definitely not a surprise with all that's been going on all season anyway. well a little surprise that it did actually happen, but the writing had been on the wall for a while. i'd still rather face seattle in the first round. not only that, but if we get to the second round, i'd rather face the suns as the 2 seed than the spurs as the one seed. so we either need to fall to 6th or san antonio needs to relax the last few weeks and let the suns take the best record.
This isn't much of a shock. Everyone knew that Avery was going to take over at the end of the season. He coached several games for Nelson during the season and Nelson even sat on the bench while Avery coached games. Avery has been the heir-apparent since the beginning of the season - the health conditions of Nelson and his wife just sped things up.
Haha. Sounds painful. Anyway, here's a good Marc Stein article on the subject I just read this morning: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=stein_marc&id=2017281
Avery must be pretty good to get the head coaching job of a pretty good team without any head coaching experience. Guys stay assistants for years and never get the opportunity. He seems to want to emphasize defense more than Nelson did and he has been coming down hard on guys that haven't shown defensive intensity. If he gets the Mavs to play D like the Rox coupled with the Mavs high powered offense then look out.
Dallas is better off with Avery. Under Avery the Mavericks have looked really good this year on both ends of the court. Mavs fans are excited about the news and think it should have happened a long time ago. Avery was already running the practices, and calling most of the plays in the huddle. He has already been the head coach of about 20% of the games this season, so it isn't really that big of a change. Nellie will still be with the team so the game-to-game adjustments theory is thrown out the window. Nellie has never been a great playoffs coach and Avery really can't do much worst than Nellie has. All in all, it is a good move, but probably would have been better if it had occurred earlier.
I saw this Saturday...What every happened to Donnie Jr.? I think the verdict is still out on Avery...
I'm up at DFW for a couple of days on business. The sports radio station here is called "The Ticket". It's quite different from anything in Houston. That's another subject by itself. Anway, I tuned in off and on all day today and they are totally obsessed with Nellie stepping down. Way over the top IMO. Here are some points that came out: 1 Nellie is basically sick of Mark Cuban, for a variety of reasons, all of which make sense. Too many to list here. 2 Nellie would not have stepped down unless Mark Cuban agreed to pay him his full $5 million salary for this year and next. Supposedly, Nellie asked Del Harris to speak with Cuban about this beforehand. Nellie had stopped speaking to Cuban a while ago. 3 Finley, Nash & Nowitzki are Nellie's "boys". Nellie was devastated when Nash left and this was the beginning of the end. The year, Nellie has stood by Finley, giving him way more playing time than he deserved. Finley took Nellie's leaving very hard because he knows Avery Johnson won't cut him any slack. Finley will be a big "loser" (along with Van Horne) and Devin Harris, Stackhouse & Dampier will be the "winners". Of course, Stack and Dampier must get healthy. 4 See note #3. There will be major changes in substitution patterns, playing time & pecking order among the players. I almost get the feeling the team is divided. I'm leaving a lot out but if these guys actually know anything close to what they seem to know, forget about the Mavs making a serious playoff push. Their team is too divided (and has been for some time) to go very far.
my wish was granted. Dallas will make adjustments (Del Harris aboard, Nellie still a consultant), but i dont think it will be enough. JVG is just too pessimistic to let his team be. He will scour the tapes, and take whatever went well for dallas (very little) and turn even that against him.
