Avery Johnson Makes Me Sick

(Disclaimer: Most of the time when I write a blog, I try to take the approach of a writing penning a column for a newspaper or website. Even when it's heavily biased I try to come across as grounded. Occasionally, however, a rant slips through. This is one of those rants.)

If I met Avery Johnson today I would punch him in the mouth. Just straight up, haul off and pop him one. As a diehard Mavs fan I've been furious with Avery for quite a while now for the absolute destruction of the franchise that took place over the last 2 years. But today's headline pushed me over the edge.

It should be noted that I used to be a huge Avery fan. I respect him as a person, I respect his character, and I appreciate the good work he does for the community. As a player I rooted for him, as I did for all short NBA ballers, despite the fact that he played for the hated Spurs. He was fiery and smart and he kept his teammates in line at all times in a powerful way. I was thrilled when the Mavs hired him as their coach in 2005. There are some guys that you see as players and you think to yourself, "that guy is going to be a great coach." Avery was one of those guys. That proved to be the case for about 2 years. Avery coached the team to the Finals in '06 then to a league-best 67 wins in '07 before the greatest collapse in NBA history.

But somewhere towards the end of the 2007 season things started to change. Avery started getting outcoached more and more often only to be saved by an incredible player performance. Then came the first round playoff upset during which Avery was SEVERELY outclassed by Don Nelson. The predictability of his game planning and absolute refusal to change strategy became a constant. And perhaps most importantly, you could see that his players were beginning to grow tired of him.

All of this carried over into last season which turned out to be one of the most catastrophic in team history (and we're talking about a franchise that once won 11 games in an entire season). Avery had absolutely no control over the players either on the court or off. He looked lost half of the time and just angry the other half. His substitution patterns were wretched, his misuse of timeouts was legendary, and his complete unwillingness to get his players in check was pitiful. His relentless badgering had stripped the entire team of their confidence and any semblance of "fun." Possibly most damaging was the way he continually and publicly emasculated point guard Devin Harris.

Harris was never shown any kind of trust while being coached by Avery. He was never allowed to run the offense for himself or get out and push the ball, despite the fact that this played to his strengths. He constantly (and I mean constantly) was required to look over to the bench to get a play from Coach Johnson and just about any time he didn't he was in for a tongue lashing at the next timeout. Truthfully, I don't think Avery ever liked Harris as a player because Harris was the exact opposite of what Avery was as a player. Harris is taller, faster, and more naturally gifted than Avery ever was. Harris' greatest fault was not being Avery when he was on the court.

And so Devin was sent packing last February in exchange for Jason Kidd. This has turned out to be one of the worst trades in team history, despite the fact that Kidd has played pretty well in his time here. When the trade took place, I was all for it for a lot of reasons. The number one reason being that Avery was NEVER going to trust Devin to run the show here in Dallas. Without the trust of the coach, Devin would have rotted here, never getting the opportunity to really display his skill set. I was sure that Avery would HAVE to trust Jason Kidd, one of the five greatest point guards in NBA history. In the end, Avery still couldn't relinquish control to Kidd and was eventually fired, the Mavs have become mediocre and old, and Harris is a potential MVP candidate in New Jersey.

Tonight the two teams met for the first time since the trade which of course brought a lot of attention, interviews with all parties involved, and questions. The Dallas Morning News caught up with Avery Johnson, currently whipping everyone's butt as an analyst on ESPN. The quote from the article that really caught my attention was when Avery says, "We kind of predicted it. If you go back and look at our comments we talked about him being an All-Star around this time. It's not really a big surprise."

Really? Really Avery? Because the last time Harris was in a Dallas uniform he was looking like a scared kid, knowing that the next time he didn't look at the bench before moving up the court he'd find his butt planted squarely on the bench next to the corpse of Juwan Howard. All anyone saw for the last year that both Avery and Harris were in Dallas was Avery constantly berating Harris and never adapting his worthless game plan to allow Harris to do something that fit his skills. It was like pulling teeth to get the Mavs to run for the last year of Avery's reign here and Harris' numbers in New Jersey make it pretty clear that this had a lot more to do with the coach than the player. As Dirk put it at the end of the article, "Maybe he needed to get away from Avery a little bit." Understatement of the year and a nice little backhanded jab at Avery. (Deep down inside, I think Dirk shares my desire to punch The Little General for wasting the prime of his career.) Harris has absolutely broken out in New Jersey where he is averaging 24 points per game and an insane 10.5 free throw attempts per game, something the Mavs are badly lacking.

In truth I think Devin's run as an elite player will be a short one. He's playing on a bad team which inflates his stats. He still is not a consistent outside shooter. And maybe most importantly of all, his body is just too frail to take the beating that he takes night in and out without breaking down. He's heading to one of those careers where the guy spends 25 to 35 games on the injured list each year. And his game is built around speed and athleticism which will fade with both age and injury. But the point is, the Mavs could be benefiting from those prime years prior to his body's breakdown in addition to the 2 first round draft picks they gave up to get Kidd. I love Kidd and I think he gets a bad rap for what's taken place over his short time here. But the youth, speed, athleticism, and just straight dynamism that Harris brings to the table are sorely missed right now.

And it's all because Avery Johnson couldn't get his head around the fact that there are good point guards in this league who don't play the way he did. To hear him take credit for that and claim that he knew it all along makes me sick. I hope his next coaching gig is Cambodia, which is far more than he deserves. And Perhaps Dirk would like to meet up with me sometime to take turns punching Avery repeatedly.