The Milwaukee Bucks have been an enormous disappointment so far this season as they are 11-18 and near the bottom of the Eastern Conference in a season in which they had pretty big expectations. Things haven't gotten any better for the Bucks, and now it appears they will be without their head coach for some time as Jason Kidd is set to undergo hip surgery. The initial reports said Kidd would miss "significant time," but new reports suggest he might only miss about a month, according to Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Kidd started having pain in his hip going all the way back to his playing days with the Dallas Mavericks, but he was able to control it with cortisone shots among other things. But now the pain has gotten to the point where it is too much to deal with, and it's causing him to lose sleep.
"It's been chronic for the last three to four years, since I was in Dallas the last time. The pain has been to the point where I can't function. I've taken all the medicine I can do. Talking to the doctors, there's really no good time to do the surgery. I have to fix myself and then we move on and get back to work," said Kidd.
Kidd is scheduled to undergo the surgery on Monday in New York, and while he is out assistant coach Joe Prunty will take over the head coaching duties. As of now the timetable given to Kidd for a return is four to six weeks, but it will become clearer after he has the surgery done. Kidd has said while he doesn't expect to be able to return to the bench all that quickly, he hopes that he can be back in the office within two weeks.
The future Hall of Fame point guard is in his second season as the head coach of the Bucks and third season overall as a head coach. Kidd's teams have made the playoffs in each of his first two seasons at the end of the bench, but he will need this year's team to pick up its play big time while he is out if he is going to make it three straight trips to the postseason.
