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Mavericks sign Jason Kidd to multiyear contract extension

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    Tim MacMahonOct 14, 2025, 06:01 PM ET

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    • Joined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009
    • Covers the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas Mavericks
    • Appears regularly on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM

Coach Jason Kidd signed a multiyear contract extension with the Dallas Mavericks, the team announced Tuesday.

Terms of the extension were not disclosed.

“Our entire organization deeply appreciates Coach Kidd’s leadership, focus and positive energy,” team governor Patrick Dumont said in a statement. “Coach Kidd embodies everything our organization wants in a leader, and I am happy he will be here for many years to come. We are confident that he will continue to lead our team in a thoughtful and principled manner as we pursue our goal of bringing championships to the city of Dallas.”

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The extension comes in the wake of strong interest in Kidd from the New York Knicks before they hired Mike Brown to fill their coaching vacancy.

The Mavs declined to give the Knicks permission to interview Kidd, who has a 179-149 record during his four-year stint in Dallas. The Mavs have made runs to the 2022 Western Conference finals and 2024 NBA Finals under Kidd.

“I’m grateful for the belief that Patrick and [general manager] Nico [Harrison] have in me, and the trust we’ve built while working together to construct a team that Dallas can be proud of,” Kidd said in a statement. “We have a great group of players here who love basketball, are talented and coachable. … It’s even more special that I can continue to coach the team that drafted me, and where I was able to win a title as a player. I’m looking forward to what’s ahead and continuing to work toward bringing another championship back to Dallas.”

Kidd’s previous contract extension came during Dallas’ 2024 playoff run, when the Los Angeles Lakers had interest in interviewing him.

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Basketball

Mavericks, head coach Jason Kidd reportedly agree to contract extension

Jason Kidd is an in-demand coach. In the past two years, when the Lakers and Knicks had job openings, they asked for permission to talk to Kidd, but were shot down.

Now the Mavericks have locked Kidd up with a multi-year contract extension, reports Marc Stein of The Stein Line.

This is on top of the extension Kidd received last season, and he reportedly had two years total left on his deal. This likely keeps Kidd under contract through the first few years of the Cooper Flagg era in Dallas.

In four seasons as the Dallas head coach, Kidd has won 55% of his regular-season games and led the team to the playoffs twice, including an NBA Finals run in 2024. Heâ€s a coach players want to play for, which is part of the reason both the Lakers and Knicks checked on his availability, but there is no way the Mavericks were letting him walk out the door.

This season, Kidd coaches an interesting Dallas team with a huge and active starting front line of Cooper Flagg, Anthony Davis and Dereck Lively II (with P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford off the bench) — this is a long and athletic roster with quality rim protectors. However, with Kyrie Irving out for the first part of the season (there is no timeline for his return from a torn ACL), Kidd will need to rely on Dâ€Angelo Russell and Klay Thompson in the backcourt, which is not a great defensive unit.

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Cooper Flagg drops 10 points as Mavericks hang on to beat Thunder in his preseason debut

Cooper Flaggâ€s official NBA debut is almost here.

Flagg played in his first preseason game on Monday night for the Dallas Mavericks, just months after the franchise selected him with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. While he only played 14 minutes, he helped lead the Mavericks to a 106-89 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.

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After a bit of a slow start, Flaggâ€s first points of the night came in the second quarter when he sank a wild acrobatic contested layup. He then backed it up with a 3-pointer off the dribble not even a minute later.

Though he wasn’t scoring early, Flagg looked very comfortable out there. He found Dwight Powell for a wide-open dunk after running the point midway through the first.

By halftime, Flagg was up to 10 points and six rebounds after he shot 3-of-6 from the field. The Mavericks broke open a 26-point lead at the break. The Thunder, who beat the Charlotte Hornets in their preseason opener on Sunday, went just 13-of-49 from the field as a group in the first 24 minutes.

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While the Thunder rallied in the second half — they outscored Dallas by 10 points in the third, and then opened the fourth quarter on a 21-11 run — it came too late. The Mavericks held on to grab the 17-point win and start the preseason 1-0. Flagg, along with the rest of the Mavericks starters, didn’t return in the second half.

While it doesnâ€t actually count, Monday night marked a critical step for Flagg before he officially begins his NBA career on Oct. 22. Thatâ€s when the Mavericks open their regular season against Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs.

Flagg dominated at Duke, where he won consensus National Player of the Year honors and helped the Blue Devils reach the Final Four. He averaged 19.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game there, and was long considered the favorite to go No. 1 overall in the draft. The Mavericks, just months after the chaos that came with trading away superstar Luka DonÄić, remarkably won the NBA Draft lottery for the first time in franchise history. They only had a 1.8% chance to do so.

Flagg appeared in just two Summer League games for the Mavericks before the team shut him down. He dropped 31 points in the teamâ€s second game following a very rough start in which he shot just 5-of-21 from the field.

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The Mavericks went 39-43 last season, and largely fell apart after the DonÄić trade. They dealt with several significant injuries, including Kyrie Irvingâ€s torn ACL, and the teamâ€s front office dealt with immense blowback as they limped to the finish just a year removed from their first NBA Finals run in more than a decade. Irving is expected to make a mid-season return to the court.

Itâ€s unclear how much the Mavericks will utilize Flagg throughout the preseason. The team has three games left, starting with a matchup with the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday. Theyâ€ll wrap up with a game against DonÄić and the Lakers on Oct. 15 in Las Vegas.

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But once the season finally gets going later this month and Flagg settles in, expectations in Dallas are sure to be significantly higher after the turmoil the franchise was entrenched in last season. Fair or not, the 18-year-old will play a critical part in getting the team out of it and back to prominence in an already loaded Western Conference.

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