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A 14-14 start for the Brooklyn Nets after a busy offseason that saw the team re-sign Deron Williams and trade for Joe Johnson has cost head coach Avery Johnson his job.
The Nets invested a lot of resources into building a team that they thought could compete at or near the top of the standings in the Eastern Conference, only to see them sitting eighth, just ahead of the Philadelphia 76ers.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, the Nets have named former Portland head coach P.J. Carlesimo their interim head coach.
Carlesimo hasn’t been a head coach since being fired by the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008, after the team got off to a 1-12 start. That was the first season in Oklahoma City after the franchise moved from Seattle.
Avery Johnson took over the Nets in 2010. He never finished above .500 with the team, posting a career mark of 60-116 in his two-plus seasons with the franchise.
This was supposed to be the start of a new era for the Nets, who moved to a luxurious new arena in Brooklyn and were going try to steal some of the New York market from the Knicks.
As fate would have it, the Knicks are currently the second-best team in the Eastern Conference. They have a record of 21-8, and the NBA is buzzing about this return to prominence for one of its most storied franchises.
The Nets started out the season on fire, winning 11 of their first 18 games. They have fallen on hard times since, losing seven of their last 10 games. This is the second time Johnson has been fired, as he lost his job with Dallas following the 2007-08 season.