Avery Johnson No Longer a Candidate

Yeah

This almost makes me want to “No Longer Be Interested In Next Year”

by Option27 on May 17, 2008 12:53 PM CDT reply actions

I penciled him out

When he never bothered to reschedule his interview. Good move by him, IMO. Re-charge your squeaky voice, spend Mark Cuban’s money, and get another crack in 2009.

Rusty Longley v 2.0

by Ozzie Montana on May 17, 2008 1:00 PM CDT reply actions

His egomania doomed him in Dallas. Whenever you can’t communicate with your best players (ala Scott Skiles) you are doomed to fail eventually. The Bulls need a guy who can come in and teach the young players the game, not some motivator who is going to constantly preach defense and than run nothing but isolation plays on the offensive end.

Besides, if he doesn’t want to coach here, why pursue? Boy, it would be great to find a coach who wants to these players, is player-friendly, and would instill a system on the offensive end…

by DangerMouse on May 17, 2008 1:50 PM CDT reply actions

I should also add

that he was cursed with play the veterans syndrom as well. He kept a highly productive player like Bass on the bench in favor of Dampier. He somehow managed 30 minutes a game for Jerry Stackhouse’s souless corpse to run up and down the court. And I find it hard to believe that the Mavericks traded Harris for Kidd without any input from Avery

by DangerMouse on May 17, 2008 1:52 PM CDT up reply actions

Bass isn't any more productive than Dampier, but

your point is right. All Avery wanted to do was to sign guys that were playing in the NBA before Avery retired. Eddie Jones, Juwan Howard, Adrian Griffin, Doug Christie, etc. This is the guy that started Adrian Griffin. And if he had any desire on his own part to make the Kidd trade then especially I don’t want anything to do with him. One of my criteria for a hiring a coach would be whether he understands why the Kidd trade was a stupid idea.

formerly sbulls

by Scotter on May 18, 2008 11:26 AM CDT up reply actions

I saw this

on TV last night. Probably for the best.

by sue369 on May 17, 2008 6:42 PM CDT reply actions

You guys are underrating Avery

He took the softest team I have ever seen to the finals and won 67 games in a single season with Dirk as his best player. He coached those guys up and would have been great motivating voice on our sideline. So are the Bulls now settling on another rookie coach like Thibideau or Shaw?

by Dionysus2.0 on May 18, 2008 9:15 AM CDT reply actions

Dallas is soft?

Why is this so, because their best player is from Germany? I don’t know what determines softness or hardness, people used to call the Spurs soft and weak before the Horry foul last year, now all of a sudden they are dirty and cheap. Dallas had 4 50+ win seasons under Don Nelson, made it to the conference finals once. They were talented as hell, and all Avery Johnson did was slow the pace down of their games, and maximize the usage of Dirk as a 1-on-1 player. They improved on defense because Steve Nash was replaced by Jason Terry and Devin Harris, and Erick Dampier and Dasagna Diop combine to make a somewhat decent center, and Josh Howard is a very good defensive SF.

How will Avery even be successful in Chicago? Who on the Bulls can take advantages of isolation plays? Ben Gordon? The Bulls need to pick the pace up, not slow it down to a crawl.

Rusty Longley v 2.0

by Ozzie Montana on May 18, 2008 12:49 PM CDT up reply actions

Yeah

And if you’ve watched those Mavs-Spurs series from the yrs past, and even this last series Dirk vs the entire Hornet’s team, you’ll see why Dirk’s a former MVP and that he’s anything but soft.
He’s been criticized for a bad series against the uber-quick Warriors (who played Nellie ball to begin with from a coach who helped bring Dirk up to be the player he is today-the NBA coach who most worked wtih Dirk-not his Germany trainer—-and knows his tendencies etc…

He’s also criticized for having solid, but not ooh-wow games against the NBA Champion Heat when Wade took over that series and Dirk was stopped inside by SHAQ, a still mobile and healthy Shaq too…..

I think his multiple 50pt playoff performances, and I remember seeing a phenomenal game or two against Tim Duncan and the Spurs in pretty recent playoff memory (3yrs ago)....

I think the Mavs personnel moves might cost them the championship in the future, but it was Avery’s inability to break down the Wade game and calm his much better team down, and it was Avery’s catering to Nellie-ball rather than play his NBA best 67 win game and have Nellie cater to him that helped cause the Mavs downfall more than a few decent but not great games from a future hall of famer.

by majoyenrac on May 19, 2008 12:34 PM CDT up reply actions

Some more info on the Bulls flaws

during their coaching search (don’t know if true or not, but people around the league do seem to make fun of Pax/Reinsdorf combo) :

http://www.boston.com/sports/articles/2008/05/18/baggage_carries_little_weight/?page=2

Delay of game
A high-ranking NBA source said that the Bulls first wanted to hire ex-Celtic Rick Carlisle for their coaching opening before he opted to go to the Mavericks. Next, the Bulls really wanted to hire Mike D’Antoni before he opted to go to New York. So why can’t the Bulls seal the deal? The source said that Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf and executive vice president John Paxson lost out on Carlisle and D’Antoni because they’re taking too much time on extensive background checks. Stay tuned if the Suns steal a coach out of the slow Bulls’ grasps, too.

The Game chose him !

by Diabolo on May 19, 2008 8:02 AM CDT reply actions

nah, you got it all wrong!

it’s due diligence!

by your friendly BullsBlogger on May 19, 2008 9:15 AM CDT up reply actions

and Rick Carlisle's goofy timetable and D'Antoni's goofiness

Depends on the anonymous source.

by hscs on May 19, 2008 9:23 AM CDT up reply actions

what about the Bulls goofiness?

maybe if the 3rd ‘lead candidate’ chooses otherwise the problem will be clearer. I’m still thinking coachless (or Myers, same deal) until proven otherwise.

by your friendly BullsBlogger on May 19, 2008 9:59 AM CDT up reply actions

I think it's safe to assume

D’Antoni was the only leading candidate. Carlisle was the only guy available for an interview for about a week. Mark Jackson was too busy memorizing the Knicks roster, and Larry Brown was never an option.

by hscs on May 19, 2008 10:06 AM CDT up reply actions

Shows how great their background checking is going.

“We did all these checks for a whole week, yet we had no idea he was so flaky!”

by tyger1147 on May 19, 2008 11:20 AM CDT up reply actions

You'd think they could have had the background checks done in time.

I mean, it’s not like Carlisle was all-of-a-sudden available. Although, from Paxson’s no timetable/no specific candidates comments, he probably didn’t consider Carlisle until the end of the season. And it’s not like the D’Antoni rumors weren’t floating around from at least the end of the regular season. I don’t doubt, though, that the earliest the Bulls started their background checks wasn’t until they interviewed D’Antoni and thought, “Hmm… he might work. Let’s check him out more.”

by tyger1147 on May 19, 2008 11:18 AM CDT up reply actions

C'mon

I mean, if they’d checked into these guys earlier it really would have undercut Jim Boylan’s authority!

by Sports2 on May 19, 2008 7:20 PM CDT up reply actions

BIG SIGH OF RELIEF

If our players couldn’t handle Scott Skiles (who micro-managed to a degree, but was also rather jovial and fare and who seemed to communicate ok with the guys for a time) imagine what we’d do with Avery (a guy who was handed a 55+ win team and did little less than expected with the immense talent he had, a guy who nearly invented micro-managing in games, a guy who didn’t seem to be able to calm his guys down in clutch moments—instead seemed to get them more upset at each other (see Nowitzki’s blow up at his guys in his first post season stint with Avery and Nowitzki’s comment on lack of any communication with Avery)....and Dirk’s always been known as a good worker and good teammate…which is shown by how much he’s improved over the years…
I don’t think Avery was the “right hire” anyway.

by majoyenrac on May 19, 2008 12:28 PM CDT reply actions

avery sucks

by Orlando Woolridge on May 20, 2008 12:09 AM CDT reply actions

No likey Avery

This is fine news. Even if he’s underrated, he’s definitely not the right man for this team right now. But who is?

John Paxson has been like family to me. I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother, who also was unable to pull off any deals for superstar free agents or hire a top-notch coach.

by preverbal on May 20, 2008 11:26 AM CDT reply actions