MVN - Most Valuable Network

Dallas jettisons coach Johnson after most recent playoff failure

ESPN is reporting today that the Dallas Mavericks have fired their head coach, Avery Johnson, following their 99-94 loss to the Hornets last night, giving New Orleans a 4-1 series victory.  Johnson had a 194-70 record in the regular season, but according to owner Mark Cuban, it was all about Johnson’s playoff resume, and I’m sure the fans would agree.

While the Mavericks looked bad in their 5 game loss in this year’s first round of the playoffs at the hands of Chris Paul and the New Orleans Hornets, I would argue that it was an improvement over last year’s performance.  The Mavs were riding high into the playoffs with their number one seed in the West, but then they ran into a roadblock known as the Golden State Warriors.  In one of the biggest first round upsets in NBA playoff history that almost everyone who isn’t a Mavs fan had a great time watching, the Warriors managed to defeat Dallas with Golden State head coach Don Nelson showing his former pupil Avery Johnson that he still has something left in the tank.

That was an embarrassing loss for the Mavericks, and I think the emotions from that series carried over into this season and planted seeds of doubt in the minds of both the players and coach.  With as good as they’ve been over the last 8 or so years, the Mavs have to be asking themselves what it’s going to take to get over the hump.  They were so close that they could smell victory in their showdown with the Heat in the 2006 NBA Finals when they went up 2-0 in the series but couldn’t seal the deal.  Last year, with a 67-15 regular season record, some people were saying that they were a historically great team that had an excellent chance at winning the championship before their first round collapse.

It all comes back to that 3-12 record in the playoffs for Avery Johnson.  In a way, teams like the Spurs, Suns, and Mavs have almost become like the Yankees of the NBA - winning in the regular season isn’t good enough; it only means something if you are successful in the playoffs.  The concerns of the Mavericks franchise that led to the dismissal of Avery Johnson are being echoed down in Phoenix, where reports are that Mike D’Antoni is on the hot seat after his most recent failure to turn the Suns into a championship caliber team.

So what happens now for the Dallas Mavericks?  They just fired the coach of the year from 2005-2006 and made the Jason Kidd trade this season that made them seem like a substantially older team, and not in a good way.  With Dirk, Jason Terry, Kidd, Erick Dampier and Josh Howard, they still have a pretty darn good starting five, but their bench this year consisted of older players like Jerry Stackhouse, Juwan Howard, and Devean George.  Brandon Bass was serviceable in his time off the bench this year, but the Mavs have to feel like their window to win a championship is closing fast, especially after trading away Devin Harris, arguably their best young player.

I think New Orleans embodies the new wave of teams that will take the place of aging perennial powerhouses like Dallas, San Antonio, and Phoenix over the next few years.  San Antonio still looks as good as ever after their demolition of the Suns, but you have to figure they’re going to start receding over the next 3 years as their already old roster gets even older.  Teams like the Hornets, Jazz, and Lakers, on the other hand, are comprised of a lot of young talent and are poised to take over as the dominant teams in the West, not to mention the fact that all three teams have a legitimate shot at winning it all this year.

A changing of the guard at the top of the Western Conference may be just what the NBA needs.  We’ve seen the same teams dominate every year for a while now, and although I still enjoy watching the great fundamental basketball that the Spurs play, the youth movement in the NBA is more exciting, particularly in the case of Chris Paul and the Hornets.  It’s going to be interesting to see how it all shakes out going into the future.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.