How good are the Phoenix Suns this season? It may be too early to tell, but they're at least good enough to get their latest opponent's head coach fired just nine games into the season.
Byron Scott has been relieved of his coaching duties and the team will make the formal announcement at a press conference later this afternoon. This comes in the wake of a disappointing 3-6 start to the season, and, most recently, a completely lackluster and discouraging performance against the Suns in a nationally televised blowout on Wednesday night.
The Pistons' head coaching search has narrowed, with the former favorite to secure the job now apparently out of the running.
Avery Johnson was perceived as the leading candidate for the position, considering the fact that Joe Dumars had said that after the Michael Curry debacle, he wanted someone with more experience to run the team this time around. But after two days of negotiations, ESPN is reporting that contract talks have broken off, and now two assistant coaches are believed to be the front-runners for the job in Detroit.
The Rotation is a weekly study on the NBA by one of our All-Star voices. In rotation this week is Tom Ziller.
An annual tradition regular as daybreak, as the season ends a pack of coaches are mercilessly hacked to pieces by fans, media and often their own bosses. A parade of potential replacements jumps aboard the carousel. They dance, they preen ... one of them wins. A year or two or (fingers crossed) three later, said doll gets torn apart. The cycle continues.
There was a switch this season, though: the bloodletting happened during the season, as a record eight coaches met the iron maiden between opening night and Valentine's Day. Is there anyone left to execute at season's end?
Well ... yes. Of course there is. After the jump, we tell you whom and guess their replacements.
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- Amare Stoudemire knows he's on the trading block, and he knows we know. While most athletes would dodge questions about rumors with trite cliches, Stoudemire was refreshingly honest following Sunday's win in Detroit.
"I know about the rumors. I know what teams are looking. I know what teams want me," Stoudemire said. "I pretty much know everything -- I know what's going on. I'm definitely in the loop on what's happening."
I always find it interesting how, at the time a story's developing, details are often few and far between. But months later, a bunch of facts come out (or at least one person's version of them) that end up clearing the whole thing up. Such is the case with the Mavericks' firing of Avery Johnson.
We heard rumblings of a rift between Avery and some of his players during the playoffs, and thanks to Mark Cuban, we now know just how bad things got in Dallas:
"I knew after I had so many people asking to be traded," Cuban said. "I mean, I had to deal with either the players and moving them or the coach and moving him."
Cuban said the players did not speak in generalities. They told him they didn't want to come back if Johnson was still the coach.
"As you started looking deeper and deeper and deeper into things, we didn't have a choice," Cuban said. "I didn't want to fire him. That wasn't my goal."
Cuban went on to say that definitely more than five, and "close" to more than seven players asked to be traded if Johnson were to remain the coach. Between that and the melt-down during the playoffs, I suppose Cuban had no choice. Even after making a trade last season that seemed to change the Mavericks' roster for the worse, it appears that Rick Carlisle might have a better shot than his predecessor at guiding the team to some playoff success.
Next to Devin Harris, center DeSagana Diop was the clear #2 most valuable asset Dallas sent away to New Jersey in the midseason acquisition of Jason Kidd. He was the best defender the Mavericks had at a key defensive position. Surely, we would have helped some in rejecting the advances of David West and Tyson Chandler in Dallas' five-game first-round loss to New Orleans. He wouldn't have flipped the series -- but he would have helped.
Apparently, the Mavericks think so too, as the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram reports Diop has reached a five-year deal with Dallas for the full mid-level. That will take DeSagana right through his prime (he's 26), and could leave Dallas with one of the best defenders in the league at center, which seems important as Andrew Bynum, Amare Stoudemire, Al Jefferson, and Greg Oden hang around the West.
The key question, one partially answered by the signing: how will Rick Carlisle use Diop? In three seasons under Avery Johnson, Diop averaged no more than 18 minutes a game. You might blame foul trouble, but Diop recorded only 1.9 fouls per game this season in his 17 minutes with Dallas.
Johnson is (was?) a notorious micro-manager, and his constant in-game substitutions always offered an opportunity for jokes for road crowds. Diop's never going to be even so good as a Dikembe Mutombo on offense, but with a steady diet of minutes, he could at least become a Mark Eaton type anchor through his prime.
Southwest Kia has a very nice interview with Josh Howard, who made some late season noise when ESPN decided that his marijuana smoking admission was "news". But hey, when you wield the biggest media sword, that's your prerogative. So you had to see this interview, in which Howard sits down in a friendly venue and speaks at length about his offseason and the lessons he learned, kind of coming. Still, good stuff.
Highlights include: Howard admitting he learned "not to be brutally honest" (3:10), how to deal with the negativity (4:25), David Stern accepting his apology for the marijuana comments (6:11), how Rick Carlisle brings a "new energy" to the Mavericks (7:26) and the fact that he's a big fan of The Wire (8:50).
Most of the talk about the marijuana issue kicks in about 5:30 through the interview.
You know what? If I was getting paid several million dollars to coach NBA basketball, without actually even coaching, I would probably announce for a year and set up shop in a car dealership in North Texas. Avery Johnson, clearly an unemployed millionaire after my own heart, has done just that, as you can see from the new, enthusiastic ad he has fired up on the Youtubery.
I tell you what ... I agree with his philosophy here, but if Avery won't even let Devin Harris control the Mavs' offense, I would hate to see what kind of "suggestions" he makes for people purchasing cars.
The Bulls are taking their time with this whole "finding a coach" thing, interviewing just about anyone with a shred of interest in the job. According to Brian Hanley of the Chicago Sun-Times, John Paxson has already talked with ...deep breath ... Lakers assistants Brian Shaw and Kurt Rambis, current Jazz assistant Tyrone Corbin and former T'Wolves coach Dwane Casey -- and that's just this week!
Paxson was also scheduled to meet with Jeff Hornacek today and Kings assistant Chuck Person sometime this weekend, as well as John Lucas and Eric Snow sometime in the yet to be determined future. And, of course, don't forget about Celtics assistant Tom Thibodeau, who won't get permission from his current employer until Boston completes their playoff run.
Count 'em up: that's 10 names, and that doesn't include Mark Jackson, who already interviewed, nor Pistons assistants Terry Porter and Michael Curry, who have been suggested as candidates in the past. Do you notice a recurring theme with all these names? With the exception of Thibodeau and Casey, they're all former players, which makes you wonder if a career coach who never had the chance to rub elbows with Paxson as a player stands much of a chance.
How good are the Phoenix Suns this season? It may be too early to tell, but they're at least good enough to get their latest opponent's head coach fired just nine games into the season.
The Pistons' head coaching search has narrowed, with the former favorite to secure the job now apparently out of the running. 
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- 
I always find it interesting how, at the time a story's developing, details are often few and far between. But months later, a bunch of facts come out (or at least one person's version of them) that end up clearing the whole thing up. Such is the case with the Mavericks' firing of 
Next to 
The Bulls are taking their time with this whole "finding a coach" thing, interviewing just about anyone with a shred of interest in the job. According to 
