Mavs' Johnson expected to retire, coach full time

[Kori Ellis]

Mavs' Johnson expected to retire, coach full time

02:31 PM CDT on Thursday, October 28, 2004
By EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/stories/102904dnspoajohnson.7ec26d.html

Avery Johnson is expected to announce his retirement as a player today. The Mavericks have scheduled a 5:30 p.m. news conference before their exhibition game tonight against Sacramento.

Johnson signed a player's contract worth $1.1 million for this season. Because he is a 16-year veteran, the NBA paid about $300,000 of Johnson's salary.

Johnson's retirement as a player would allow him to concentrate full time on his assistant-coaching duties for the Mavericks.

Johnson made his coaching debut Tuesday only hours after the NBA released a survey of general managers that named him the active player who will one day make the best head coach. Don Nelson and assistant Del Harris missed the game Tuesday with the flu, allowing Johnson to serve as coach.

[timvp]

:depressed

Congrats on a great career, AJ. Without your leadership and heart, San Antonio would have never won a championship. You invented SPURS BASKETBALL and made Gregg Popovich into the coach he is today. I can't wait until the day your jersey hangs in the SBC Center.

Thanks, man.

[jcrod]

HE's been great. But I'm still iffy on the jersey being retired here.

[T Park]

I agree with all of the above, until you got to retiring the jersey.

That I disagree with whole heartedly.

[Kori Ellis]

Johnson in line to replace Nelson

By Marc Stein
ESPN.com

With a nudge from NBA headquarters in New York, Avery Johnson of the Dallas Mavericks is retiring as a player to focus on his new role as Don Nelson's lead assistant, league sources told ESPN.com.

Donnie Nelson, meanwhile, is leaving the Mavericks' bench to focus on his role as the team's president of basketball operations. The younger Nelson has been serving as an assistant coach and as Dallas' personnel chief since the summer of 2002, when he was promoted after interviewing for the Denver Nuggets' head-coaching opening.

Sources told ESPN.com that the Mavericks were somewhat forced into these changes by the league office, because of the NBA's apparent contractual objections over Dallas' plans to keep Johnson on its active roster as a player-coach. Since the advent of the salary cap for the 1983-84 season, the league has forbidden teams from employing the player-coach concept.

A press conference is scheduled for later Thursday to announce the moves.

Johnson, though, has said repeatedly that he had no intention of playing this season unless an emergency demanded it. Joining Del Harris at the forefront of Nelson's staff brings Johnson one step closer to succeeding the elder Nelson as the Mavericks' next coach, a move widely seen as inevitable. Nelson, who turned 64 in May, has one season left on his contract after this one.

The younger Nelson has been angling to spend more time in his front-office role anyway, which seems even more sensible now that Johnson is by far the in-house favorite to be the next head coach. Since his promotion, Donnie Nelson has established himself as Cuban's right-hand man when it comes to roster assembly, with Don Nelson third on the ladder for decision-making.

Johnson played for six teams in his 16 years in the NBA, averaging 8.4 points and 5.5 assists per game and helping San Antonio win its first championship in 1999.

[boutons]

AJ has lot of coaching dues to pay, like (asst) coaching crap teams at crap franchises, before he gets handed a major franchise like DAL.

hhmm, then again Larry Brown did observe that "almost anybody" can be an NBA coach these days, referring to Frank taking over coaching the Nets.

[SequSpur]

Avery is not the reason the Spurs won a championship. The Spurs won finally because David and Tim got it done. Both on offense and defense. Avery is way overrated.