Sorry, I didn't realize he was incapable of it...Quote:
Originally Posted by MaNuMaNiAc
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Sorry, I didn't realize he was incapable of it...Quote:
Originally Posted by MaNuMaNiAc
I agree, some is ok.Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny RIngo
And I'm not sure what Solid D-orks' problem is, but I was basically saying that all along - some copying is fine, but imo Avery goes too far with it.
Having JET off the bench for the mavs has done what the author said, given them instant firepower. But the main thing it did was make him NOT the point guard.
Devin is now the point guard...period. Jason's role is now different and simplified. His role now is to come in and light it up, he can still run the team but his pounding of the ball so much isn't as detrimental as it was before when he was starting.
So it sort of solved the mavs SG problem (i.e. jet ) who was too small to play with devin and moved him to the bench where he can be the scoring point guard that he's most talented at.
:lol after the Mavs-Spurs game highlights about the super-subs.
the exchange on TNT, " Barkeley: Ginobili best 6th man in the NBA!
Kenny : Jason Terry might have something to say about that
Barkley : who would you rather have Ginobili or Jason Terry?
Kenny: Eh, I'd rather have Ginobili.
Barkley : then shut the hell up. (laughter)"
Quote:
Originally Posted by ManuTim_best of Fwiendz
:lol
AJ is a born leader. He was a coach even when he was a player. AJ has always been his own man, walking to his own beat, with a conviction that shines through - from his belief in God to his never-quit attitude.
Every good man has his mentors along the way. AJ gave credit to his mentors, Nellie and Pop, when he accepted his Coach of the Year award.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baske...-johnson_x.htm
Hail to the Chief: Mavs reflect toughness of coach Johnson
Updated 6/11/2006 11:46 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions |
Enlarge By Ronald Martinez, Getty Images
Avery Johnson has instilled a tough-minded attitude in his former run-and-gun Mavericks
COACH'S KINDER, GENTLER SIDE
Avery Johnson will never be mistaken for a players' coach, but he has been known to send their wives flowers on Mother's Day.
"The relationship I have with their families is critical," he said Wednesday. "I've tried to show them I care just as much about them as individuals as I do about winning."
He says his credibility is his biggest strength as a coach. "After playing over a thousand games, when I wasn't necessarily invited to the party, I had to come in through the back door. (But) you still have to communicate and teach."
By Greg Boeck, USA TODAY
DALLAS — Don't be fooled by the soprano-twanged, Southern accent. Avery Johnson wasn't a high-pitched pushover as a championship-winning point guard who proved general managers wrong. Nor is he as a ring-pursuing coach who is proving his grandmother right.
The 5-foot-11 coach of the Dallas Mavericks possesses a Soprano-like toughness that belies his humble demeanor and is the bedrock of his uncommon take-charge qualities.
There's no question who's at the helm of a Dallas team that continues its pursuit of the franchise's first title with the tip-off of the NBA Finals tonight at home against the Miami Heat.
"Avery has gone from being the Little General (his nickname as a player) to the Commander in Chief," Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says.
From the defensive mind-set he demanded of a team that tried to outscore opponents to the goal of winning a championship for a franchise that was the laughingstock of the league in the '90s, Johnson is in charge.
"Leadership, passion, vision," general manager Donn Nelson answered unhesitatingly when asked what Johnson brought to the team 15 months ago, when he took over from the man who groomed him, Don Nelson.
Johnson "has the whole package," Don Nelson, the GM's father, said at the time.
"There is nothing he doesn't have except experience."
Johnson, 41, hasn't disappointed. He finished out the 2004-05 season with a 16-2 record and won 66 of his first 82 games, the best start in NBA history and the fastest coach to reach the 50-win mark (in 62 games).
This season he coached the Western Conference in the All-Star Game, guided Dallas to a franchise-tying 60 wins and was named coach of the year.
Dallas has closed out all three playoff series on the road, including dethroning the San Antonio Spurs, Johnson's former team led by his long-time mentor, Gregg Popovich. The Mavericks then took the run out of the run-and-stun Phoenix Suns.
"He can be tough on his players," Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki says of Johnson, "but he's always pushing us forward and trying to get the best out of his team. He's one of the greatest leaders in sports, how he handles himself and talks, his presence. Mentally, he's probably our toughest guy on the team."
Fittingly, Johnson takes his first crack at a ring against a veteran coach, Pat Riley, whom he has often been compared to because of his attention to details and motivational skills.
"I've been accused of being a 'little Pat Riley' at times," Johnson says. "And I take that as a compliment."
Self-motivated leader
Johnson was born to lead. That's what his grandmother told him when he was growing up in New Orleans.
"She told me, 'Son, you're going to coach or preach because you're gifted to do one,' " Johnson says, recalling the words of Kitty Johnson, now 99. "In a way, I feel I'm doing both."
From the beginning, Grandma saw something special in her grandson.
"He was different from all the rest of the children," she says. "He was a bright little boy.
"I used to try to give him money like the rest of the children, but he said, 'Grandma, don't give me your money. When I get a job, I'm going to give you money.' He always had plenty of sense."
She saw his potential, but it was his father, now deceased, who prepped Johnson for the job, instilling the toughness that is the identity of his Mavericks team.
Jim Johnson was a stock clerk in an electrical store in New Orleans, raising a family without an education but with a determination to have his eight children succeed.
"My dad," says Johnson, second youngest in the family, "breathed that toughness in me. He was a hard-nosed guy, a fighter."
His father came to all his youth games and didn't hesitate to critique him.
"He didn't care how many points I scored or how many home runs I hit," Johnson says. "Whenever he thought I played soft, that's what he was really upset about."
Johnson's toughness and leadership qualities were revealed in high school, at all-boys St. Augustine's in the middle of New Orleans. An assistant coach then was Bernard Griffith, hired last fall by Johnson as part of his Mavericks' player development staff after Hurricane Katrina closed the school.
"He was probably a better coach in high school than I was," says Griffith, who later won four state championships at St. Augustine as head coach. "He was a teacher as a player and as a student. He could convince the other guys not to do some of the things you get involved in at that age.
"He was self-motivated to be successful, so nobody could sit back and not be motivated. He'd get on you."
Johnson's team went 35-0 his senior season in 1983 and won the state title, but it's his toughness that Griffith remembers most.
"You had to be tough, especially small of stature like him," Griffith says. "You had to be able to stand your ground and hold up to your convictions and the direction your parents gave."
A coach on the court, too
Johnson hasn't wavered since. He led the nation in assists his junior and senior seasons at Southern University in New Orleans but wasn't selected in the 1988 NBA draft.
Undeterred, he signed as a free agent with the Seattle SuperSonics. He bounced around with six teams — he was traded three times and cut twice, once on Christmas Eve in an airport — before finding a home as the coach on the floor for the Spurs and Popovich in the mid '90s.
He wasn't gifted with size or All-Star talent, but he succeeded as a hard-working, hard-pushing, unselfish, blue-collar athlete and communicator. The Spurs had two future Hall of Famers on the roster in David Robinson and Tim Duncan, but San Antonio was Johnson's team.
Even then, he didn't hesitate calling out the stars, rallying the role players. "Avery was a coach even when he was a player. Everybody knew that," Popovich says.
Johnson's tenure with the Spurs climaxed in a championship in 1999. The point guard made the clinching basket in the closeout game against the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden.
Nothing has changed since, except he's wearing a suit instead of a uniform.
"The credibility comes with the ring he has on his finger," says former player Derek Harper, now a Dallas sports anchor. "Even a superstar like Dirk Nowitzki listens to what he has to say. When you have their attention, you can lead them."
Johnson says he wanted to "stretch" his players' thinking from the outset this season.
" 'Don't be afraid to say if we don't get to the Finals it's a lost season. That's OK,' " he says. "It puts more pressure on the players, on us as coaches. 'Aim for excellence.' That's excellence, getting to the Finals."
Along the way, he massaged egos, molded talent, preached his message — "our way, our will, our win" — and, assistant coach Del Harris says, "kicked butt and patted backs."
Jason Terry got a taste of the latter before the season, when Johnson pulled him aside and told him his role as point guard was to "quarterback the team like he did his teams. We're different players, but he let me play my game. He made us buy into what he's selling."
Nowitzki experienced the former in the playoffs. After a dull, 11-point game in a loss to the Suns, Johnson called Nowitzki into his office and "let me have it." He prodded Nowitzki to drive to the basket rather than settle for three-pointers, and the star responded with a 50-point game that turned around the series.
"That team," Suns coach Mike D'Antoni says, "reflects (Johnson's) personality. They are tough. They're not backing down. They come at you."
More than anything, Johnson is prepared for the showdown against Miami and Riley, who has four championship rings and 149 more playoff wins. Johnson won't back down.
"We're delighted to be here," Johnson says. "But we're not satisfied. We signed up to win the championship."
My contention is that Avery takes too much from Pop. I can't make it any simpler for you than that. If you can't even understand at least that much then ask one of your Junior High teachers to explain it.
Nice YEAR-OLD article that IN NO WAY refutes my contention. Here's one from YESTERDAY specifically ABOUT Avery taking from Pop:
Avery learning from Pop that less is more
By JAN HUBBARD
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
When San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich first decided that the Spurs could be successful by working less, he had to explain it to the players.
They did not understand.
The radical downsizing came last season on days of all home games. Instead of meeting for the traditional morning shootaround, Popovich told the players to rest and simply report for the night game.
At first, Popovich said, the players looked at him like he was speaking Russian, which he can do thanks to four years of studying the language at the Air Force Academy and a stint as a military intelligence officer in Eastern Europe.
"You're supposed to shoot around on the day of the game," was how Popovich interpreted their looks.
The Spurs already had a light work schedule. In a league where off-day practices are routinely two hours or more, Popovich had a maverick approach.
"When we're rolling into the season," Popovich said, "a practice more than an hour is a rarity for us."
Instead of being governed by tradition, Popovich created his own. Short practices on off-days, no practices on game days and a belief that in the marathon 82-game season, rest would pay off.
"I don't have any empirical formula to prove that it added up," Popovich said. "I have no proof that this is a brilliant piece of strategy on my part."
Well, yes, he does. In June, the Spurs won their fourth title in nine years.
"Yeah, but if we'd lost," Popovich said, "everybody would have said it was because we didn't practice enough."
As fascinating as Popovich's approach is, it becomes even more interesting for those who follow the Mavericks because of changes made by Avery Johnson this season.
Johnson is as intense as any military officer. He had to be to survive 16 seasons in the NBA at 5-foot-10, 175 pounds. As a player, he was driven and as a coach, he is demanding.
But Johnson took a look at his team in the off-season and, despite winning 67 games last year, saw a team that was physically and mentally tired at the end of the season.
So he pulled back. In training camp, he had two practices the first two days and then gave the team a day off. He has continued giving the team more days off this year than he has in the past, although he will point out that on many off-days, players come to the practice facility to do weight training. But even Johnson will smile and say that he has become a calmer coach this year.
Johnson won't say, however, whether the Spurs' reduced practice schedule led to his calmer approach.
"We try to learn from all championship-caliber teams and obviously they're one of them," Johnson said. "They've won four titles in nine years, so I think everybody wants to be like them."
Johnson played five years for Popovich in San Antonio and the two are mutual admirers. Johnson contributed mightily to the Spurs' first title in 1999, when he hit an 18-foot baseline jumper with 47 seconds left to give the Spurs a 78-77 victory and a 4-1 series win over the Knicks.
During the summer, Popovich called Johnson and told him the Spurs were retiring his jersey number in December. When asked if Johnson picked his brain during any of their off-season conversations, Popovich smiled and said, "We talk about a lot of things, and we share a lot of ideas about basketball. Let's just say we learn from each other."
Popovich has the luxury of working his players less because he has the most experienced -- and oldest -- team in the league. Ten of the 14 players on the roster are 30 or older. Six of them have double-digit years of experience. And the core group has been together for three titles.
But the Mavericks are also a veteran team. Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Josh Howard, Jerry Stackhouse, Devin Harris and Erick Dampier are in their fourth season of playing together. Dallas has seven players with eight or more years of experience and six of those are 30 or older.
One 30-something who has played for both coaches is Michael Finley, who, along with Manu Ginobili, had the most difficult time adjusting to Popovich's more relaxed schedule.
"I'm a gym rat, so for me, it's an individual adjustment," Finley said. "But for the team overall, it's good. Coach knows what kind of group of guys he has. Even though practices may be limited, he knows we will work on our individual game."
When asked if he thought Johnson had adopted at least part of Popovich's philosophy, Finley said, "People forget Avery's just in his second or third year as a head coach and he's learning as well as his team is developing. You learn from some of your mistakes in the past. Maybe in the past, he worked his team out too hard and they ran out of gas at the end, so he's trying to pull back a little bit. We'll see if this experiment works for him."
Popovich often says, and repeats, that he has learned a lot from Johnson, and if that's true, then Johnson is pretty smart because the Spurs have won four titles.
But you can always get smarter. If Johnson has listened and learned from watching the Spurs and talking to their head coach, then perhaps he is as smart as Popovich says he is.
AIR OF FAMILIARITY
It's no secret that Mavericks coach Avery Johnson has taken a pointer or two from Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. But a closer look reveals that the Mavericks have patterned themselves quite a bit after their rivals from south central Texas:
San Antonio Dallas
Slashing point guard with low assist numbers Tony Parker Devin Harris
Harris is working to get to Parker's level, but their skill sets are similar.
A starting perimeter player known for defense Bruce Bowen Eddie Jones
Bowen is the better defender, but they both specialize in 'D' and the 3.
Sixth man who is arguably the team's third-best player Manu Ginobili Jason Terry
Surprising that Manu has never won a Sixth Man Award; Terry is gunning for this year's honor.
A dominant power forward Tim Duncan Dirk Nowitzki
Duncan is really a center and Dirk has a small forward's game, but both teams call them their power forwards.
Rotation of complementary centers Fabricio Oberto, Francisco Elson DeSagana Diop, Erick Dampier
If it weren't for that Duncan character, the Mavs would have the edge here.
Jan Hubbard, 817-390-7760
[email protected]
zepn, I disagree with you that AJ taking too much from Pop, or from anyone, is a bad thing...unless the behavior becomes unfruitful or unhealthy. The article I posted was for you to understand some insight about Avery being a principled leader since his youth. He is his own man, even though he has taken ideas from others like Nellie and Pop and used them himself.
I disagree that there is anything wrong with what he is doing, especially if it works for him and his team.
I think that Pop got to where he is by being a principled man, being a leader of men, and taking ideas from others and incorporating them into his system. I think AJ has some similarities in leadership style but he's not just a copy-cat or one who is not his own man. The article above gives insight about how different he is compared with others. Observing his behavior during his tenure with the Spurs has proven that to be true. He wasn't just a Pop-copy as a player and he isn't now as a coach.
Your point demonstrates selfishness, zepn. That is not a trait that Pop nor Avery exhibits in the way that they live or treat others. Sharing and using what works is okay with them both. Pop didn't set the mold on success with patent-pending.
I think AJ does give credit to others. He did at his Coach of the Year speech.
Well of course taking TOO much is a Bad Thing - by definition.
But if you want to disagree that is your right.
It has been proven that Avery's infatuation with the Spurs has been monumentally unfruitful to the extent that it prepared them well for the Spurs, but did not prepare them for the Warriors. Leading to the greatest embarrassment in NBA playoff history.
Avery has been consitently over his head as a coach and has relied on Pop and Pop's methods as a crutch. And saying this is in no way selfish because if Avery were to become his own man as I have suggested, he would have a better chance to beat the Warriors, and subsequently the Spurs. Making my suggestions supremely UN-selfish. Avery may have Given credit to Pop at some point in the past, but he does not consistently Give credit when he lifts yet another method or technique.
Jesus dude, quit trying so hard. You're embarrassing yourself. :lolQuote:
Originally Posted by zepn
...And I thought you had the good sense to shut the fuck up after being so thoroughly destroyed.
I will repeat my contention ONCE AGAIN:
There is a LIMIT to how much you can borrow/steal from someone else before it becomes immoral to even your OWN sensibilities, if not the law.
If you can refute this then do it.
If not, then crawl back in your hole and shut the fuck up.
*lol @ Kenny.Quote:
Originally Posted by ManuTim_best of Fwiendz
Manu, did indeed, filled-up his stat sheet in that game. I have him (and Josh Howard) in one of the fantasy leagues.
My lord. If you keep repeating this to yourself, does it make it true? :lol :lol :lolQuote:
Originally Posted by zepn
And no, I'm not going to substantively address your nonsensical, subjective valuation of what constitutes or does not constitute plagiarism. It's much more hilarious to watch you squirm while repeatedly clinging to the self-perpetuating assertion that you've "destroyed" someone.
What are you, ADD? Or just some perverted retard? You completely missed and skipped over the entire point so you you could HIGHLIGHT the parts about you blowing dogs? What the fuck is wrong with you?
I keep repeating it to you because you're a fucking idiot. And now you admit you have nothing substantive to say - although we knew that already, didn't we?
Wait, wait, wait. So I'm a "perverted retard" for bolding something that you wrote? Bolding pre-existing text is a greater indicator of perversion than actually coming up with the text in your head and committing it to writing?Quote:
Originally Posted by zepn
It just keeps getting better with you, doesn't it? :lol
Absolutely. It clearly shows what catches your attention and what you are drawn to. It also demonstrates that you are more comfortable with beastiality than logical argument, which composed the other 80% of my comment. You know, the part you ignored, and continue to ignore, so you can get your animal kicks.
Looks like I was right about you being a dog-sucking pervert. And afraid of actual dialogue. Please stay in Dallas.
I'd say it's much more indicative of what dominates your inner thoughts. The inspiration for such a brilliantly devised and delivered insult had to have come from somewhere.Quote:
Originally Posted by zepn
Be careful, though. You'll have to move some of those rather disturbing thoughts out of your brain to make room for the space that I am clearly occupying at this point.
Don't confuse "doesn't care" to address your logical (really? are you sure?) argument with "is incapable" of doing the same. As I noted, it's much more fun to watch you squirm as you concede increasingly more of your dome to me.
Besides, your ridiculous argument has already been rebuked time and time again in this thread, by both myself and a good portion of your fellow Spurs fans. Maybe we were all too "illogical" for you to successfully comprehend?
Quote:
Originally Posted by zepn
That is perhaps the most ridiculous statement I've ever read on this forum :lol The "law" part really makes it.
His understanding of the law is impeccable. How dare you imply otherwise? :lolQuote:
Originally Posted by mabber
Heh, don't flatter yourself, dog-sucker!
Of course you are just a Mavs troll, so I can give up on you having anything substantive, much less logical to present.
zepn is a badass
The boards have been littered with some of the most hard ass dudes I've ever encountered this morning/afternoon. That guy in the other thread who, in true bad ass form, flicked off a Mavs fan....now this guy zepn.....these dudes are fuckin raw to the bone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flight3107
You think so? Then please logically refute:Quote:
Originally Posted by mabber
There is a LIMIT to how much you can borrow/steal from someone else before it becomes immoral to even your OWN sensibilities, if not the law.
I believe it is an obvious point of fact that at some point "borrowing" something becomes "stealing", and at that same point, you are clearly breaking the law.
For instance, you can borrow a friend's truck with their knowledge, but if you borrow a stranger's truck without telling them, you are breaking the law.
Please refute this for us since you claim it "is perhaps the most ridiculous statement I've ever read on this forum"
We're waiting...
It's just sour grapes that the Spurs lost. I thought imitation was flattery.Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny RIngo
Thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by DubMcDub