Boston Celtics: Could hiring Jason Kidd help Damian Lillard recruitment?

In today’s NBA, the power is in the hands of the player. If you have an unhappy star, prepare to bow down to his will or let him loose. I’d siphon memories of a certain bitter ex-point guard who promised Boston Celtics fans his all for the rest of his career shortly before plotting his exit with a member of his new team, but giving the current Brooklyn Nets troublemaker any spotlight beyond highlighting his shortcomings in green and white is more than he deserves.

The point is, the situation hits close to home for Cs fans. On the opposite coast in the City of Roses, there’s a potential player coup brewing in Portland.

And it could affect the Celtics. Hopefully, it does.

You see, 6x All-Star Damian Lillard is unhappy with giving his all year in and year out only to watch his peers go further in the playoffs. The Trail Blazers have lost in the first round of the Western Conference postseason four times in the last five years, being swept twice during that span. The closest he was to an NBA Finals berth was in 2019 when Portland was able to sneak by the Nuggets in seven games  (revenge was reached by Denver this year) before being obliterated by the Golden State Warriors, proving he has never really been very close.

C.J. McCollum, Jusuf Nurkic, and Carmelo Anthony have provided Lillard stellar supporting play the last two seasons, but it’s clear that isn’t enough when there are superstar duos being formed all over the league.

With Jayson Tatum in tow, perhaps the Boston Celtics could create one of their own by somehow landing Lillard. That said, giving up Jaylen Brown might be the only way to get something done, and even then, teams around the league–like the laughable New York Knicks who really thought they had a contender with Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson in the starting lineup–may be willing to sell the farm to land the generational point guard talent.

But, there’s an ace in the hole. One of the current Cs coaching candidates, Jason Kidd, is reportedly the guy Lillard has in mind as the next Blazers coach:

"Damian Lillard’s top preference to become the next head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers is Los Angeles Lakers assistant Jason Kidd.“Jason Kidd is the guy I want,” Lillard told Yahoo Sports on Friday night.Lillard intends to have significant input on the next hire, sources said."

While Kidd’s coaching career has been marked by meme-able moments like his infamous soda spill on the Barclays Center floor in 2013-14 to gain an extra timeout, stealing him away seems like a way to get Lillard fixated on the idea of playing his home games at the TD Garden.

Will Stevens go for it? Kidd did infamously try to overtake then-Nets GM Billy King and assume full control of the Nets front office as President of Basketball Operations. Clearly, he will one day want to do the same in Boston if things work out well enough.

Then again, Cs owner Wyc Grousbeck has entrusted Stevens to captain the ship, so even potential lofty ambitions shouldn’t be a deterrent to bringing Kidd on.

What should be is his coaching record. 183-190 is unimpressive, but worse yet, the Milwaukee Bucks became a top team in the NBA after he skipped town.

Perhaps his tenure in Tinseltown winning a championship with the Lakers has changed things, but either way, hiring Kidd without assurance that the Boston Celtics could land Lillard is a potential recipe for disaster for Stevens and co.

Lillard is in control, though. If he wants Kidd, and the Cs steal him from Portland’s grasp, the chances he wants out to form an All-NBA pairing with Jayson Tatum exponentially go up.

It’s a dice roll, but Stevens could hit all six’s if Kidd is the key to the league’s best point guard.