Avery Johnson should have been fired. I blame him and the refs for the losing the finals to Miami. The next year, he made the mistake of making an adjustment to Golden State in the first game. Once Golden State smelled blood, it was over. This year, he ran into the hottest team in basketball and he choked facing Chris Paul. They need a change and he has to go.

Mike D’Antoni need to go for his sake. The owners traded away, or let go, important players and sold their draft picks. Losing in the first round has to be on the cheap owners. The desperation Shaq trade would not have had to happen, if the owners were not so cheap. He deserves to be in a better place.

Coaching changes are a part of the NBA. We all have to accept that a few of our beloved players will be traded and in two years, our dear coach will be fired, for a coach to get the team over the hump. My guess is that Larry Brown will be just about done in Charlotte and KP will completely purge the old regime and hire his own coach.

We can’t forget Flip Saunders, dollars to malasadas, he’ll be fired if Detroit does not win it all this year.

I realized that for a guy who jokes a lot, I’m pretty much a glass half empty kind of guy.

Why bother going through the pressure of being a head coach for one of those other teams. They should want to get in on the ground floor of our millennium-long basketball dominance. It can only help their future coaching resume.

totally agree with your thoughts Dave. This is just patently ridiculous, unless these teams have got other head coaches lined up, then what the heck are they doing? Which coach is willing to put their career on the line and step into these situations, both coaches put together 50+ win teams and then all of a sudden they get the ax? Not cool. Does that mean if the team doesn’t win an NBA championship in their first year they will get the ax as well? Horrible decision and only the most desperate of coaches are going to step into a situation like this, where the front office will fire you unless you win an NBA championship. D’Antoni brought the fast break back to basketball, casual fans fell in love with the high flying suns, and then the front office decides shaq is the answer, and forces the caoch to fit him into the offensive and defensive schemes with 40 games left? Horrible decision, and when they hire a head coach next year with no NBA experience (because everyone who has coached in the NBA is smart enough to steer clear of these teams) they are going to flush their next several seasons down the toilet, along with the tail end of Nash, Nowitski, Shaq, and Kidd’s careers. The tombstone for these teams will read: We had a shot at being great, but out front office shot us in the foot first.

As the post-mortems on the Suns setting have been rolling in from the national media,
there’s one very common thread: Since the Shaq trade, and especially in this Spoors series,
the Suns no longer played Suns basketball, they played team-with-Shaq basketball.

The details on D’Antoni’s impending departure all say as much, that he’s been frustrated
with how he’s been told to coach this team this year, especially with Shaq on it.
In fact, the SI McCallum story just details the impending rift, but never says if the impending split
will be a firing or a quitting; D’Antoni might fire the Suns for going against his style, NOT them firing HIM.

And then there’s Dallas; I noticed in TrueHoop today that, in his farewell speech,
Avery referred to Devin Harris as “his son”. It’s also been no secret that, all along,
Kidd’s playing style and Averys coaching style clash; that was anticipated before the trade even happened,
and ever since the trade, there’s been a lot of confirmation of that suspicion.
And even when Avery coaches Kidd in a how-Kidd-likes-to-be-coached manner,
that’s still NOT HOW Avery coaches.

Point being: When a team has an identity, and their coach is part (maybe even the source) of that identity,
trading for a big piece that contradicts that identity WILL CAUSE COACH TROUBLE.
Even if playing with that identity fails to contend for (let alone win) championships,
that team HAS THAT IDENTITY. Trying to make them something else on the fly (especially at the trade deadline!)
never really works (trades need to COMPLIMENT the existing team, not fundamentally CHANGE it);
more to the point, when you have a team that plays a certain way because it’s coached a certain way,
and management introduces a key component that represents not-that-way,
yer gonna alienate yer friggin coach! And >BOOM!< goes your identity, too.

You gotta dance with them who brung ya, play YOUR game, and just be yourself.
The reason the ride is now finally over for Dallas and Phoenix isn’t that they didn’t win;
it’s over, now, because they responded to not-winning by betraying themselves and renouncing their identity.

And the coach being gone is the first sure sign that THAT is what has happened:
The Suns and Mavs can’t stand to be the Suns and the Mavs anymore.
So they’ve opted to be NOBODY.

how quickly these marriages can deteriorate. I would love to see KP as GM and Nate as coach around here for a VERY long time. It would be awesome to have a Jerry Sloan-like tenure at the coaching position. It’s sad to think that it’s much more realistic that the team and coach will sour on each other at some point in the next few years and someone will have to go …

The two coaches that had to make HUGE midseason adjustments are the two that get fired. Stupid. I hope KP can look at Utah and realize that when you get a very good coach, you keep them, through thick and thin. Once a good coach, always a good coach.

Now if the mavs and suns fell right out of the playoff race, I might understand the decisions better. But the fact is that the suns ran into the defending champs and Dallas ran into yet another matchup nightmare. Cuban should fire himself for trading his two best defenders(Harris, Diop) away for an aging point guard that doesnt fit his coaches system.

Perhaps the suns front office should remember what D’Antoni did for them. He brought a team that missed the playoffs in 03-04, under a different coach, to the western conference finals in 04-05, they lost to the spurs(who marched to a championship). The next year he went back to the western conference finals and lost to the mavs(who were about 50 horrendous calls short of a ring). The next season they were unfortunate enough to run into the spurs in the second round. After Horry-gate, they lost the series and the spurs marched to a championship. This year they lost to the spurs again, and once again, the spurs look poised for another championship run. You can blame D’Antoni for not beating the spurs, or you can tip your hat to a dynasty caliber team. Kerr says blame D’Antoni and I say blame the spurs for being too freaking good…

If you start winning, but don’t keep winning, look out.

Don’t worry about AJ or d’Antoni. Both, if they want, will be coaching in the league NEXT year, as there are several good jobs available. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mitchell canned at Toronto sooner or later, as d’Antoni would be a perfect fit there and Coalengelo and he are tight. AJ would be a good coach for the Knicks, in the same vein that Nate M. is for the Blazers. It’s obvious that both teams (the Suns and the Mavs) dropped the ball on numerous occasions at an ownership/management level.

The Kidd trade was a huge mistake. AJ and his management haven’t been on the same page for a while. And Mark Cuban is starting to look and sound bored—a malady which is dangerous in an owner who owns the team for fun rather than profit; for other examples see the Maloofs, or PA a couple years ago.

The Shaq trade wasn’t much better. (Shaq played well, and the Matrix wanted out of Phoenix, so I’m not writing off this one as a disaster). If Robert $arver was willing to spend money, just think of how good the Suns could have been.

Both coaches have flaws; but other than perhaps Pops, which coach in the league doesn’t? They’re excellent pro coaches, and they’ll have no trouble finding work.

It should rest at the feet of Tony Parker and Chis Paul. They can make any opposing coach look folish. For Johnson, last year it was Baron Davis, the year before that D. Wade. For D’Antoni, a double dose of Tony Parker. The players that I just mentioned are the reasons that make this off season so vitally inportant to the development of our team. Speed kills, so lets go get some…........

D’antoni doesn’t have the support of GM Kerr and Owner Sarver. There are clashing egos and philosophies within the Suns coaching and management. Long term, the management and coaching staff must have a similar vision or else it’ll inevitably end up in a firing of one or the other. It wouldn’t even matter if they are both regarded as one of the best at their jobs.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/jack_mccallum/04/29/playoffs0505/index.html

The Avery Johnson firing sounds like Mark Cuban grew weary of pathetic playoff performances and Avery’s inability to maximize the half-court offense with Kidd’s arrival. Avery dug his own grave with his team’s choke jobs in the playoffs, where coaches not just players are being judged.

Avery Johnson compiled a 23-24 PLAYOFF record as Mavericks’ head coach, AND his team has lost their last 12 of 15 games in the playoffs.

That’s what’s going on.

Another fun fact in regards to Avery… he has a huge ego that has prevented him from adapting to his players, and instead tried to get his players to adapt him. How do you not change your style of play with Jason Kidd on your team to make it a more fastbreak oriented offense? Instead, he had Kidd dribble up the ball, and set-up isolation plays for the other players – completely nullifying his impact.

On Monday, following Dallas being down 3-1 to the Hornets, Avery Johnson cancelled practice. Guess what the players did? They held a players only practice. That is the death of a coach. Time to move on.

Is there another kind?

Any doctoral-level theoretical mathematician worth his spectacles could tell you that’s nearly three out of every four games this guy won.

This debacle reminded me of the Dunleavy firing after the Blazers surprised everyone by almost beating LA in 2000. I was mad at the time, and Cheeks certainly didn’t do as well as Dunleavy (except for the great PR moment w/ the national anthem). But think about it this way: what if we kept Dunleavy, kept overpaying for veterans who couldn’t put us over the top, and never got any good draft picks? We’d be like the LA Clippers the last couple of years: solid but not top-tier coach, good players who can’t get past the conference semis against Kobe or Duncan, and a couple of injuries away from totally falling apart.
In our case, management made the decision that Dunleavy and our Trader Bob strategy wasn’t going to work, so we had to eat some of the bad contracts and try to rebuild. The problem was we thought that we could rebuild around Darius Miles and Sebastian Telfair. Whoops. Fortunately KP came in and set that straight.
We’ll see if Steve Kerr and Cuban/Nelson go the same route. I do believe that neither of these teams have what it takes right now to contend for a title, trade or no trade. Both trades were high-risk gambles that didn’t pay off and generated a lot of buzz. In the Suns’ case, they’re pretty much stuck giving it another shot with this roster next year, which is why the D’Antoni firing doesn’t make sense to me. No matter the coach, Steve Nash will not play defense. They need an absurdly efficient offense to compete.
The Mavs, on the other hand, have Kidd’s expiring contract and the chance to really retool around Nowitzki. We’ll see if they’re smart about managing it, but it seems like they have the opportunity to shape their next direction and find a coach who fits that.
Both of these teams have real gems in Amare and Dirk to build around. We’ll see if they can figure out how to make it work.

I like it.

Phoenix and Dallas can both pin a lot of blame on their owners, their front offices, and their not-quite-good-enough group of players. D’Antoni is annoying with all his whining, but he’s a decent coach. Somewhat the same for Avery.

Nash, Amare, and Nowitski play little to no defense. And they ARE YOUR ‘SUPERSTARS’. Remember Zach Randolph? Remember how much better we are without Zach Randolph? You don’t win titles by scoring and forgetting about defense. Doesn’t happen. Adding two over-the-hill former superstars obviously wasn’t the answer for either team either.

On the bright side, I’m thrilled because I’m a Blazer fan. Two less teams to have to worry about.

for Avery needing to go. I dont think that the Kidd trade is the issue here. Kidd is known to be a “coach on the floor” type player. He is beloved by all of the greatest players in the game and there is good reason for that. Unfortunately the systems that he has been successful in have featured pushing the ball and letting him be creative. Avery is called the little general for a reason. He runs a tight ship…....his way. Now he didnt choose the Kidd trade, but he seemed unwilling or clueless to how to use Jason in the Mavs offensive/defensive scheme.
Now, the trade happened and there needs to be adjustments that Avery doesnt seem willing to make. Now Jerry Sloan would probably make those cahnges….....and he has an ownership group that understands him and his style.
Mark Cuban has wanted to put his stamp on this team since he bought it. He is now a household name and spent some of his multi-millions on over the hill household names to play cheerleaders on the end of the bench. (Juwan Howard, Devean George, Malik Allen, Jamaal Magloire, Jerry Stackhouse, Tyronn Lue, Eddie Jones) Meanwhile Brandon Bass is barely making a million bucks and arguably was the most consistant player through their playoff loss to the Hornets.

Mark is leasing this damn team. where will this team be in three years…........in wheelchairs. Unless he can pull off some magic.
If I were him I would try and snag D’antoni and give the Nowitzki, Kidd tandem some run before blowing the whole thing up and starting over.

Jerry Sloan would NOT make those changes.

I don’t understand why PHX didn’t keep Kurt Thomas and went centerless for most of the year only to get Shaq as a desperate attempt to beat SA and keep up with LA after the Gasol trade. Well I guess that wouldn’t have changed much since the Marion situation might not have panned out had they kept him.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080501

Spoiler….It is a piece by Bill Simmons.