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Avery Johnson, then the coach of the Dallas Mavericks, accepts the 2006 NBA coach of the year award. (AP photo)
How's this for one week in the life of an athletics director who had never before hired a men's basketball coach? Bill Battle swung and missed on a coach who's taken a team to the Final Four and has reportedly hit on a coach who's taken a team to the NBA Finals.
If Avery Johnson can make that kind of adjustment on a regular basis, Alabama is going to start winning a lot more basketball games.
Do they give an award for Comeback AD of the Year? Hiring Johnson would make Battle the runaway winner for 2015.
A lesser athletics director would've panicked when Gregg Marshall, after a lengthy public courtship, left Battle at the altar. A lesser athletics director would've rushed out to lessen the embarrassment and change the narrative by settling for a mid-major flavor of the month.
Not Battle. He may be a relative newcomer when it comes to running a major college athletic department, but he's an accomplished veteran at the art of the deal.
He aimed high with Marshall and came up short. He regrouped and reconsidered his options, talking to such promising names as Steve Prohm and Brad Underwood. Battle also expanded his horizons outside the college coaching box and, two weeks after I first mentioned Johnson's interest in the job, it looks like the AD has landed a man who checks off every box Alabama wanted and needed.
Box 1: A proven winner at the highest level. Check. Johnson won 74 percent of his regular-season games in four years with the Dallas Mavericks and guided the Mavs to the 2006 NBA Finals. How many Alabama coaches have won 74 percent of their games? One. The not-so-immortal Griff Harsh went 13-4 (.765) during his one season in 1915-16.
Johnson was less successful in New Jersey, but who isn't? Ask John Calipari.
Box 2: A big name that Alabama fans wouldn't have to Google. Double check. Johnson played 16 years in the NBA and hit the shot to win the NBA Finals in 1999 with the San Antonio Spurs, where he went to school under the tutelage of masterful head coach Gregg Popovich. The Spurs have retired Johnson's No. 6.
He also was named the 2006 NBA coach of the year in his first year as the boss of the Mavericks. Name recognition will not be a problem for recruits and their families.
Box 3: The personality to sell the program and not sit back while Bruce Pearl soaks up all the ink and inhales all the airtime in the state. Triple check.
There's a reason ESPN has hired Johnson not once but twice to work as an NBA analyst. He's got more personality than Wimp Sanderson has plaid jackets, and his smile could light up even Coleman Coliseum. Everyone from comedian Kevin Hart to retired NBA star Chris Webber does an impression of him and that high-pitched, high-RPM New Orleans accent, but voice recognition won't be a problem, either.
Get used to that voice. You'll hear it, early and often. Unlike his predecessor, Johnson won't mind being the very visible face of the program.
For all the positives Johnson brings, there are some legitimate concerns, too. He hasn't coached anywhere in two years, since Brooklyn fired him with a 14-14 record in his third season with the Nets, and he's never coached college basketball, even as an assistant.
It'll be critical that Johnson hire the right staff. One name to watch: Roy Rogers, the former Alabama center who's now an assistant with the NBA's Washington Wizards. Adding at least one assistant coach with extensive college recruiting experience should be a must.
But those are details for another day. Alabama basketball just became a larger dot on the map by hiring someone who's done things as a player and coach that Calipari, Pearl, Ben Howland and Rick Barnes haven't.
Johnson will win the press conference, and he won't stop there, all because Battle didn't turn into Chicken Little. Turns out the sky didn't fall when Marshall said thanks but no thanks. Instead the universe opened up to a rare and exciting possibility.
So the Alabama football parallel continues. Marshall is the roundball equivalent of Rich Rodriguez, and Johnson has a chance to be the Nick Saban of hoops.
Coach Saban, meet the Little General. Alabama basketball, welcome back to relevance. Coach Battle, job well done.