Art Garcia | Mavs.com
Sept. 28, 2007

Avery Johnson doesn’t enter his third full season as coach of the Mavericks facing a crossroad, but facing a challenge. It’s not any different than the one he’s talked about since Day 1.

“When I took over, all I talked about was getting to the Finals and winning a championship,” Johnson said. “I haven’t backed off that.”

Johnson has built a two-decade career in pro basketball by not backing off. His vision and opinions remain as sharp as his Louisiana drawl cutting through the noise. Whether the noise is coming from roar of the crowd or the second-guessing of NBA pundits, Johnson is secure in his path for the Mavs.

The Mavericks didn’t make any major moves this summer by design. Johnson and Co. explored what was out there – yes, Kevin Garnett – but decided to stay the course and not blow up the core. Johnson is excited about the veteran addition of Eddie Jones and intrigued by the “animal” potential of Brandon Bass.

As for last season, Johnson didn’t call losing in the first round a failure. It’s not winning the title that’s the disappointment. Not what round the Mavs lost in or to whom. Celebrating the team’s successes, and there have been many, is one of the points Johnson hopes to stress.

The team gets together officially for the first time Monday at Media Day and training camp gets going full force with Tuesday morning’s first practice. The preseason opens Oct. 9 with defending champion San Antonio at American Airlines Center. The regular tips off Halloween Night at defending Eastern Conference champ Cleveland.

Mavs.com met with Johnson inside his American Airlines Center office recently to catch up before the start of camp.

Mavs.com: Tell me a little bit about your summer.
Avery Johnson: Summer has been too long overall. I like the short summers. I like summers where we only have three days as a staff to get ready for the draft and then after the draft we’ve got to get right to the Vegas summer league. I like short summers. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to have a short summer next time.

Did you get away from basketball?
I took my family to Italy for two weeks. Everybody needs a little time to get away and be with their families. Being in Italy was a real special time for our family. We were exposed to a lot of history and saw a lot of interesting sights. It was good to get away. The phone doesn’t ring as much, but basketball is always there. Other than that I’ve been here in the office pretty much working.

What have you learned about how last season ended as the summer went on?
You’re constantly learning about your team. You’re constantly learning about situations. You’re constantly learning. Every year, every team is different. I don’t think any situation is exactly the same. If it is, then you should be able to make the right decisions. Our decisions are quick and they have to be precise. When you take a step back and take a look at it, you learn certain things. A lot of the things I was concerned about last year when we were on those great winning streaks and everybody was telling the team how good we were, a lot of those situations came to pass in the playoffs.

You’ve said that you saw warning signs when you were winning. What were they?
I don’t talk about them publicly. Our team knows. We talk about it behind the scenes. You address it in different ways. One of the ways we addressed it is that some of our players have just matured. They’re going to get better. Some of it is just roster moves. We made a couple of really subtle moves that we think can be huge for us. We think Devean George being in our system another year, for example, is going to help us. Whether it’s coaching or player moves or players maturing, all of those we feel we’ve addressed, but we still don’t know what’s going to happen.

Considering the roller-coaster ride of the last two years, you’ve stayed consistent with the core built around Dirk Nowitzki. Why do you believe in that philosophy?
It gives you your best chance. At the end of the day if you win, you did it right. If you don’t win, you didn’t do it right. Historically, and from what I’ve seen, it gives you the best chance. We probably could have made a trade this year, but we’re not going to liquidate our whole team just to get one player. Then you don’t have a point guard, you don’t have center. It’s just Dirk and the other guy. We’re not going to do that. You can’t play basketball with two players and without a really strong supporting staff.

Is there a temptation when you see some “Big Ticket” items floating out there this summer?
We always think about it. We always communicate about it. That’s our job. We owe it to our fans to make the best decisions we can. You want to take a really hard look at your time and that’s I why disagree with the result of last season. The whole perception is we got upset when we lost in the first round. That really makes me laugh. We didn’t win the championship. We didn’t get to the Finals. When I took over, all I talked about was getting to the Finals and winning a championship. I haven’t backed off that. So if we had lost in the second round to Utah, would we have had a better season? We did not get to the Finals and give ourselves a chance to win the championship. That’s the only way you can win a championship. You’ve got to get to the Finals first.

So you’re saying that losing in the first round is the essentially the same as losing in the West finals.
Now people really understand how special the year before was. Coming out of that year it was like we choked. When you’re one of two teams playing in basketball, the team that wins did everything right. Their coach made all the perfect moves. Their star player made all the right moves. That’s what you deal with. That’s why I was trying to tell everybody coming out of the Finals season that we should celebrate that more. We should celebrate that accomplishment. I was dealing with my players about that all year. Don’t let anybody make you feel bad about losing in the Finals. That was a heck of an accomplishment for a young basketball team still without a lot of experience. Most of the teams that win championships have at least an experienced point guard and a great inside game. We didn’t have either and still got there. We had to battle all last year with that. I was telling the team that was an awesome opportunity and a lot of teams haven’t had a chance to get there.

Do you feel that message has sunk in?
Now they understand that and realize it wasn’t that bad. We spent so much time apologizing for losing in the Finals. We just hope to get a little bit better internal leadership. Our leaders are maturing and our young players are growing up a little bit.

How much do you communicate with Dirk in the off-season?
For some reason or another we communicated more this summer than any summer. Whereas other times I don’t know if I talked to him one time over the summer, this summer I talked to him quite a bit.

What did you talk about?
Everything. The team, life, everything.

Is that another step in his development?
Yes, in being on the same page as the head coach and we are on the same page. I’m always trying to help him see things the way I see it. More than on the court, we talk about the mental part and communication.

Is the signing of Eddie Jones similar to what you wanted to accomplish with Doug Christie?
Yes. I’m trying to get that Adrian Griffin-type player with more offense. He’s not in the best shape that he should be in right now, but we want to build it day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month. Once we get him in the type of physical condition that he needs to be in, we think he can help us.

Do you think he’ll potentially make more of an impact in the playoffs than the regular season?
I want to have it both ways. That brings up another point. We diminish the regular season so much. Here we are winning like we’ve won – we’ve won 127 games in two years – and it’s like that’s not good enough. Yes it is good. The regular season is important. Otherwise stop taking the fans’ money for 82 games and just let everybody just make the playoffs.

That’s just not the media or the fans’ perception, you hear the players talk that way. How do you reprogram them?
You absolutely have to do that. It’s valuable time. It’s hard to win games in this league.

Is that why your challenges this year are more mental?
It’s always been mental. Mentally, at first, we had to try to get them to play some defense and then mentally trying to deal with losing in the Finals and now mentally not winning the championship last year. I didn’t say losing in the first round.

Is there still a spot on this team for a Chris Webber or PJ Brown?
We’ll take a look at it if any of those guys make sense. We did sign Eddie Jones and just wait until we unleash the animal Brandon Bass.

Why have you gone with a different look at backup power forward with Bass?
We wanted somebody rough and rugged. He’s 6-8, 255 pounds and we’re going a different route. It gives me more flexibility. I didn’t have a chance to play Dirk at 3 at all last year and I like that sometimes. I had that the year before with [Keith] Van Horn. I didn’t have that last year. We hope to utilize Dirk at 3, 4 and 5 instead of just 4 and 5.

You and the franchise have made a commitment for Devin Harris as the starting point guard even though he’s not a traditional point guard.
That’s OK. Different is not always bad. Jason Terry has been different and we’ve won our share of games, and Devin is different. We feel he’s maturing and we like a lot of the things we saw last year and I like what I’ve seen this year. His body is looking stronger, he’s worked an awful lot on his shot and he has a clearer understand of what we need and what it takes.

Devin has always had the physical tools, he’s fundamentally sound and a smart kid. Is there a point when all of that needs to connect?
You’ve got to connect it all. Sometimes it takes longer for others, but he’s a kid that we obviously have made an investment in and we want that investment to pay dividends for us consistently.

Does having Devin there change Jason Terry’s role?
JT is still JT. JT is still a guy that can flat out make shots. He can play multiple positions and they play well together. They play well independent of one another and that’s what we’re excited about.

So is the shooting guard spot up for grabs like it was last year?
Yes.

You’ve had a platoon at center for the last two years. Do you want to see either Erick Dampier or DeSagana Diop grab the reins?
Yes. It’s going to be hard because Damp won’t be ready. It’ll be nice. We’re going to miss Damp. He’s one of the most underrated centers in the league. He does a lot of dirty work. We’re going to miss him for the first part of training camp and early in the season. He should be ready sometime after the beginning of the season.

How was Diop’s development been?
He’s still making some strides. In terms of rebounding and blocking shots, he’s a very smart player. He understands where we want him to get his offense more than any year.

Greg Buckner recently called Jerry Stackhouse the true leader of his team. Do you see that?
I don’t think we have a leader, but Stack does handle the locker room pretty good. Even though he’s one of our older players, I’ve seen and heard him talk about being more responsible this year because he knows the window is pretty small now.