FireAvery.com - A Dallas Mavericks Blog

By mike on May 1, 2008 at 10:51:26 pm

You see, Kidd haters? This is coming from the star of this Mavericks team:

“I mean, we probably could have opened it up more, a little more free-flow, let Jason create and not just make him a weak-side spot-up shooter. But, you know, Avery had us believe in his system.”

Nowitzki’s shooting percentage INCREASED with Kidd, and that’s with the restraints put on him by Avery. That BS should not and will not be a problem with this team from now on. To even imply that he or Dirk was what was wrong with this team is absolutely ridiculous.

By Dick Chambers on May 1, 2008 at 11:16:47 pm

First of all, how would it be a catastrophe if dirk was traded? I agree in the whole supporting cast theory, but on the other hand, Dirk would bring the mavs the best opportunity for some blue chip players, possible lottery picks, or a mix of both. If you want to put a real supporting cast along with dirk (within next 4 years max, because dirk will be 34 by then), do you really think we have a realistic chance to get those players that will put us into NBA Finals contention? C,mon wake up. Everyone knows our window is shut. We have to most likely deal with kidd, and dampier over the next two years. If J-Spliff can’t be molded back to the type of player he was before, not to mention a completely different attitude and some brains, it gets much worse. His marijuana comments were commercial career suicide, but his dismal showing in the playoffs might have cost us a gerald wallace/Iguadola type player. Oh yeah, I forgot about terry. I personally love his heart, and we all know avery completely misused him. But how much can a 32-year old undersized shooting guard with mental baggage of the mavs collapses possible get us? Add to the facts no draft picks yet until 2010, bad role players (eddie jones, magloire, stack, etc.), and you get a recipe for disaster.

On a more positive note, I think we should go after diop, marquis daniels (again, completely misused and never able to get out of avery’s doghouse), and keep developing brandon bass, julian wright possible. I just don’t see carlisle working out here, and Jeff van Gundy, my choice at first, doesn’t seem to have the defensive parts here for success. I wonder if their might be a darkhorse candidate out there, because right now it looks very murky.

Now I would like to address two things. First, I’m almost positive Dirk’s comments stem from the fact I don’t think he nor anyone on the team really knows what mark cuban will do. Cuban not being visible during the whole avery firing really rubbed me the wrong way, and made me look at cuban in another light. He can’t be caught on camera laughing, ribbing fans, and cackling with his boy toy and having him feed him bon-bons in his mouth while his team is getting beatdown in the playoffs—-and on the other hand seem try to make himself appear like some kind of oblivious fool.I am also not very fond of avery making comments like “no one should be angry at me”, “”we overachieved…” “We we’re only as good as a 7th seed”..bs ….I now have seen that he is absolutely
and a completely arrogant, self-absorbed, and ignorant person.He takes no blame, put takes all the credit. He painted himself to be the Grand Puba, the one who single handedly made the mavericks into a winner. I now actually believe that he took all of Don Nelson’s intelligence in creating the roster to balloon up his coaching record during the regular season, only to throw the team under the bus and criticize them when he couldn’t match up and make adjustments, not to mention outcoach anyone. He makes bold statements about kidd being his qb and experienced veteran, yet never reallly comes out and says he was in favor of the trade after he is fired. That;s just what I think, what do you think?

By Dick Chambers on May 1, 2008 at 11:24:14 pm

Greg,

I think you should change the domain name to “postavery.com” etc.so as to bring out more visitors to the site.

I think most people will not come back now that he’s been fired…..
jut a thought…

By Fred Krueger on May 2, 2008 at 6:13:56 am

Can we get some info on Rick Carlisle. Personally, I haven’t thought too much about the guy. NBC5 is reporting that he will be interviewed by Cuban today… Just a thought.

Thanks Greg! I’m still here!

Also, I agree about the Dirk thing. I want him here. He and Dallas both deserve a championship. Send him out and I agree with the whole taking at least 2 to 4 years to be contennders again.

By Arjuna on May 2, 2008 at 6:46:14 am

Dirk needs to be your #2 guy. If Dirk is the #1 option it just will never happen. I’m sorry. He is too one dementional to lead a team to a championship. I know none of you will like me or respect my opinion (I’m a Warriors Fan) but you should go after a player like T-Mac, Houston will probably bow out tomorrow and the press will start up again about how T-Mac has never been out of the first round.

They coould very well decide to just turn it over to Yao. Not sure if you have your1st rd pick this year or if it’s going to Jersey. If you do have it you should Ditch J420SH H420WARD and the pick along w/ Kidd (If they would take him) for T-Mac. If they won’t take Kidd then you should give up Terry which is probably more liely and get T-Mac.

Dirk might be the best player in the league if he is a 2nd option, but if the Defensive attention is on him it will never happen, I’m sorry. Look at last year, we were a BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD defensive team and were still able to disrupt your offense w/ Nellie’s gimmick D’s because Every person in Oracle Arena knew it was going through Dirk. Kidd’s ot the awnser. Maybe the awnser would, help, or T-Mac, or somone who can put up 20-25 ppg w/o thinking twice. I know that’s eaier said than done, But that is the ONLY chance you have Dallas

By drew on May 2, 2008 at 7:27:10 am

Dirk just lost again in the first round. Why wouldn’t he be bummed?

By tani on May 2, 2008 at 7:46:45 am

Dick,
I couldn’t agree more with you on Avery. What was so troubling about him was not his below average coaching skills, but his personality. I couldn’t believe the comments that came from his mouth. He took absolutely no blame for the mess he created.

However, I think that Greg should keep this website. After he gets hired by another team, we will get other fans posting on this blog. Maybe, we need to change the background colors to match Avery’s new team colors.

By DB on May 2, 2008 at 8:58:02 am

Why would we want ‘Bad-back T-Mac’? He misses games because of his back and knees, plus you said it - he’s never been out of the first round. Dick, I don’t know how you could say Magloire was a bad role player, Avery never played him to find out. You’re right on about Avery’s attitude. I was getting ticked off watching his press conference yesterday. He got in several back-handed jabs at almost everyone in the organization. When he said the 67 win team drastically overachieved and could have easily only won 52 games, I couldn’t believe it.

By John P. on May 2, 2008 at 9:15:30 am

Obviously Dirk is not happy but that can all be turned around. The mavs are probably one of the deepest teams. But, there are two problems. One is that whetever coach the Mavs get he needs to be a defensive minded coach. I am sure that Avery had that mentality but he didn’t know how to coach it. The mavs have lost not due to lack of talent but lack of execution on both ends of the floor. Who is responsible for that. Finally the last problem is similar to the same issue that the Suns have. Regardless of what anyone thinks of Dirk he is not a closer. Look at Tim D. he is kind of soft also. But, the team either has to have a closers mentality or has to have a closer on the team who can carry a team when the games are close. Look at the Suns. Who do they have to do that? Nash literlly chocked. So either Dirk becomes that player or the mavs get a coach who can develope the Mavs into a touch defensive minded team with a closers mentality.

By mike on May 2, 2008 at 1:17:38 pm

Warriors fans, you don’t know squat about Nowitzki or the Mavericks. Please stick to your websites, thank you.

By Arjuna on May 2, 2008 at 4:31:00 pm

Why? this one is so much fun! Plus I’m pretty sure there is not a firenellie website nor will there ever be. I only get on here to see who I’ve rilled up. I consider myself very knowledegeable about the sport of basketball So I try not to make assinine comments, and I can see my comments couldn’t have been too far off since all I got back in return is we don’t want Broke back T-Mac (great nickname BTW DB) and go back to your own website.

C-mon you guys can do better than that. One of you idiots has to think Dirk can win a Championship as the #1 or are you guys done sticking up for the guy you’ve held on higher ground than Jesus the last 3 years.

True T-Mac is probably a pu$$y and would only play 60 games a season for you but he would be there in the playoffs and the defensive attention would be on him so Dirk could open shots. Maybe he could get his 30 pts on 20 shots shooting a good percentage.

Not gonna matter anyways cause like I posted on here before you will be lucky if you finish in front of Memphis next season and I’m guessing you’ll probably be begging for D. Harris back after you watch Jason Kidd beat his man off the dribble for the umpteenth time in a row only for him to kick it to Dirk who is going to have a defender standing right next to him so he can pump fake, pump fake and shoot his 22 ft contested fadeaway that’ll he will continue to hit at 40% (pretty damn good percentage for that shot). Make it just enough to think you got something, but really it’s fools gold. Look for the Mavs to win 35 games if Dirk plays 82, but I’m guessing he gets frusturated and packs it in with a minor injury in February and you struggle to get to 30 wins.

Then again you guys are a better team than us you made the playoffs this year. Maybe Avery will come to assist Nellie again in GS and take over when he’s done. Avery’s a damn good coach and you are all morons if you think otherwise. Go Dubbs!

By jp on May 2, 2008 at 7:04:16 pm

I’m sorry Arjuna, what’s Dirk’s playoff averages for his entire career? Oh, I think it’s something like 25pts 11reb. shooting around 50%, also he’s been in the top five in points scored in the 4th quarter for the last couple seasons. Honestly, it took a 50 point and 11 rebound game from Nowitzki to get by the Suns in the western conference finals two years ago. I think it has been proven that with a supporting cast playing well and helping to win games, Nowitzki can get them to the finals, whether he can win it for them remains to be seen. And I’m sorry, he’ll get them to the playoffs with even a bad team, like this year he did. But, I’d be interested to see how you’d like to pin this year’s first round exit on his shoulders. How many times did Kobe exit after the first round after Shaq left? I guess Lebron will never win a championship as the #1 guy either, he’s won two less finals games than Nowitzki. And if it wasn’t for the largest discrepancy in free throws in NBA Finals history during that fifth game in Miami that they lost by one point, the Mavericks would have won the championship, remember the one where Dwayne Wade got bailed out on a touch foul, got to the line and made his 26th and 27th free throw of the game to take the lead, and then Josh Howard blew their final timeout, of course this was right after Nowitzki made a shot to take the lead, and of course the outcome was all Nowitzki’s fault. I think that the majority of media criticism that Nowitzki takes, while some of it is fair, is really a form of covert racism. I can only imagine what you’d be saying about him if he had T-mac’s playoff record.

By Spurred1 on May 2, 2008 at 7:57:24 pm

Arjuna,
Dallas would not benefit at all from having T-Mac. He would be injured too much throughout the season. There is no guarantee that he would be healthy for the playoffs, either. We do not need a guy to winds up disappearing in the fourth quarter. Mavs have those magicians already.
Nor is Dirk as “one dementional” as you claim-I agree with jp-some of the hatred Dirk attracts is a form of racism. Saying the Mavs are lucky to finish in front of Memphis is foolish,btw. Grizz have nothing and are going to be crappy for some time.
T-Mac won’t solve anything for us-I would prefer Ron Artest since he brings defense and offense. Sac (or any team) is not dumb enough to take Howard, though thanks to his big mouth, awful play, and disregard for directions.
The fact that you openly admit to coming on to a site to get others “rilled up” speaks volume about your character.
John P.-You lost all credibility when you said that Tim D. is kind of soft; the guy is nothing approaching soft.

By Hominid on May 2, 2008 at 8:30:48 pm

Dirk is so spot on; probably because I agree with him on his future, what Dallas should do as an organization, the things he said when Avery left, on and on…

I hate watching Dirk’s prime years being essentially wasted. If Dirk could go to a contender I would be all for it because I’m really a Dirk fan first.

If they keep him, they better work their asses off to hire Jeff Van Gundy and surround Kidd with some more athletic shooters and pressure defenders. Think of Boston. They are essentially a jump-shooting team that plays lock-down defense. Think of all the guys the Mavs should keep. Dirk, Kidd, Bass, and probably JET (that’s a really short list now that I see it). They can all score around Kidd.

They need to infuse this organization with younger talent and that is going to take some risks and if it doesn’t work out then so be it.

They also need to bring in someone to replace Diop if it isn’t Diop himself.

The problem is coming up with specific names and making the numbers work. Perhaps it would be good having the coaching postiion wrapped up early to fascilitate that process.

By Arjuna on May 2, 2008 at 9:31:29 pm

Man you guys need to take a step back and speak with your head and not your heart. Dirk is a GREAT player! I’m not arguing that he’s not. I can’t argue he can’t lead a team to the finals cause he did. But that was two seasons ago, Josh howard was playing out of his Mind. No one could keep up w/ Devin Harris speed in the West that season, Jason Terry as consisitent as he is played better in those playoffs than he has the last two seasons, AND it still took an incredibley stupid foul by Ginobli to get past the Spurs. I’m sorry, but are you banking on that foul again?

As for the Finals, I can’t see how you can blame the officials for the loss, granted Wade got every call (but thats what you get when your not a jump shooter) and they had no buissness making the call you speak of in game 5.

Still. Wasn’t Dirk-The best shooter in the world- at the line 15 ft with no one in front of him to seal game 3 and he missed them both. Shooters miss Ft’s for two reasons 1. Lack of concentration- lets throw that out the window since they were the biggest shots of his life. I sure hope he was concentrating 2. Can’t handle the pressure- I’ll go with that one. Dirk was thinking about how NO TEAM ever has come back from a 3-0 deficit and how he could seal the deal, and he just wasn’t ready to do it, because he is not Batman he is Robin (maybe the best Robin ever, but still Robin) He doesn’t want to be the man. Mark Cuban and the city of Dallas and all the caucasian fan base out there who have been waiting for the next Larry Bird for the last 20 years want him to be the man.

Dirk had his chance, and now it is gone, Never to return again unless he has somone to take the Heat off him, no pun intended.

As for the comparisons to Kobe and Lebron (I can’t believe I am even taking the time to make this argument) They can both do a little something called DRIBBLE PENETRATION (you might remember it from the days when you had Devin Harris) and then finish through the help defense at the rim w/ consistency throughtout any game and more importantly over the course of a season and the playoffs.

Not exactly sure why Lebron and Co. being swept by the Spurs in last years finals means Dirk should be the #1 guy on his team. Or why Kobe having to obviously get over his own selfish Demons means Dirk should be the #1 guy. If you guys like Dallas, Wouldn’t you want a better player to be playing along side of Dirk? I know Dirk does. He doesn’t want to have to put up 50 and 11 to beat Pheonix cause if he does that, there is probably a good chance he is gonna run out of gas down the road.

As for my Memphis comments, OK maybe a bit of a stretch, but Dirk and any 4 schmoes aint gonna beat em, next year. If I recall New Orleans had 1 good player a couple years ago and traded him for Speedy Claxton and Dale Davis. Look at them now. So Believe me Memphis looks like a bunch of douches for trading Gasol for Queer ass Kwame but there is rhyme and reason to it, and they will be hot on your ass for the 4 spot next season, especially if they land one of the top two picks.

Honestly, not trying to offend anyone hear (except for Kwame Brown) Just trying to have intellegent banter on basketball, and you guys are obviously passionate about it so it makes it fun. If you don’t like me and want me to go away just stop responding to my comments and then it won’t be fun for me anymore and I’ll probably go away after a couple of days.

Until then I have just as much right to Blog as anyone, Remember Avery was fired by Dallas, this isn’t a Mavericks website it’s a keep Avery Johnson from having a job website.

By Arjuna on May 2, 2008 at 9:37:30 pm

Forgot one thing. I’m not suggesting you need BrokeBack T-Mac it was just an idea of a guy who might be attainable for you and good eough to take the pressure off of Dirk. Allen Me Myself and Iverson could do it as well too, in my opinion. I don’t Think Artest will give you what you need, Arenas won’t give the ball up enough,

Oh yeah and last time I checked The NBA is Black, and the Media and fan base is White so how exactly does that hurt Dirk?

By jp on May 2, 2008 at 10:55:54 pm

I’m sorry the basketball media, at least on tv, is not white, certainly not all white, actually, the most popular commentators are former players many of whom are black and their constantly criticising Dirk for being “soft,” which is really code for white, I don’t know if you saw Chris Weber on TNT last week but it seemed he had an axe to grind, going so far as to say, the only player he’d want to play with on the Mavericks besides kidd would be stackhouse, he then went on to say how frustrating it was that nobody on Dallas was even trying to win. That is pretty incredible to me since Dirk was the only one who played half way decent in that game, other than Bass. I guess leading your team in points and rebounding and being second in assists all on a bad ankle is not trying to win.
Anyways, to your other point, yeah, Dirk choked on those free throws and that was in his hands and that prevented them from winning. You got me there, but ask yourself why did he suddenly stop getting calls in that series. He had just broken Michael Jordan’s record for most free throws made in a post-season, and then suddenly Shaq can run him out of bounds on a three point attempt not even allowing him to land in bounds and there is no call. Also, if you admit that they lost game five on a bad call, then your basically saying that the Mavericks could have won that series with Nowitzki as their #1 guy; no call, they win the game and then have two games at home to close out the series.
Yes, your right, as well, that Nowitzki is not a slasher, he’s able to drive the ball with open lanes, shoot, rebound, draw the double team and pass out of it. So your giving that up with him, but he is a better rebounder than both kobe and lebron. So yeah Dallas needs a slasher like Harris who can get to the rim on a consistent basis. If they could get another consistent scorer out there with him and some young bench players with alot of upside then the team would be alright. But with an immature and selfish player like Josh Howard as your number 2 option your going to be in tough shape. I assume you heard about him handing out flyers in the locker room after game 4 for a party he was throwing later that night, that is after they lost that game on him shooting I think it was 2 for 18 from the field. So when you look at this last series and Dirk averaged something like 27pts. and 12 reb. and they didn’t get out of the first round, and the only game they won Dirk’s stat line was 32pts. 19reb. 6 asst. and 2 blocks then you at least have to admit that the rest of the team didn’t play that well- Howard shot 29% for the series.
But, I appreciate the discussion Arjuna, I mean it’s alot better than what passes for 90% of sports journalism.
And also I’ll add a criticism of Dirk so you’ll know that my glasses are not entirely rose colored, the criticism would be his inability to consistently exploit smaller defenders on him in the low post, if he could do that it would compensate for his inability to slash to the basket I think. This team does need a slasher at the number two spot, hopefully, thay can trade Howard for one, but with his trade value now, I doubt it.