improvements in the clutch and thought their head coach might have some insight into what the players he works with every day do differently?

McMahon was literally asking a positive question. He was giving Kidd and the players some credit for starting the 2023-24 season on the right track. Instead of offering a bit of his experience to the fans and media, Kidd chose to grimace, curse, and summarily exit the press conference.

The mission of sports media is to contextualize the events that fans watch. If the action is good, we try to explain why, and vice versa when it is bad. If the bad thing seems more obvious, blame the consumer. As I mentioned over the past two days, a large segment of people prefer ridicule rather than applause.

This is not McMahon’s fault, or mine or anyone else’s fault who writes about sports. At best, we try to communicate what we see clearly, but in a way that compels people to read and participate.

Part of Kidd’s displeasure with the question is that the media, in his opinion, was not patient enough when discussing the Mavericks’ continuity issues last season. If he wants the national narrative around his team to change, how about he gives the media more than a month and a half to notice. And then when asked about improvement, maybe he shouldn’t take the opportunity to attack.