Mavericks Fire Avery Johnson

The writing was really on the wall for the Lil' General huh? What a story. Groomed as Don Nelson's successor. A Finals appearance and a Coach of the Year award in his first full season as coach. You could've written off blowing a 2-0 Finals lead to the Heat. They had a highly-motivated Shaq, an en fuego Dwayne Wade and a nice supporting cast of veterans. True to that, the Mavericks won 67 games the next season. That's the 5th most in NBA history. And then the Creator became the Destroyer. Don Nelson's 8th seeded Warriors ran over the highly favored #1 seeded Mavericks. The teacher had whipped the pupil. Mark Cuban, to his credit, maintained his cool for a hot minute. There were no immediate changes, trades or signings. In the Mavericks defense the Celtics summer moves prompted quite a few veterans to sign with the Celtics. Had the Celtics still been bottom feeders the Mavs may have been able to get a James Posey, PJ Brown or Sam Cassell.

The Mavs started out slow and it was curtains. The Mavs had lost the edge that Johnson had given them when he first came on as coach. You could also tell that owner Mark Cuban and Johnson were no longer seeing eye to eye on things. Then the Lakers acquisition of Pau Gasol for a jar of farts and some other throw ins happened. Mark Cuban finally flipped his lid. It was win now time, the future be damned.

Mark Cuban had stated for several seasons that he would under no circumstances trade young PG Devin Harris. The Mavericks needed an honest to god post presence both on offense an as a shot blocker on defense. Not to mention the combination of Devin Harris and Jason Terry at the point was at least adequate if not above average. But Cuban wanted a Hall of Fame type player. Ironically, he needed such a player to restore the attitude it the locker room that he had found and lost under Johnson. So he traded for Jason Kidd.

Not only did he trade for Jason Kidd he did it at an enormous expense. Kidd cost him Devin Harris (the Mavs best young player and the only player they had that could match up with the Steve Nash and Tony Parkers of the world) Desagana Diop (their best post defender) a couple of throw ins, $3 million in cash and 2 first round draft picks. Not to mention having to sign and trade Keith Van Horn to make the cap numbers work. This skyrocketed the Mavericks luxury tax bill and sent their payroll over the $100 million dollar threshold. That's Isiah Thomas territory kids.

The scent of desperation was in the air and the sharks were circling. The Mavs stumbled out of the gate with Kidd and their effectiveness against their Western Conference rivals was worse than it was before the acquisition of of Kidd. Then Avery Johnson parked Jason Kidd on the bench with the game on the line. That was it. You had Cuban and Kidd on one side and Johnson on the other. Now it wasn't just win-now. It was win-now-or-else.

Most of us figured the ultimate outcome would be or-else. It just happened sooner than later. The Hornets had quietly been an elite team all year and Dallas just happened to be in town for the coming out party. Without Devin Harris they didn't have anybody remotely capable of holding Chris Paul in check and CP3 ran wild. Game, set and match. It wasn't even close.

So the Mavericks and Avery Johnson decided to part ways today. No real surprise there. Cuban couldn't handle Johnson's lack of recent playoff success and Johnson couldn't handle being micro-managed and ignored by Cuban. It was obvious that the Mavericks needed a change and this is the cheapest and fastest one possible. Not to say that there aren't more moves on the horizon. There most certainly are. But Cuban will be limited in what he can actually acquire without parting with Josh Howard or Dirk. But after Josh Howard's comments about his off-season activities, maybe such a move could be coming. We'll hit on that more in an upcoming post.

All in all this is a good move for the team and for Avery Johnson. Probably both in the long-term and the short-term.