SH Blog: Current and former NBA players around the league react to Avery Johnson firing

3 Comments

The job security of an NBA coach can be quite fragile when things go badly.

Fair or not, the coach is always the first to blame when a team does not perform up to what is expected of them. We’ve seen this with former Lakers coach Mike Brown, who was the first to lose his job this season after just five games.

On Thursday afternoon, it was announced that Brooklyn Nets coach Avery Johnson would be the second coach to be relieved of his duties this season, as Chris Sheridan predicted earlier in the morning.

Johnson, who wasn’t concerned over his job security when asked about it just a week ago, was certainly surprised by the decision. Here are his thoughts, from Roderick Boone of Newsday:

“This is a really disappointing day for me and my family,” Johnson said at a news conference at the PNY Center. ” . . . This is a difficult time. It’s something that I didn’t necessarily see coming, especially after a pretty good November. Then, obviously we lost a few games in December and you never think that when you are a .500 team, then you’re going into two more home games that something like this would happen.

“But this is ownership’s decision. This is what we sign up for. This is part of our business fair or unfair. It doesn’t matter. But again, it’s time for a new voice and the team will have a new voice and hopefully they will get back on track.”

Johnson wasn’t the only one surprised of his firing, as plenty of current and former NBA players chimed in on the matter:

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Tweet of the Night: Greg Anthony

Leave a comment
It's too early to cast my vote for #MVP but if the @ continue to play this way @ will be at the top of that discussion
@GregAnthony50
Greg Anthony

Has Carmelo Anthony played well enough this season to be atop the MVP ranks, as Greg Anthony believes?

The forward has certainly done his part on the offensive end, averaging 26.8 points – third best in the league behind Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant. After a monster 45-point performance against the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday, that average will move past Durant for second best in the league with an average of 27.7 points.

Pages: 1 2

Former, current players appear in ads for Obama, Romney

Leave a comment

We’ve had a number of political posts on our site recently, and this is another one. So if you think Raptors-Thunder is the big matchup on Nov. 6, you might not find this interesting. But we do.

Both President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney have found support among the NBA family and have put it to work in recent TV ads.

Obama’s ad is entitled, “The Greatest” and runs 60 seconds. It features Alonzo Mourning, Vince Carter, Dahntay Jones, Etan Thomas, Harrison Barnes, Juwan Howard and former WNBA player Kym Hampton.

Romney’s ad is entitled “Born and Raised in Nevada” and runs 30 seconds. It features former NBA player Greg Anthony, who says he voted for Obama in 2008 but is voting for Romney this time around.

In addition to using NBA players, both ads appear to be targeting swing states. Mourning is a fixture in Florida and Carter, Jones and Barnes all played collegiately in North Carolina. Anthony is from Las Vegas and played at UNLV.

Hat tip to Politico.com.