Deron Williams Surprised At Avery Johnson's Release

Several players had discussed their feelings about the Brooklyn Nets' canning of ex-Coach Avery Johnson. All of those who tweeted wished Avery the best of luck or showed their disgust and surprise at his departure. Unless you were MarShon Brooks, who had the most anti-climatic and emotionless tweet of them all. Deron Williams was one of the few players who had not tweeted anything, so NY Daily News talked to him.

"I was surprised," Williams said in a telephone interview with Daily News. "I never had any conversation with (GM) Billy King about not liking coach, nothing about coach Johnson. Avery was a big reason I came back, because him and Billy. So I was surprised.

The general reaction from this statement was something along the lines of "Really?!". Not too long ago Deron Williams had critiqued Avery's isolation heavy offense and praised the Utah jazz system. If anything, Deron's statement sparked questions about Avery going to the hot seat, whether it was intentional or not. Avery Johnson, possibly fearing for his job, obliged and mixed up the offense. With just a few games given to him to adjust, the Nets failed and Johnson is coach no more.

"We've never had an argument, we've never had a fight, any disagreements, anything. So, I think it was more kind of what happened in Utah, people still saying I got coach Sloan fired even though he resigned and that's going to stick with me for a while."

Although at first that sounds all fine and dandy, think about it a little more. There were NO disagreements in the worst statistical season of Deron Williams' career? That itself brings up a red flag. As a coach, Avery has to have called out Deron for his miscues and bring to his attention his faults. Even Deron himself has blamed himself. In a perfect world, Avery would have expressed his concerns with Deron and Deron would have absorbed the advice and worked on it. But that's not how the human mind generally works. Once you receive negative criticism, the general first reaction to defend yourself, thus starting an argument, even if mild. The fact that there were no altercations in a season like this is slightly alarming.

From just two blurbs alone, Deron wants to make it clear that he knows that he will be blamed for getting Avery fired, just like he was accused of getting Sloan to resign. The points he brings up is for his defense.

In the end though, Deron shows his support for Avery in multiple ways. He redirects the team's poor play to himself and then mentions that Avery Johnson's presence was a main reason he is on the Nets roster today.

"I definitely don't think the losing is coach's fault. I have to play better," Williams said. "I have to figure out how to balance. When I said the comments that our offense was heavy on isolation plays, that's a lot of our guys games. That's a lot of Joe (Johnson's) game. That's how he's coachable.

"So a lot of times I'm going to be sitting in a corner and watching him work, and that's fine. And Brook (Lopez) needs the ball on the block. I don't have the ball in my hands as much as I'm accustomed to. I'm still trying to figure out how to get going, get my offense going off of that. Is it coach Johnson's fault I'm missing wide open shots? No. That was never his fault. That's on me. I have to play better. So I never said or thought it's his fault we were losing."

What Deron says is true. The blame for the team's poor play can not all fall on Avery's shoulders. There were several winnable games that were lost due to the Brooklyn Backcourt's struggle, especially Deron Williams, who missed two game winning shots. Even Joe Johnson has shown signs of revival during the depressing December stretch.

Jerry Stackhouse also expressed his dismay.

"We had a bad month in December with a new team that's just coming together, maybe you go another month and figure out which team is really which," Stackhouse told The News. "But they decided to go in a different direction. It's tough because I'm an Avery guy. I believe in his system. I've seen his system win at a high level with a team (Dallas) that's not as talented as the group we have now. 

"I hate to see probably one of my favorite coaches of all time get fired and lose his livelihood, but now it's about us preparing and trying to salvage our season."

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