The job security of an NBA coach can be quite fragile when things go badly.
Fair or not, the coach is always the first to blame when a team does not perform up to what is expected of them. We’ve seen this with former Lakers coach Mike Brown, who was the first to lose his job this season after just five games.
On Thursday afternoon, it was announced that Brooklyn Nets coach Avery Johnson would be the second coach to be relieved of his duties this season, as Chris Sheridan predicted earlier in the morning.
Johnson, who wasn’t concerned over his job security when asked about it just a week ago, was certainly surprised by the decision. Here are his thoughts, from Roderick Boone of Newsday:
“This is a really disappointing day for me and my family,” Johnson said at a news conference at the PNY Center. ” . . . This is a difficult time. It’s something that I didn’t necessarily see coming, especially after a pretty good November. Then, obviously we lost a few games in December and you never think that when you are a .500 team, then you’re going into two more home games that something like this would happen.
“But this is ownership’s decision. This is what we sign up for. This is part of our business fair or unfair. It doesn’t matter. But again, it’s time for a new voice and the team will have a new voice and hopefully they will get back on track.”
Johnson wasn’t the only one surprised of his firing, as plenty of current and former NBA players chimed in on the matter:
2 things. Avery was doing a lousy job. And two: Deron is a coach killer and a LOT of this falls on him. He got the legendary jerry sloan to retire….and now ran his mouth to get avery run out of town. The overriding reality of this scenario is that D Will has been not just sub par, but AWFUL. Under 30% on his threes, and a terrible floor leader, plus bad defense. Anyone else would have been benched. If phil wants to get even with Buss he might take this, but my money is on jeff van gundy or larry brown……or a sleeper such as dave blatt. But this cant be laid on the russian…………fact is, avery was always a mediocre coach.
Hmm… slightly eccentric Russian billionaire buys sports team in big important city and acts capricious. Echoes of Chelsea and Roman Abramovich.
Nice observation. I’m sure if he gets the Nets to play like Chelsea did everything will be forgiven.