Kelly Dwyer of Yahoo’s Ball Don’t Lie hasn’t been shy about criticizing Avery Johnson this season – calling him previously for “punishing” Terrence Williams a D-League demotion and for benching Brook Lopez in an OT game about Phoenix – so Kelly’s latest piece about Troy Murphy and Avery Johnson’s relationship shouldn’t shock. Dwyer questions why Johnson is keeping Murphy home, and why he can’t find a way to fit a once very good player into the Nets rotation:
Because it would seem to me that a good coach gets his players to do exactly what they’ve done, for their entire career, and no more. But a great coach either works players out of their comfort zone and onto greater things, or manages to mix and match the positive contributions and mitigating factors inherent in every roster on a team’s way toward being greater than the sum of its parts.
That is to say — you’re 28th in offensive efficiency, Avery. You can’t find a place for Troy Murphy to drop some shots and create some spacing for Devin Harris'(notes) drives and Brook Lopez’s(notes) oft double-teamed forays around the hoop?
I’ll admit, as someone who really doesn’t trust Johnson as a long-term solution for this organization, reading Dwyer is like a choir of angels for me. It’s good to know there’s someone else out there in the blogging community who is a bit suspicious of a guy who I think makes decisions, not for basketball reasons, but because there are “his” guys and the the other guys. Yes, Murphy has been awful when he’s played this season, but he’s also been treated like crap by this organization and the catalyst for that, by all accounts, has been the head coach.
In a bit of a bonus this morning, let me point you towards Whoop De Damn Do, where Victor Nash makes a case to trade for Memphis’ OJ Mayo. I’m not a big Mayo guy, but he does have talent, so give this a read.
