re: Avery Johnson officially hired as Alabama MBB coach

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I've never understood how an athletic director would hire someone who can't keep a job

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In the NBA Final, he went up against Pat Riley who is basketball royalty. Mark Cuban is fickel. Avery wasn't getting it done in Brooklyn. However, it wasn't all his fault. That franchise has been in dismay for awhile. He was coach of the month when he was let go.

Obviously, Gregg Popovich was Avery's Coach and mentor. However, I wouldn't think that Gregg would go out of his way to say the following unless there is some truth into it:

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“Of course, many of us were surprised to see what happened in Brooklyn. From my perspective, Avery’s not a good coach, he’s a very good coach. He’s a hell of a coach. He’s proven that. There aren’t too many of us out there who have ever won 67 games in a season. He’s taken a team to the Finals. If my memory serves me correct, he was Coach of the Month. It sort of shows what a fickle, volatile business we’re in. We all know that. Avery knows that, too.
“Often times, situations like that have nothing to do with the ability of the coach. It has more to do with circumstances. We’ve seen it before. I can’t help but think sometimes a little patience could go a long way.
“You think about coaches … I believe Dean Smith, they did a little effigy in his honor in the beginning when things weren’t going well. Johnny Wooden had a rough patch in the beginning. Mike Krzyzewski, arguably our best coach we have in basketball today, things didn’t go very well in the beginning. He had an AD who was smart enough to know what he had. He exhibited a lot of patience, so now you see where Coach K is. I think we all understand that. But circumstances, especially in the NBA, have a whole lot more to do with firings than how well or how poorly a coach did. It’s unfortunate. But we all move on, including Avery."

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