Long before midnight struck on July 1 to start San Antonio's breathless courting of his star, New Jersey president Rod Thorn had a deep and detailed understanding of Jason Kidd's displeasure with Byron Scott. Behind the scenes, this drama had played itself out back to the Nets' February and March swoon, back to the nights Kidd privately described turning to his coach for counsel in crucial moments just to be met with blank stares.

More and more, Kidd aligned himself with assistant Eddie Jordan, treating him like the de facto coach. After all, Jordan designed the offense and defense, conducted the practices and mapped out the strategy. All the final decisions had to pass through Scott, who was forever the victim of a double-standard.

When the Nets won, it was Jordan's genius. When they lost, it was Scott's bumbling. It wasn't fair, but everyone bought into it, including the star player. Sometimes, Kidd dispatched his frustrations with thinly-veiled public criticisms, once suggesting the Nets craved "structure," a clear call to his coach to capture control of a spiraling season. As frustration with Scott elevated, Kidds' teammates stayed in step with him. With these Nets, the point guard sets the agenda for everything. If Kidd was down on the coach, everyone was down on the coach.

	Scott, left, and Kidd must work out their differences.

For most of this past season -- remember, the greatest in Nets history, considering they made it to the sixth game of the NBA Finals -- the bottom line was unmistakable: Kidd wanted Jordan to be elevated to head coach, insisting far back in the year to people inside and outside the locker room that unless a change happened, eventually, "It's going to be (Byron) or me."

Everyone was left to wonder whether these were just idle musings or foreboding threats. Whether Kidd eventually delivered management an ultimatum on Scott this week -- a story that he and Thorn denied -- is significant, but it doesn't change the fact that Nets superiors have understood where Kidd has stands on Scott for the longest time.

As numerous sources insist and one said succinctly, Scott is a coach that "Jason just doesn't respect."

Nevertheless, the way this dirty, little Nets secret has exploded in Metropolitan New York, there was no way the Nets could act on Scott, even to keep Kidd from signing with the San Antonio Spurs. It would've been too bloody for everyone, too cold a cut for a good man like Thorn.

Considering what Kidd and his wife, Joumana, were telling people, the organization was right to believe it had marvelous odds of re-signing him. Through it all, Kidd wanted to leverage everything he could out of the Nets, whether it was personnel decisions -- pursuing Alonzo Mourning -- to post-career management opportunities with the Nets, to yes, the future of Scott as his coach.

Predictably, there were stories leaked that Kidd was leaning toward the Spurs, but few believed it was anything more than a smokescreen to inspire the illusion that he would leave unless demands were met. Now, his hand is played out. For everything that made him want to re-sign with the Nets, stay in the Metropolitan New York market, I never believed Kidd would leave for the Spurs because he no longer wanted to play for Scott. Would he suggest it? Use the fear as a bargaining chip? He had done it all year. Why not now?

If nothing else now, the Nets have to get Kidd and Scott together and, once and for all, get these issues resolved. Can they co-exist? Can this work? Why has it taken so long for this sort of summit? Even though Kidd has already made his final decision -- to stay in Jersey -- Thorn has a chance to broker a peace with the coach and star.

All along, there was one man with Scott's back in the organization, Thorn, the man responsible for hiring Scott after just two seasons as a Sacramento assistant. Across the sluggish second half, Thorn listened to Kidd and his teammates complain about the coach, but he never made a move on him. As the Nets lost a grip on the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, Thorn made several lukewarm endorsements for his coach, saying Scott was doing, "fine," but clearly understanding that in the year of Kidd's free agency, the Nets couldn't afford to let the season slip away.

Jordan wanted to be a head coach in the worst way, and if he couldn't do it with the Nets, he was determined it happened somewhere else. Inside the YankeeNets empire, where CEO Lou Lamoriello has a history of crumpling up winning coaches and tossing them into the waste basket, it wouldn't have been completely out of character to do so with Scott.

Still, he and the Nets made it to the playoffs with 49 victories, and suddenly, everything changed. They were unstoppable. They played brilliant basketball, including a 10-game winning streak that thundered the Nets into the NBA Finals. Winning smoothed everything over, offering a moratorium on the soap opera that once seemed destined to tear this team apart.

	Scott is still a young coach, still growing, and a compromise that finds Scott agreeable to leaning less on his staff and investing more of his own ideas and innovations into the Nets could be the beginning of a reconciliation.

And it all came crashing down after a blowout loss to the Spurs in Game 1 of the Finals, when Scott was slow to double-team Tim Duncan and stubborn on using 7-foot-2 Dikembe Mutombo. It wouldn't be just Kidd second-guessing him in news conferences, but Kenyon Martin, too. The Nets won Game 2, a victory that one published report said included Jordan calling out plays behind Scott's back on the bench, an act that reportedly led to a falling out between Scott and his assistant.

The Nets would take the series back to San Antonio, back to a Game 6. But when the Nets lost a large fourth-quarter lead, Kidd blamed his coach. Even when Martin missed an unfathomable 20 of 23 shots, Kidd was livid that Scott had left a hot Kerry Kittles off the floor for much of the Spurs run -- livid that Scott had run out of timeouts and livid that the blank stare was back on the bench.

After the game, sources described a scene in the Nets' hotel where Kidd turned to principal owner Lewis Katz and blurted, "Get rid of him" about his coach. He was even heard to say that his 4-year-old son T.J. could've done a better job coaching the final minutes. Understandably, the loss was still raw for Kidd, his emotions frayed. Still, the sentiment was real. As the scene was described, Katz listened to Kidd, looked over to Thorn and told him that such a move had his blessing.

Still, Thorn wouldn't do it. Jordan left for the Wizards, bringing another assistant, Mike O'Koren, with him. If the Nets president was going to make a move on Scott, it was too late. And it almost assuredly won't happen now.

Remember, Kidd has a history of dissatisfaction with coaches -- from Dallas to Phoenix and way back to his college coup on Lou Campanelli at Cal. Scott is still a young coach, still growing, and a compromise that finds Scott agreeable to leaning less on his staff and investing more of his own ideas and innovations into the Nets could be the beginning of a reconciliation.

There will be no coup, no bloody hands. It is too late, too unseemly and too consistent with the dysfunction and chaos that so long defined the old Nets. Everything has tumbled out of the darkness and into the light now, and with Kidd wanting to stay, everyone has to find a way to make this work. Only the future of the franchise is at stake now, only everything for the New Jersey Nets.

Adrian Wojnarowski, who's a columnist for The Record of Bergen County, N.J., is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPNWoj@aol.com.