Chris Paul takes a shot at Avery Johnson

I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere but after Game 4, Hornets guard Chris Paul took a shot at Mavs coach Avery Johnson after the game on TNT.  He was asked about his own coach, Byron Scott and Paul responded by explaining how Scott allows his players to make mistakes and doesn’t pull them from the game immediately after a mistake.  He went on to say that he let’s his players play. 

If you aren’t familiar with the Dallas Mavericks and their coach Avery Johnson, then this might mean nothing but one of the big criticisms of Avery is that he is too controlling on the court.  You don’t have to read too far in between the lines to see that Paul was making a comparison to Avery when talking about his own coach.  Josh Howard has been upset ever since the Devin Harris trade and one of the big reasons that Devin was traded is because Avery never trusted him enough to let him run the team.  I think we can guess that Josh and Devin have voiced their displeasure with Avery’s style to other players around the league and most likely to Paul.  Otherwise, why would Paul make that statement…it had to be on his mind. 

Avery will probably be a good coach in his next job but his inexperience has made his current job a failure.  Anyone thinking of hiring Mark Jackson should reconsider until he has proven himself as a coach and until he has experience dealing with players and their egos as a coach and not a veteran player.  

Avery’s coaching style doesn’t produce enjoyable basketball for his players.  They don’t look like they are having any fun and I think it’s because they don’t believe in him or his style of coaching.  The Mavs are quickly becoming the Sacramento Kings as their window is closing with many of their players on the wrong side of their careers such as eddie jones, jason kidd, devean george, stackhouse, dampier, juwan howard, and tyronn lue.