ShareThisIn 1964, the people in Dallas were fed up with Tom Landry.The Dallas Cowboys had gone 14-38-3 in their first four seasons in the NFL.The bus was broken.Shoot the driver.The restless natives of Big D were demanding a new head coach.So what did Cowboys owner Clint Murchison do?He gave Landry a new 10-year contract.And in the next 25 years, Landry gave the Cowboys 20 playoff victories, five Super Bowl appearances and two Super Bowl championships.Mark Cuban never met Clint Murchison.So Cuban did what most idiotic rich owners would do after having three seasons in a row end in disappointment.On Wednesday, he fired his head coach.He couldn't fire himself -- although it was Cuban who let Steve Nash get away four years ago, probably costing the Dallas Mavericks at least two NBA championships.There would not have been a trade for an aging, can't-shoot-a-lick Jason Kidd if Nash were still around.Firing Avery Johnson was the easy way out. Just make the young head coach the scapegoat for the Mavericks' collapse in the NBA Finals two years ago and the last two early first-round exits.Avery is gone, gone, gone even though he had a .735 regular season winning percentage in just three full seasons on the job -- even though the playoff losses in 2006 and 2007 were to a couple of coaches (Pat Riley and Don Nelson) with 2,490 NBA victories.And this year's early exit had nothing to do with coaching.The Hornets were just a better team than the Mavericks.If you have put Byron Scott on the Dallas bench and let Avery coach New Orleans -- the Hornets still would have won in five games.Yet Scott is the NBA coach of the year, and Avery is out the door.So what does Cuban do now?He will probably bring in some old has-been coach with a collection of pink slips in his pocket.Larry Brown is out, thank goodness. Charlotte brought his tired old butt out of retirement.But there are a lot of coaches-turned-announcers out there waiting for a mulligan.There's always a Van Gundy available.Why is it that I think Cuban will do something really stupid?Maybe because that's just his style.(Contact Nick Gholson of the Wichita Falls Times Record News at gholsonn(at)timesrecordnews.com.)
Firing Johnson just another Cuban blunder
Submitted by SHNS on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 13:23
Paying taxes unites us. It also divides us. People can pay five and even six times more in state and local taxes than other folks in similar circumstances making similar incomes.
Who's got your number?
In one of the fastest-growing forms of identity theft, crooks are stealing tax refunds by swiping personal information and using it to trick the Internal Revenue Service.
