Since last season, Nets' former coach Byron Scott is just one of 14 Eastern Conference coaching casualties to fall prey to those NBA serial murderers known as "coach killers." Whether it's impatient general managers, egotistical new director of operations, burnout or petulant superstars, coaches are becoming a vanishing breed in the weaker Eastern Conference, where only five teams took records of .500 or better into the All-Star break.

Jason Kidd has gained a reputation as a "coach killer". He was blamed when his college coach, Lou Campanelli, was fired midway through his Freshman season at Cal. He was also held responsible for the dividing of the "Three J's" (Kidd, Jamal Mashburn and Jim Jackson) in Dallas in the mid 90's. Now the dismissal of Scott has landed on Kidds' shoulders as well.

"The only thing we run in the league is up and down the floor," Kidd said during All-Star media day on Friday. "If you get traded, do they feel guilty?

"From you guys [media], in my case I've always been a coach killer. Instead, I've been a coach maker, because if you look at the stats, of all the coaches I played for, they got fired after I left. ... except the one that just took place."