Submitted by Ryan, Aug 7, 2007 14:34

Mr. Johnson,

I would be upset about this article except that it appears you don't know much about what's going on with the Mavericks. First of all, Avery's "average" postseason winning percentage of .524 puts him just behind Larry Brown (.529) and ahead of Jerry Sloan, Rick Adelman, George Karl, Lenny Wilkens and Don Nelson. He's also not too far behind Rudy Tomjanovich (.567); even the great Red Auerbach has a "meager" .589 percentage. To call Avery "average" is to not understand basketball numbers. Secondly, your argument that the Mavs have "stood pat" this summer as opposed to others doesn't hold water. The Mavs haven't been a wheeling and dealing franchise in several years; in fact, they haven't been since Avery has been the head coach. Look at their roster; the entire starting five and eight of the top ten have been Mavs since before Avery was the head coach. Remember, he's only entering his third full season as head coach; he coached the last 18 games of the regular season the year before when Don Nelson resigned. That entire team had been put together before that, and only minor adjustments have been made since. Of their top ten, the only two players who have been added post-Avery are Devean George and Greg Buckner, and Buckner is definitely at the bottom of the top ten. Even this summer, the Mavs have made their normal tweaks to last year's team. Gone is Austin Croshere, replaced with Nick Fazekas. They actually did make a draft day trade, securing the rights to Rayshawn Terry. And the signing of Eddie Jones isn't much, but it should probably tell you what Dallas thought about signing Greg Buckner last summer. Overall, not much different than last summer, when the only player of any real value Dallas got rid of was Marquis Daniels (traded for the expiring contract of Austin Croshere, replacing the retiring Keith Van Horn). I wouldn't call Marquis a "promising young talent" as he has never lived up to his rookie potential, and if you look at his off-court transgressions from last year at Indy you might see why the Mavs got rid of him. The other young players traded would be Josh Powell and Rawle Marshall, and while they were liked here in Dallas, neither offer much upside any time soon to any contender. Thirdly, you are correct that Avery's been outcoached in his last two playoff series, but the assertion that Dirk and Boozer have similar offensive styles? The only similar about Dirk and Boozer is that they play the 4; if you want to compare them to each other because they both get rebounds and both score, I can think of about 100 other NBA players that would need to be put into the same category. Finally, your argument that the hiring of Paul Westphal should be a sign is asanine. Avery hired Westphal himself; do you really think he hired him thinking, "Wow, if I have a bad season and get fired, I have my replacement here already?" Mark Cuban lets Avery hire his own staff. That argument is weak. And as a side note, Del Harris isn't actually on Avery's "staff" any longer, he's taken on a consulting role with the Mavs.

All in all, this article is not a good representation of your paper or the Dallas Mavericks. Even the headline, "Johnson Must Succeed To Avoid Texas Boot". Really? Kind of like stating the obvious fact for every coach in every league isn't it?

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