Faster than expected and at a quicker pace than other teams around the league, the Brooklyn Nets have been jellying together and in doing so have become one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.
The Nets revamped roster is being coached by Avery Johnson, who has a bit of reputation of being a control freak. Point guard Deron Williams confirms that the title of control freak is a fair assessment to describe his coach.
Williams confirmed this in an interview with the New York Daily News:
"I've heard that," Deron Williams says, cracking a smile. "At times, he likes to micro-manage the game."
Williams' comments are a little reminiscent to comments of former superstars who've played under Johnson. When Johnson was head coach of the Dallas Mavericks, Dirk Nowitzki would describe his tenure with Johnson as "a little dictatorship."
It seems that Johnson's style of coach sometimes causes conflict in his relationships with his players, but some current Nets players feel that's not the case now in Brooklyn.
"Avery's conscious of it. He's smart. He's conscious of how he has to manage Deron," says Nets guard Jerry Stackhouse, who played under Johnson in Dallas. "Before he even came to New Jersey, Deron kind of had a label of being somewhat high-maintenance because of the situation in Utah (coach Jerry Sloan was fired after an argument with Williams).
"Both of them needed to find the happy medium," Stackhouse adds. "Avery had to come back a little bit and kind of meet some of the maintenance of Deron, and Deron can't go down that path where he's looked at as a coach killer. Now they're managing their relationship to the betterment of the team. Whether either of them is being who they truly are, it really doesn't matter - as long as we're winning games. . . . But at the same time, we are who we are. You're going to have moments where who you are is going to rear its head. I think whenever that happens, they're going to clash a little bit. I think the fact they're both aware of it means it will always smooth itself out."
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