The Los Angeles Lakers are hiring Frank Vogel as their next head coach, and Jason Kidd will join his staff as an assistant, but that wasn’t the team’s original plan.
And no, I’m not just talking about their well-chronicled pursuits of Tyronn Lue and Monty Williams. It sounds like the Lakers originally didn’t plan to hire Kidd in any capacity when they interviewed him, as according to Tania Ganguli of The L.A. Times, he initially only got a look as a favor:
Kidd, who had head coaching stints with Brooklyn and Milwaukee, interviewed for the Lakers’ job in April.