Avery Johnson

[hrdboild]

Well for starters AJ was a hardnosed player, where as Reggie was a flashy player. AJ's background is much more based on D than Reggie's was. He played on the Spurs, he learned from Pop, during his 3 years his team always played good D, Reggie's never did and Natt was an instafailure from day one. Sorry but it's not close.

Those are good points-- it does seem that Avery Johnson has the pedigree of a guy who could teach solid fundamentals and defense. However, being a good player does not equate to being a good coach. There are endless examples of this. Some people have it, some don't. If I'm building a hard-nosed defensive squad I would hire Avery Johnson to be my PG before I hired Reggie Theus or (ha!) Kenny Natt. But that doesn't necessarily mean he would be a better coach. I will say that absolutely I would hire Avery Johnson as my coach before I hired Kenny Natt or Reggie Theus. If that's the pool, you go with the guy who is relatively more experienced. But I don't think three years of coaching experience and getting fired by the same team you won a coach of the year award for the previous year makes you a slam dunk candidate to lead our team out of the dark ages. He's a candidate. He's under consideration. But he's not the only candidate.

 

[Showtime]

nvm...

 

[Sptsjunkie]

I am ambivelant on AJ. He has the pedigree, which is nice. However, he micromanaged his team, was disliked by his players and did not show any ability to develop young players. My concern with him is that he could be a good coach for a veteran team looking to take a step forward; however, I just don't know if he can effectively develop our young players and keep the team's respect through at least 2 more losing seasons.

 

[sidney]

Avery is one of the few coaches I've seen that actually improved his team's defense while keeping the offense strong. It made them legit contenders. I think his miscalculation of the Golden State series was just too big for him to recover from in Dallas. He's not perfect, but the best out there in my opinion.

Avery's years in bold.
2008-2009 50 32 101.7 99.8
2007-2008 51 31 100.4 95.9
2006-2007 67 15 100.0 92.8
2005-2006 60 22 99.1 93.1
2004-2005 58 24 102.5 96.8
2003-2004 52 30 105.2 100.8
2002-2003 60 22 103.0 95.2
2001-2002 57 25 105.2 101.0

 

[Sptsjunkie]

Better than Jordan or Whis.

I really don't understand all the Eddie Jordan hate. He did a good job with some severly flawed Wizards teams. I know people have said in other threads that he cannot coach D, but if we learned anything from our experience with Adelman, it should be that a lot of that lies with the players. If you look at Jordan's teams, Arenas has always been a defensive liability and Jamison is a brialliant scorer who is one of the worst defenders at his position. The Thomas/Haywood combo were solid bigs, but hardly intimidators or great man defenders. The truth is that if EJ had coached the Rockets instead of the Wizards, people would probably be saying he was a brialliant defensive coach with a limited ability to coach offense.

Jordan has won a playoff series. He held the Wizards together and made the playoffs during years where Jamison, Arenas and Butler missed large chunks of the season with injuries. His players respected him. He coached the Wizards to a 20 game improvement. He got a pulse out of Larry Hughes and Jarred Jefferies . He coached the EC All Stars. He was the longest tenured coach in the EC when he was fired. He can run an O that fits our players and will utilize Coachie. He may not be the sexiest pick out there, but I would not be dissapointed if we got Jordan. He has proven that he can coach in this league and not only make the playoffs but win a series.

 

[Sptsjunkie]

Avery is one of the few coaches I've seen that actually improved his team's defense while keeping the offense strong. It made them legit contenders. I think his miscalculation of the Golden State series was just too big for him to recover from in Dallas. He's not perfect, but the best out there in my opinion.

Avery's years in bold.
2008-2009 50 32 101.7 99.8
2007-2008 51 31 100.4 95.9
2006-2007 67 15 100.0 92.8
2005-2006 60 22 99.1 93.1
2004-2005 58 24 102.5 96.8
2003-2004 52 30 105.2 100.8
2002-2003 60 22 103.0 95.2
2001-2002 57 25 105.2 101.0

No doubt that AJ stresses D, which is a good thing. But let's also give some context to these numbers. Those 2003/2004 Mavs has Antwan Jamison, Antwan Walker and Steve Nash logging major minutes. Those were three absolutley terrible defenders. And Walker had to play a lot of Center as the Mavs only other centers were Fortson (good rebounder, bad defender) and Shawn Bradley. During AJ's years as coach where the D improved the Mavs added Jason Terry (not a great defender, but better than Nash), Jerry Stackhouse, Josh Howard (he was a rookie in '03), Devin Harris, DJ Mbenga and Erick Dampier. Transitioning that roster had a lot to do with the Mavs defensive turnaround. Just like the Kings improved defensively as we brought in Christie, Jackson, Pollard matured (was a rookie in '99), Clark, JJ, etc.

This isn't meant to completely discredit AJ, he did a fine job with the Mavs and he did get Dirk to commit to D, but let's not pretend that it was promoting AJ to head coach that suddenly made the same group of players improve their D. It was a revamped team that helped significantly.

 

[hrdboild]

Avery Johnson only coached the last 18 games of the 2004-2005 season. The team did go 16-2 in those games though. They lost in the second round to Phoenix.

 

[kingsnation]

Jordan has won a playoff series. He has proven that he can coach in this league and not only make the playoffs but win a series.

1 Playoff series.

1.

One.

Have our expectations for a new Head Coach seriously fallen that far?

 

[Sptsjunkie]

1 Playoff series.

1.

One.

Have our expectations for a new Head Coach seriously fallen that far?

1 - He usually has had the worse team and did not "choke" away a series he should have won (see Avery Johnson versus GS). I'd hold the one series against EJ more if he had also been the GM. I don't know how much value you attach to these things, but basketballreference.com has an expected wins formula for every team and EJ's teams overperformed versus what was expected every year until this year.

2 - There aren't a lot of coaches out there who are available and have won a playoff series in the last 5 years or so.

I don't think the fact that he has won one series means our standards are lower. I mean we are looking at multiple assistant coaches who haven't even won a NBA game. Muss/Natt/Theus/Whis have 0 playoff appearences between the four of them.

 

[kingsnation]

I do see your points. I just think think that we have become desperate for a mediocre coach like Jordan because our coaches have flat out sucked since the Adelman era.

If Jordan's Wizards were in the West - he would not have a playoff series to his resume.

And for the record, I am not an Avery Johnson supporter either.

 

[Sptsjunkie]

I do see your points. I just think think that we have become desperate for a mediocre coach like Jordan because our coaches have flat out sucked since the Adelman era.

If Jordan's Wizards were in the West - he would not have a playoff series to his resume.

And for the record, I am not an Avery Johnson supporter either.

I think you're right that standards are lower (mine included) after going through the recent stretch of bad coaches. I just don't see EJ as mediocre. Personally, I feel like unless a coach is really bad and misuses his personnel (see Terry Porter in Phoenix), that most of the results you see on the court are the result of the players. This isn't football where there is a lot more strategy. In basketball, the team with the best players usually wins and if the talent is relatively close than the team with the overall best player usually wins. I mean Phil Jackson wasn't a worse coach when the Lakers were losing in the first round than he is now, it's just that his team got better players.

I think we have seen that Jordan can carry a locker room, utilizes his players strengths well, and has shown he can be successful in this league including winning a playoff series. I'm not saying he's my first choice, but there have been a lot of negative reactions here around a very good coach. It reminds me of when Adelman was hired and a number of fans called him a retread and did not like the move. I think we would be lucky to get EJ.

 

[kingsnation]

I think we have seen that Jordan can carry a locker room, utilizes his players strengths well, and has shown he can be successful in this league including winning a playoff series. I'm not saying he's my first choice, but there have been a lot of negative reactions here around a very good coach

See I just don't see those things as being the criteria needed to call someone a "very good coach."

 

[Sptsjunkie]

See I just don't see those things as being the criteria needed to call someone a "very good coach."

Fair enough, but what is your criteria? I would be interested in knowing specifically why you feel that EJ is a mediocre coach?

 

[kingsnation]

Fair enough, but what is your criteria? I would be interested in knowing specifically why you feel that EJ is a mediocre coach?

The main criteria for me is win %, team success.

Eddie Jordan's time with us was bad, in both record & success.

His time with Washington was mediocre, again in both record & success. Granted, they made the playoffs 4 times but only because they were in a weaker conference. They only made it out of the first round once. His best season was finishing only 8 games above 500.

His track record is mediocre. 197–224 career record.

Based upon these stats, I feel it is also important to determine the meaning of success.

If success is getting eliminated in the first round every year, then Jordan is your man.

If success is more than that, then he isn't your guy.

 

[Sptsjunkie]

The main criteria for me is win %, team success.

Eddie Jordan's time with us was bad, in both record & success.

His time with Washington was mediocre, again in both record & success. Granted, they made the playoffs 4 times but only because they were in a weaker conference. They only made it out of the first round once. His best season was finishing only 8 games above 500.

His track record is mediocre. 197–224 career record.

Based upon these stats, I feel it is also important to determine the meaning of success.

If success is getting eliminated in the first round every year, then Jordan is your man.

If success is more than that, then he isn't your guy.

I just think you have to look at the players. I am arguing that his team's overachieved. Just looking at his results ignores that he had some bad players. Should Phil Jackson have been fired after Phoenix bounced the Lakers from the first round of the playoffs multiple times? Jerry Sloan had a bad record with the Bulls. Doc Rivers went from a cellar dwelling coach to a NBA championship winning coach. Adelman has gone from championship caliber coach to getting fired by the Warriors after some terrible seasons.

You are obviously entitled to your opinion of what makes a good coach, but I think it's a farily limited way of evaluating performance.

 

[kingsnation]

But Jordan had good players in Washington.. Arenas, Jamison, Butler..

 

[Sptsjunkie]

But Jordan had good players in Washington.. Arenas, Jamison, Butler..

I agree he had some good players, but 2 of the 3 are horid defenders and the rest of the team was garbage. The Thomas/Haywood combo, Deshawn Stevenson, Jarvis Hayes, Antonio Daniels, Darius Songila, Jared Jefferies, Michael Ruffin, Andray Blatche - and they still put up 40+ wins every year despite Arenas and Butler being injured a lot.

I just don't think we have very good ways of rating coaches. Most of our "ratings" are off of a gut reaction that's largely based off of the team the coach last led. However, unless they completely mismanaged the team (Natt) or lost the locker room (Muss), then the record is largely a reflection of the players. I don't think EJ's Wizads teams underperformed, if anything he coaxed the most out of a severly flawed batch of players.

 

[kingsnation]

I agree he had some good players, but 2 of the 3 are horid defenders and the rest of the team was garbage. The Thomas/Haywood combo, Deshawn Stevenson, Jarvis Hayes, Antonio Daniels, Darius Songila, Jared Jefferies, Michael Ruffin, Andray Blatche - and they still put up 40+ wins every year despite Arenas and Butler being injured a lot.

I disagree. Most experts are already putting Washington back into the playoffs next year with a healthy Arenas.

I just don't think we have very good ways of rating coaches. Most of our "ratings" are off of a gut reaction that's largely based off of the team the coach last led. However, unless they completely mismanaged the team (Natt) or lost the locker room (Muss), then the record is largely a reflection of the players. I don't think EJ's Wizads teams underperformed, if anything he coaxed the most out of a severly flawed batch of players.

Your list of great coaches must be a long one.

 

[Entity]

I wonder if Phil Jackson coaches the exact same way now he did during his first year as a head coach? Or if maybe he learned some things along the way that made him the coach he is today?

Now Avery Johnson won 60 games his first year right? They say he made some mistakes and players turned on him. Do you think Phil made mistakes early on? Do you think he learned from them and now has better ways of approaching different situations.

I heard a guy speaking one day and he had an opposite oppinon on a subject than what he had 10 years prior. He was called on that by the media and his response was. If you're the exact same person you were 10 years ago then you haven't learned much in the last 10 years.

Someone said he had a napoleon complex. Meaning he demands respect. Given the lack of respect each Kings player has had for the previous 3 coaches that may indeed be what the doctor ordered. Honestly with 17 wins someone explain to me how it could be worse.

 

[Ryle]

Players said that Avery would call almost every play and dictate the game (and thus many complaints about his lack of good game management). He didn't let the players play on the court with their own experience. When you have Jason Kidd running point, how much ego do you have to have to not trust him and dictate every play?

Rick Carlisle does the same thing and who is he coaching now??? A good coach will take a team that has underachieved and put them over the hump. Avery did that when he took that team to the Finals and unfortunately those finals were dictated by Dwayne Wade(and to a lesser extent those phantom calls) and they lost but that is the farthest they have been.

I would agree with some other posters that Cuban killed this team when he traded for Jason Kidd and they have been trending downward since then and I have been loving every minute of it