The Mavericks are officially in trouble

March 24th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

The whole “Dallas hasn’t won a game against a winning team since the Jason Kidd trade” refrain is getting a little old, but it’s also undeniably true. The Mavericks traded whatever interior defense they used to have to get a balky Kidd, and the returns have been mediocre. More and more, it looks as if Dallas’ window was shut on them in last year’s playoffs, when The Bearded One of Whom We Do Not Speak took Dirk’s confidence and crushed it in his palm.And this was all before the Mavericks lost to the Spurs last night, and lost Dirk in the process.

“I fell awkwardly, and my left leg got caught underneath me,” Nowitzki said in a news release. As Cuban left the locker room toward his suite, he held up two fingers to indicate the weeks Nowitzki is expected to miss.

Working with that rough estimate, the Mavericks will face six or seven games in the next two weeks without their anchor. They are seventh in the Western Conference, two games ahead of ninth-place Denver. Moving up is looking less likely. The No. 6 Spurs are three games up and own the tiebreaker.

While I’d never call into question the accuracy of a Mark Cuban prediction on this Real Time Reporting site, two weeks seems pretty hopeful, given that this might not be an ankle sprain. But it’s not that Dirk’s injured — it’s that even if he wasn’t, the Mavs still look like a team limping to the finish. In this year’s West, Jason Kidd and Josh Howard and an overactive Avery Johnson just aren’t enough.

Quick Avery Johnson addendum: AJ has been accused of overcoaching far too often this year, which, after watching his appearance in Black Magic, is sort of baffling. Johnson’s interview for the documentary discussed about his time at Southern University and how his former coach’s system was free-wheeling and improvisational and fast-paced and still structured, and how much he liked that. After his playing career, Johnson went on to coach under Don Nelson, who is as free-wheeling as they come. So where does this current stuff come from?

I don’t mean this to sound as if Avery Johnson isn’t capable of independent thought, but it’s pretty clear he had to have gone outside of both his college experience and what one would assume was his defining professional mentorship to create his own slow, rigid style. Maybe 90’s basketball players are just destined to slow things down to a crawl. I still don’t get it.

Avery Johnson would like you to buy his book

November 27th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanR

A few days back, Avery Johnson went batshit insane, running out onto the court to protest a call made by referee Bennett Salvatore. (For the record, it was an awful call.  Apparently the Mavs think this guy has it out for them.) In typical Mark Cuban fashion, Dallas filed an official protest to the league about said officiating in that game against the Pacers.

Johnson was ejected. Then fined. Then a reporter asked him about the whole thing and well, I don’t know what’s going on here.

Johnson was asked about the fine before taking on Washington at American Airlines Center. He smiled broadly and chuckled a bit used the opportunity to plug his yet-to-be-published book, Aspire Higher.

“In the book we have different plans like the ‘S’ plan where we talk about Standards, Systems,” he said, smile still affixed. “You have the ‘D’ plan about Dedication, Desire and Decisions. We have the ‘E’ plan about Education and Environment and Excellence. We have all of these plans.

“I was thinking though this afternoon I should call my publisher and add another plan.”

That would be the ‘C’ plan.

“In the ‘C’ plan I should have four chapters,” he continued. “One chapter should be called Conflicting Concepts, the next chapter should be called Competing Commitments, the next chapter should be called Compelling Commercials and the fourth chapter probably should be called Confused Communication.

“So I’m going to call [publisher HarperCollins] and see if they can add it in there. I think I missed the deadline.”

Obviously, Johnson didn’t want to talk about the fine directly, probably a prudent choice considering his wallet. The book, incidentally, is slated to be released in March for $29.95 hardcover. It’s meant to inspire those people at an “in between” point in their lives.

Oh, OK, this is all about shameless book promotion; I see.  Well then, let me take this opportunity to plug our line of Postmen merchandise coming out in the new year. Our best product is most definitely the PostmanR and PostmanE action figures. Each one is basically the same thing: one of us sitting on a couch with a laptop — you can’t move the body off the couch at all. You may say that’s boring and defeats the purpose of an “action” figure. I say we’re just trying to keep these as lifelike and realistic as possible.

{Via FanHouse.}