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The Pink Slip: Jason Kidd

jason kidd mugshot1 e1342472519664Jason Kidd

What a mess. Just four—4!—days after signing a $9.5-million, three-year contract with New York Knicks, Kidd gets arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated after Southampton cops say he wrapped his Cadillac Escalade around a utility pole.

Never mind that the 39-year-old point guard should have left his partying days well behind him. Or that he was supposed to mentor Jeremy Lin before the Knicks let the breakout star go to the Houston Rockets. Or that as a two-time Olympic gold medalist, this NBA star was meant to be a role model. Or that as a multimillionaire, he could easily afford a chauffeur.

But what’s really foul here is that in many cases average Joes who get busted for DWI often find themselves out of a job not long after. Take a cue from Tim Welsh, the Hofstra University men’s basketball coach who resigned shortly after he was arrested for drunken driving three days after he was hired.

Here’s lookin’ at you, Kidd. Since the inept Knicks management clearly doesn’t have the competence to do this themselves—have we mentioned team owner James Dolan is an idiot for letting Lin go?—I guess we’ll have to eject you ourselves. Don’t bother unpacking your gym bag, kiddo. For this technical, consider yourself fired!

As seen in the July 19-July 25, 2012 version of Long Island Press.