Mark Heisler:
NBA

Mavericks and Suns ponder how the West was lost

Dallas' coach is already out, and rumors are swirling about D'Antoni's fate in Phoenix. It's another sign that the tide is turning toward younger teams in the Western Conference.
Mark Heisler, NBA
May 2, 2008
You say you want a revolution (cont.): To show how fast things are changing in the West, take a look at the likely final four:

Three are rising powers (Lakers, Hornets, Jazz) with three 30-year-old starters put together.

 
The fourth is the last member of the old establishment standing, the Spurs, who have four starters over 30 all by themselves.

Meanwhile, the other traditional West powers are continuing their transition into whatever comes next.

In Dallas, owner Mark Cuban just figured out the problem with the Jason Kidd trade -- it wasn't the trade, itself, but Avery Johnson, whom he fired.

This gives Cuban the distinction of firing the winningest coach in NBA history, not to mention the 2006 coach of the year.

Johnson did the improbable, taking a high-scoring Don Nelson Mavericks team and turning it into one that defended too, posting win totals of 60 and 67, despite losing Steve Nash.

For all this season's struggles, the Mavericks were 35-17 when they acquired Kidd, 23-6 against the West.

They finished 16-14, going 10-13 against the West.

That still left Johnson with a .735 winning percentage, best for any coach with 100 wins.

Kidd was wasted in an offense that ran isolation plays with no one else moving. Making their chemistry a complete disaster, Josh Howard decided the playoffs would be a good time to detail his ongoing marijuana use.

Let's see: Can we find takers for Jason, Josh and whomever?

Nah . . .

Meanwhile in Phoenix, where the Suns took a flier on their own golden oldie, President Steve Kerr said that Mike D'Antoni has denied the SI.com report that he would leave.

Despite the differences between D'Antoni and Kerr, Kerr didn't want D'Antoni out and still doesn't.

The differences were real. D'Antoni is offense-minded and Kerr, who was on championship teams in San Antonio and Chicago, is defense-oriented.

However, the real problem was the transition from the Jerry Colangelo era, in which D'Antoni was a sun god, and the Robert Sarver era, in which his stock rose and fell.

When Suns' owner Sarver let GM Bryan Colangelo, Jerry's son, leave, he avoided a crisis by giving the popular D'Antoni control of the entire basketball operation.

But a year later, after winning 61 games and losing in the second round to San Antonio after Amare Stoudemire's suspension, D'Antoni saw the basketball operation taken away from him and given to Kerr.

Kerr, a rookie executive as well as a philosophical polar opposite, made lots of suggestions, several of which came in the media.





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