Avery Johnson inherited a Mavs team as his first head coaching job and totally botched it. Byron Scott had a Jason Kidd in his prime and a pretty stacked Nets team that beat up on an extremely easy eastern conference. The jury is still out on Nate imo. He's had some pretty talented teams over the past few seasons and hasn't been able to get past the first round so I don't think he is definitely in the "proves this point" category.
Avery has a career winning percentage over 600, and that's including having to coach the crpa that was NJ last season in a rebuilding effort. Yep, byron Scott won with good teams. What a concept. Thing is, that;s how it works. Coaches win, generally, with good teams and lose with bad ones. Ground breaking, I know. But, we just pointed out a good group of PGs who have done good as coaches. Did they have good teams? Yep. Don't know what to tell you though. Good teams win. Coaches might make a small difference.
I wish it weren't so, but I've long believed how well a coach relates to the general public matters a great deal in the NBA. It's a PR driven league and having a guy with some celebrity and a gift for gab is an asset for a franchise whether they're contending or not. Following his long playing career and now a few years as a top national analysts, Mark Jackson is probably the most well known person associated with the Warriors including The Logo. In this league where it's acknowledged that stars get calls... probably not a bad idea to add another star those are the same reasons I'd suggested McHale as a potential Blazer coach. He'd have been the face of the franchise for much of the country and the nightly go to quote machine. Whatever people think of Nate, I'd hope we can all agree that he's neither a basketball royalty celeb or an especially bubbly outgoing personality. Hell, throw Rick Adelman in there too. I'd like to see Portland land another star... sign Jaric! STOMP
