by Zachary Husser
A Stabbing In the “Back” took place in broad day light when the New Jersey Nets fired head basketball coach Avery Johnson yesterday. Johnson, an excellent coach with a winning record before he accepted the job to coach one of the worst franchises in the NBA two seasons ago.
Avery came from a winning tradition and came to New Jersey to try to bring a winning culture to the New Jersey Nets. However, the Team in the Swamp at the Meadowlands had no top notch players and the ownership, we the Public, and anyone else who knows anything about NBA basketball
realized that Avery and Management had to have a plan that included losing a lot of games in the first two seasons of the Coaches three year contract. The losing was a fact based on lack of talent on the Nets.
Coach Johnson took over the “Terrible Nets Team” for the 2010-11 Season and he inherited a Net Team that won 12 games in the 2009-10 Season. It didn’t take a genius to know that no great strides were going to take place those first two years. I’m sure Coach Avery Johnson, a very smart guy, had a plan in mind and the Team agreed to the course to be taken. On the way to getting talent and making the Team better, new ownership came into play. Was the plan changed and Avery didn’t know what General Manager King and the New Owner wanted to happen? Well, as we know now, King and the Owner, as the papers and other media reports state, got together and decided after 28 games that the coach of the month for November 2012 was not good enough in December 2012 to guide the New Jersey Nets. Avery went through all of the “Shit” with the Losing Franchise in the Meadowlands and as soon as the Nets get into Brooklyn’s Barclay Center, all of a sudden Coach Avery has lost his control of the Brooklyn Nets in what amounted to about three weeks. I’m not buying that “Story” and whatever GM King says is a lie!
The Nets Organization Used Avery Johnson to get the Organization back into a Franchise that believes they can win and one that has some talent. Many Players signed on to play for the Nets because Avery was the Coach. However, these players just got together this august of 2012 and some mistakes and missteps took place. I say the Nets Organization is “Bush League” and the way they mistreated Avery Johnson is why they can’t get any quality NBA folk to join up with them. People have seen what they do to quality basketball people and this “Back Stabbing” of Avery Johnson is just another step of a Coward Front Office that No NBA Qualified folks will come to assist. Phil Jackson is not coming to Brooklyn and whatever Coach does is putting himself in harms way! The Nets Administration, I include lying Billy King, the Owner, and everyone else that was in on the firing of Coach Avery Johnson needs to see a Psychiatrist The Nets Organization is worst than a D-League Franchise as far as how they operate. It’s shameful what they did to Coach Avery Johnson!
Zachary Cornell Husser is a NY/NJ Community Organizer and member of the Columbia University men’s basketball teams of 1967–70.
JAMES DOLAN on Isiah : He's a good friend of mine and of the organization and I will continue to solicit his views. He will always have strong ties to me and the team.