Mavericks: How about Cuban, Avery in Chicago?
Cuban, Johnson could add right spice to local sports scene
He was grinning when the TV camera captured him, as if ready to ditch a heartbreak basketball team and buy a karma-tortured baseball team. Mark Cuban looked very comfortable in his dugout box seat Wednesday night, far from the right-field bleachers where he and his friends partied last fall. Unlike his last visit, when he traded e-mails with me in the press box for six innings, this stopover seemed more serious.
Because flanking him in the front row at Wrigley Field were two of Sam Zell's men. One was Ed Wilson, top executive of Tribune Broadcasting, who didn't invite Cuban to explore why one of his stumbling basketball players, Josh Howard, enjoys smoking marijuana. More to the point, Wilson likely wanted to know what Cuban thinks about TV and the Internet, which only resurrects the ongoing Cubbie dream that Zell will find Cuban to be a wild, kindred spirit and sell the franchise to America's oldest frat boy.
(Tom Cruze/Sun-Times/AP)
``I'm here to get a better feel. I'm certainly interested,'' Cuban told ESPN's Erin Andrews.
You don't park an attention magnet like Cuban by the on-deck circle, then formally show him on the telecast as play-by-play man Len Kasper comments, if you don't want speculation. Didn't Zell say last week that the team's financial books finally would be made available about now? Didn't Cuban tell me at a Bulls game months ago that he planned to eventually connect with Zell? I know, I know, Bud Selig and Jerry Reinsdorf still don't want any part of Cuban, which is yet another management conflict of interest in that the White Sox would benefit from a crosstown rival not operated by the fan-friendly, media-savvy owner of the Dallas Mavericks.
But when he stood and cheered after Geovany Soto hit his second home run of the night, a three-run shot in the fourth, didn't you think for a brief moment that it was a glimpse into the future? A fast-forward flash of the new owner in his ski cap -- ski cap? -- ready to tell his manager to change pitchers or tell an ump to go to hell? In the end, maybe the Selig-favored group headed by Chicagoan John Canning, who controls 11 percent of the Milwaukee Brewers, still wins out. Then again, to watch Zell drop f-bombs at every man and woman in his path, does anyone see the notoriously wimpy commissioner interfering if Cuban's group makes the best offer?
The most curious hook about his venture to Cubdom, of course, is that it came only one night after the postseason demise of his basketball team. And only about eight hours after Cuban used his cell phone in Chicago to dismiss coach Avery Johnson, who, in a twist that doesn't require much imagination, could wind up as coach of the Bulls while the man who fired him stumps to buy the Cubs. "It's never easy to relieve a coach of his duties, especially one of Avery's caliber," Cuban said. "He is a talented coach, and I want to thank him for his efforts the last four years and what he has done for this franchise."
It almost seemed Cuban fled to the North Side as a wounded animal looking for his next prey, knowing the Mavericks' window of opportunity is shut after a steady free-fall from a 2006 NBA Finals collapse againat Miami. But if his Cubs interest still could be no more than a pipedream, Johnson becomes an instant legitimate candidate to follow the Scott Skiles-Jim Boylan conga line. It's just a matter of how quickly John Paxson moves.
There are people in this town, people tired of paying $56 for an average ticket, who want Paxson's hide. As yet, I'm not among them, but I do hope he was awakened Wednesday by the NBA's version of a cattle prod. What has been a deliberate, sleepy coaching search suddenly takes on urgency that, depending on his response, could make or break his future. Not only is Johnson available, but Mike D'Antoni could be, too, left to dangle in Phoenix while his boss, Steve Kerr, figures out how to make a scapegoat of a popular, accomplished coach. Both men carry starpower, not to mention enough Western Conference cachet to reinvigorate weary Bulls fans and command the attention of languid, underachieving players.
I would hire Johnson. I could see his high-pitched passion coaxing full efforts from players who've stopped caring. I could see the Bulls playing purposeful defense again, the fans loving AveryBall. And I could see him being refreshed by it all, finally detached from a demanding owner, the unfufilled burden of Dirk Nowitzki, the reefer madness of Howard and the downward spiral of a team that blew its title shot. Johnson didn't become a bad coach in two years, but he did lose his team, as evidenced by the players' decision to call their own practice this week after he had given them an off day. They lacked discipline, effort, will. They quit on him, not that the internal mood was helped when Cuban made a big-splash trade for aging Jason Kidd and it backfired on the franchise. When Johnson mocked his players after Game 2 of the New Orleans series, facetiously taking blame for their missed layups and blown assignments, you knew the drum was banging slowly for him. The Hornets and Chris Paul are the future. Avery and the Mavs are past tense.
"This is something that needed to happen," he told ESPN Radio. "There's no animosity or bitterness. We all still really care about each other, but it was time to go in a different direction. … We didn't win the championship, but if you look at the whole body of work that we put together, we'll put it up against anybody."
His emphasis on discipline and grit is the perfect medicine for the Bulls. And if Johnson is hired elsewhere, I would pursue D'Antoni. It's hard to see him surviving with the Suns, particularly after Sports Illustrated's Jack McCallum -- who chronicled a season with D'Antoni in a book -- reported Wednesday that he and the franchise will go their separate ways. Kerr needs a scapegoat after the foolish trade for Shaquille O'Neal, which goes down as an all-time NBA blunder, seeing how the Suns were in the title conversation before the deal. He wants more defense, and D'Antoni is the architect of 21st-century fast-break ball, a joy to watch.
What fun if he could turn loose Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, Ty Thomas and Andres Nocioni. They wouldn't play as much defense as a Johnson team, but for the first time since the dynasty was prematurely dismantled, fans would enjoy watching the Bulls. D'Antoni's confidantes say Chicago is on his mind. Can Paxson make it happen if the man is available?
How fascinating that two jumpshooters once fed by Michael Jordan, for two of the biggest shots in Bulls history, are struggling GMs now. For that matter, so is Jordan, who needed Larry Brown to save his sad legacy as an executive as much as Brown needs Jordan to scratch his coaching itch. For a while, we thought Rick Carlisle was Paxson's main candidate. Now, he has an appetizing option or two.
He'd better get to work. You wouldn't want Jordan making the playoffs in Charlotte while the Bulls miss again. Town of mavericks that are we, a Johnson-Cuban reunion here would be a hoot, even if they never speak to each other again.
