"The first four games was the longest part of the season," Mavs swingman Jerry Stackhouse told me recently, referring to Dallas' 0-4 start. "Since then, the season has kind of breezed by."JKnott and I were discussing yesterday how much longer Dallas can handle the kind of intensity Avery Johnson is holding them under. But I'm not sure we took into consideration what Stein brings up: winning almost every single game, as it turns out, is quite a lot of fun, and I'm sure it makes Avery's yelling a lot easier to take.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Thanks, Marc
Marc Stein's daily dime story on Dallas today was great, and refreshing. I especially like the quote from Stackhouse:
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2 comments:
That is a good point. Another aspect worth considering is the relationship Avery works on with his players outside of the game. I know that it is a priority of his to really care about his players off the court as well. I know I've heard Jet talk about how Avery has impacted him on a spiritual level as well as on the court. We probably won't know how this will play out until the end of next season anyway.
I bet that does help quite a bit. I know with disciplining kids it's vital to be both strict and caring, and even though coaching adults is a very different things, I'll bet it has some parallels.
Leadership of a team, it seems to me, depends on the players recognizing both that the coach is able to lead them to be successful and that the coach will only ask of them what is reasonable, even if it's difficult.
If the players know Avery cares about them, then it's easier to trust that what he's asking is reasonable.
And they already know about the success part. Racking up an absurd regular-season record of 128-34 (79%, or a 65-win pace) over parts of three seasons is difficult to argue with. So is the first finals appearance in franchise history, regardless of what happened once they got there.
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