Another one bites the dust after issues with star player
In November, Brooklyn Nets coach Avery Johnson was named Eastern Conference “Coach of the Month.” On Thursday, Johnson was handed his walking papers.
He was fired after a 14-14 start. The Nets lost 10 of the last 13 games before Johnson’s dismissal.
The coaching change comes just two seasons after getting the Nets job and just two months after the team moved to it’s new digs in Brooklyn.
This is life in the NBA, where players rule and coaches drool. Players, you see, tend to determine the fate of their coaches.
Nets all-star guard Deron Williams denies having anything to do with the firing. It all smells of the same fishiness that happened in “Laker–land” the first week of the season when Mike Brown was fired after a 1-4 start. Lakers star Kobe Bryant was rumored to have a role in Brown’s dismissal, but he said the firing was none of his doing even though the world caught his “death stare” directed at Brown just days before.
In the end, we know it’s the general managers (with the blessing of the owners) who officially fire the coaches. They are the guys who deliver the bad news. But does anyone think for a second they don’t consult their franchise player first? Of course they do.
“We’re in the business of accountability,” Nets GM Billy King told Stevan A. Smith of ESPNNewYork.com
In November Brooklyn Nets coach Avery Johnson was named Eastern Conference “Coach of the Month.” On Thursday, Johnson was handed his walking papers.
He was fired after a 14-14 start. The Nets lost 10 of the last 13 games before Johnson’s dismissal.
The coaching change comes just two seasons after getting the Nets job and just two months after the team moved to it’s new digs in Brooklyn.
This is life in the NBA, where players rule and coaches drool. Players, you see, tend to determine the fate of their coaches.
Nets all-star guard Deron Williams denies having anything to do with the firing. It all smells of the same fishiness that happened in “Laker-land” the first week of the season when Mike Brown was fired after a 1-4 start. Lakers star Kobe Bryant was rumored to have a role in Brown’s dismissal, but he said the firing was none of his doing even though the world caught his “death stare” directed at Brown just days before.
In the end we know it’s the general managers (with the blessing of the owners) who officially fire the coaches. They are the guys who deliver the bad news. But does anyone think for a second they don’t consult their franchise player first? Of course they do.
“We’re in the business of accountability,” Nets GM Billy King told Stevan A. Smith of ESPNNewYork.com.
Players have to play, but when they’re not playing well, others will be held accountable too. That’s just the way it is unfortunately.
Johnson’s biggest blunder may have come in March of 2011. The Nets had just acquired Deron Williams in a trade. According to reports, the coach was not pleased with Williams’ obvious apathy toward the Nets offense. The coach then asked the player a question that is equal to the kiss of death in coaching circles.
“How would you do things differently?” Johnson asked his star.
Deron Williams quickly grabbed the white board and marker and began diagramming plays- showing the coach up in front of the entire team.
A bad start between Williams and Johnson has evolved into a sad ending for the coach.
Celtics coach Doc Rivers is a close friend and former teammate of Johnson’s.
“I thought it was awful quick to make the change,” Rivers told Gary Washburn of Boston.com. When asked if he was nervous about his own job security after the Celtic’s 14-13 start, the ever-affable Rivers half- joked.
“Yeah, I am [nervous], he said. “I may have to go golf the rest of the year.”
The difference is Doc Rivers’ players love him. Kevin Garnett made it quite clear Doc was the reason he came back to Boston for another year. As long as KG, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo are happy with Doc, the coach will be coaching, not golfing.
It happens in every sport – it just seems that NBA coaches are on a much shorter string, a string that can be quickly and swiftly severed by a disgruntled player.
As Frank Sinatra once said, “That’s life, that’s what people say, riding high in April, shot down in May.”
