Mavericks fire Avery Johnson :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Basketball he takes the fall for the Jason Kidd trade? or for his team failing to get out of the first round the last two years.. Who's next D'Antoni or Karl or Flip
Point of clarification for BillLaimbeer: When a coach and an owner come into conflict, whose infallibility prevails?
The owner of the Suns is now saying the D'Antoni is safe...but with him butting heads with Steve Kerr, he might resign himself to take another opening.
2 first round KO's preceded by a finals embarrassment. Some might label Avery the wicked Twitch of the west. Or what about D'Antoni? Isn't his resume a tad Flippish?
Avery is knocked out the door cause he fights with Cuban. I feel for him since they added a SLUG to his roster mid season. D"Antoni loses in the first round, Flip cruises to the Conference finals each season. D'Antoni deserves a whole season to clean up the mess that was the trade for "the Big Cactus". Flip is a good company man so he'll be back next season.
Listening to the ESPN guys last night made me realize how annoying it would be to coach the Mavs with Mark Cuban right behind you. For all our criticism of Flip, I think that we can all agree that the way that Joe and Bill Davidson stay off his back during games and in public is probably the best way to handle things. If they have an adjustment that they want him to make, it seems like they meet with him behind the scenes and allow Flip to take credit for the changes. It's just classier. And I think that it creates a much better chain of authority.
So rumour has it the next Mavs coach is Rick Carlisle. If they wanted someone who could relate better to the players, etc . . . I'm not really seeing the sense. He's like Avery 2, and typically a half court coach which doesn't make any sense with their current roster.
He's a disciplinarian that consistently gets the most out of the players he is dealt. He opened things up alot more with the Pacers than he did the Pistons, due to the fact that he felt they were better built for an uptempo game. Plus his defensive and offensive principles are structured and extremely easy to grasp, which seems to suit a team that lost its direction at times like the Mavs fairly well.
