The first point Byron Scott emphasized — a point he stressed repeatedly — is he was not around the Nets this season and did not know what went on between head coach Jason Kidd and now-exiled assistant Lawrence Frank.
Fair enough. But Scott does know both Kidd and Frank, and the man who coached the Nets to consecutive trips to the NBA Finals was not at all surprised the union between the two barely outlasted the Kim Kardashian-Kris Humphries marriage.
“It does surprise me a little that it happened so quickly,” Scott told The Post, admitting he had not been aware of Tuesday’s bombshell move when Kidd demoted his former lead assistant Frank because of philosophical differences. “But it’s safe to say that I’m not [surprised] it happened at all because of the personalities involved.”
Scott was replaced by Frank as the Nets head coach in the 2003-04 season. Kidd was critical of Scott, went on an infamous locker room tirade against him in Memphis 10 years ago this month and often is viewed as the reason for the coach’s demise in New Jersey.
In Kidd and Frank, Scott sees two “very strong-willed” individuals who easily could have a hard time distinguishing the boss-employer relationship.
“When I’m putting a staff together,” said Scott, “the key point of emphasis for me is, ‘I want you to be open and honest, I want your input but at the end of the day, I’m going to do what I think is best.’
“In Jason and Lawrence, I detect two very strong-willed people who don’t back down,” Scott said. “I could easily see maybe Jason getting to the point where he felt Lawrence was over-stepping his bounds.”
Scott coached the Nets from 2000 until his dismissal in January 2004. After a dismal 26-56 season in 2000-01, the Nets acquired Kidd via trade and went to the Finals two straight years. But Kidd’s problems with Scott became public and the coach was fired in his fourth season in New Jersey after a 22-20 start. Frank took over on Jan. 26, 2004.
“I remained very friendly, very cordial with Lawrence. We always spoke at games where we coached against each other,” Scott said. “Same when he was on Doc’s [Rivers] staff in Boston.”
Kidd and Scott? A slightly different relationship.
“It was just, ‘Hi, hello, how are you doing coach?’ last season when he was with the Knicks and I was in Cleveland,” Scott said. “But he’s not inviting me to his house for dinner and I’m not inviting him to my house for dinner.”
Scott said he saw where his former star player was in the news.
“The last I saw of Jason, he was getting fined $50,000 for spilling soda on the floor,” Scott said, “and I thought he should have been fined $100,000.”
Why?
“Because it was wrong,” Scott said.
Scott is doing some TV chores for the Lakers, with whom he won three NBA titles during the Showtime years. He is a grandfather of one with another on the way. He would like to coach again — “but not right now. My life is good. l love my job.”