Jason Kidd found a groove with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving a season after a chaotic ending to the first two months together for the Dallas superstars.

The Mavericks coach led his team to the second round of the playoffs for the second time in his three years in charge, and the 51-year-old now has a contract extension to go with it.

Kidd signed a multiyear deal Monday, the day before Dallas opens a second-round playoff series against Oklahoma City. The Mavs moved on by beating the Los Angeles Clippers in six games.

A year ago, Dallas missed the playoffs after reaching the 2022 Western Conference finals in Kidd’s debut as coach for the team he helped win a championship as a point guard in 2011.

The blockbuster trade for Irving in February 2023 wasn’t the catalyst the Mavs hoped for another postseason run. Instead, the team tanked at the end of the regular season to try to preserve a draft pick, even when there were still mathematical hopes of qualifying for the play-in tournament.

Kidd was the front man for all the tough questions in the final days of the regular season, and got a vote of confidence from then-owner Mark Cuban. Dallas kept the draft pick, and first-rounder Dereck Lively II had a significant impact as a rookie center.

“Last year, we learned a lot about character, about the team,” Kidd said. “At the time, everyone had their opinion. But understanding what the plan is internally, I thought we executed the plan. Being calm and not losing your mind or being offended of what others say turned out to be the right thing.”

Irving re-signed with Dallas, and after Cuban sold his majority stake to the casino-linked families of Patrick Dumont and Miriam Adelson, a late-season surge lifted the Mavs to fifth in the West at 52-30.

The extension for Kidd comes after his name surfaced in reports of the Lakers’ coaching search. Los Angeles fired Darvin Ham last week.

Terms of the deal weren’t released. Doncic and Irving are under team control together for one more season. Irving has a player option in his contract for 2025-26, Doncic the following season.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Victor Wembanyama had a year like no rookie in NBA history.

Others scored more points, others grabbed more rebounds, others had more blocks, others made more steals. But never had there been a player who, in Year 1 of his career, posted all these averages – at least 21.4 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 3.6 blocks and 1.2 steals per game.

Until now.

The long-expected result became reality on Monday, when the Spurs’ star from France was announced as the NBA’s rookie of the year. He’s the third San Antonio player to win the award, joining David Robinson in 1990 and Tim Duncan in 1998 — both of whom, like Wembanyama, were No. 1 overall picks and instantly anointed as centers who would lead the Spurs to greatness.

Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren and Charlotte’s Brandon Miller were the other finalists for the award.

76ERS: Say goodbye to the 76ers.

No, not Joel Embiid. Tyrese Maxey is sticking around, too. Nick Nurse seems like a perfect long-term fit as coach.

But for the rest of the Sixers? It’s time to pretty much wish them well, with just about the entire team – players such as Kelly Oubre Jr., Kyle Lowry and Nic Batum – ending the season with an expired contract.

Team President Daryl Morey this summer has about $65 million in salary cap space, a first-round draft pick, a max contract to offer to Maxey and plenty of questions to solve on how to finally, truly build an NBA championship contender around Embiid.

“We’re not going to have continuity,” Morey said at the 76ers’ headquarters in New Jersey. “We’ll have continuity with our stars and our head coach but we’re going to have a lot of changes this season.”

The Sixers first-round exit against the Knicks made it 41 years since their last NBA championship. The Sixers haven’t even advanced out of the second round since 2001. It’s time to start over – this time with a championship chase, not a “Process.”

“We’re focused on Joel and Tyrese and we’re focused on now,” Morey said.

HEAT: If Jimmy Butler wants to see more pay, Pat Riley will want to see more play.

And in simple terms, that is the entry point to this offseason for the Miami Heat.

Butler is almost certainly going to ask the Heat for a two-year extension this summer – it could guarantee him as much as $113 million for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons – and Riley said in his annual end-of-season remarks that he isn’t sure what the team will do when that moment arrives.

“We have not discussed that internally right now,” Riley said. “We have to look at making that kind of commitment and when do we do it. We don’t have to do it until 2025, actually. But we’ll see. We haven’t made a decision on it, and we haven’t really in earnest discussed it.”

There are a number of factors the Heat will consider – Butler’s playing time among them. He is, without question, an elite player whose time in Miami has been loaded with some signature performances, especially in the playoffs. But he turns 35 in September and has missed 100 regular-season games in his five Miami seasons, sitting out for injuries, rest or other reasons nearly 26% of the time.

He suffered a knee injury during the play-in tournament this season and missed Miami’s five-game Round 1 playoff loss to Boston.

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