Spilling a drink on the floor, $50,000. Having a video that collected more than half-a-million hits on YouTube, priceless.
The NBA on Thanksgiving Day fined Brooklyn Nets coach Jason Kidd $50,000 for staging a spilled drink on Wednesday night vs. the Los Angeles Lakers.
Kidd had used all his timeouts as the Nets rallied from a 27-point first-half deficit to pull within 95-94. The Lakers' Jodie Meeks was at the free throw line and hit the first free throw when Kidd called Tyshawn Taylor over the Nets bench to "bump" into Kidd while he was holding his drink.
The officials stopped play and the arena floor crew came to the Nets bench to clean up the spill. As that was happening, a Brooklyn assistant drew up a play. The scene was caught on video. As of early Thursday after midnight, the YouTube count was about 30,000. One night later, the number of hits approached 675,000.
Kidd said after the game that the spill was not intentional, but the video evidence was overwhelming against him, and the NBA obviously believed the evidence.
The former standout NBA point guard has not enjoyed a smooth start to his coaching career. He retired after 19 seasons as a player in June and then accepted the Nets job one week later.
In July, he was charged with a DUI after running his SUV into a telephone poll. The NBA in October suspended him for the first two games of the 2013 season as a result.
He is coaching a team that many NBA analysts believed could contend for a title with Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry coming over from the Boston Celtics to join Deron Williams, Brook Lopez and Joe Johnson.
But the Nets have started the season 4-11, and Kidd already could be on the hot seat.
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