Kidd knew he had to give Luka Doncic his natural freedom, which he perhaps restricted Giannis to do.

During his tenure as the Milwaukee Bucks head coach, Jason Kidd successfully nurtured Giannis Antetokounmpo’s talent, facilitating his development to such an extent that he won the Most Improved Player award in the 2017-18 season as he became a double-double machine.

Nevertheless, there remained a prevalent belief that the Greek Freak was restrained from maximizing his full potential. J-Kidd himself doubled down on this speculation when he vowed not to commit the same mistake with Luka Doncic as he committed with the two-time MVP.

Kidd vowed to take a different approach

Prior to becoming a head coach in the NBA, Kidd had long been reputed for possessing elite basketball acumen, particularly in terms of maximizing the potential of a team’s best player. However, after he assumed the head coach role in Milwaukee, Kidd failed to make Antetokounmpo the team’s No. 1 option in his first two full seasons.

Even in the 2016-17 season, despite Giannis leading the team in scoring, assists, rebounding, steals, and blocks, Jabari Parker averaged more field goal attempts. This discrepancy clearly indicated that Kidd had not granted the 6’11” forward complete shooting freedom.

Upon his appointment as the head coach of the Mavs, ‘The Engine’ acknowledged his previous error in restricting Giannis’ shooting opportunities and pledged to not make the same issues with Luka Doncic. Put simply, the 2011 NBA Champ understood that for him to make the Slovenian star maximize his impact, the latter needed to shoot whenever he had the ball in hand.

“Luka is a different player,” Kidd said on ESPN’s The Jump.” I’m not gonna tell him not to shoot; he can shoot the ball. My job is to make the game easier for him, understand the game within the game, understand how to get guys going, (and) become a better leader. (I plan to) help him in every aspect of the game to try to make it easy. That’s what we did with Giannis in Milwaukee, and, again, I won’t tell him not to shoot like I did with you (Richard Jefferson) and Giannis.”

J-Kidd has stayed true to his word

Ever since the Nets legend took over Dallas, he has figured out how much Doncic loves to shoot; as a result, he has only encouraged him to take over 21 shots per game in a season. This boosted the 6’7″ guard to average 32.4 points per game in just his second season as head coach, and he also helped Luka Magic lead the league in scoring, even with another ball-dominant guard like Kyrie Irving on the roster.

So, while Jason may not have led Dallas to another NBA championship yet, he has learned from his mistakes in Milwaukee.