Report: Lakers assistant coach leaving team to join Jason Kidd’s staff on Mavs

Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach Quinton Crawford is leaving the team to become an assistant with the Dallas Mavericks under former Lakers assistant Jason Kidd.

Crawford was hired to work under former Lakers head coach Frank Vogel in 2019 and was part of the staff that won the franchise’s first NBA title in a decade in 2020.

The 31-year-old Crawford played collegiate basketball at the University of Arizona, but didn’t reach the NBA as a player. However, he appears to be getting noticed based on this new hiring.

Kidd and Crawford worked together on the Lakers’ staff until Kidd left last year to take the Mavericks’ position. Prior to Kidd’s hiring in 2019, he had served as head coach for both the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks.

In Kidd’s first year with the Mavericks, he led them to a 52-30 regular season record. Then, in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Mavs knocked off the Utah Jazz in six games, then jolted the defending Western Conference champion Phoenix Suns in a seven-game series.

Kidd and the Mavericks watched their season come to an end when they then lost in five games to the Golden State Warriors, who went on to win their fourth title in eight years on Thursday night.

When Kidd and Crawford served under Vogel, it seems clear that the 49-year-old Kidd saw potential within the younger coach.

A New Jersey native, Crawford most likely felt a bond with Kidd during the latter’s standout days as a member of the then-New Jersey Nets. It remains to be seen if their connection can help the Mavericks capture a title, but the Lakers now have a coaching opening to fill.