A month ago, Devin Harris was out the door in New Jersey.  The Nets were going to win the Draft Lottery and immediately start looking for suitors who'd want a tarnished All-Star.  John Wall was the Nets' future. Best to give him the keys to the car. 

Then, the ping pong balls sent the team in another direction and Harris' resurgence as the Nets' on-court leader was secured.  Now, with his old mentor in charge as head coach, there's no doubt the Nets are banking a lot on the 27-year-old, whose stock as a point guard, as top NBA player and team leader suffered greatly during the 12-70 disaster.

Avery Johnson made it clear Harris is not what he can be, what he should be, even what he was. Getting him back there is a top priority for Johnson.

"We're going to get Devin back to playing the type of basketball that I know he's capable of playing," Johnson said. And Harris knows he is not exempt from Johnson's rules of accountability.  Still, It's Devin's team again.

• Despite rocky past, Devin Harris sees Avery Johnson as dream coach, not nightmare - Dave D'Alessandro - Star-Ledger
• Devin: No Avery feud in NJ - Julian Garcia - New York Daily News
• Johnson sure Nets can go from worst to first - Fred Kerber - New York Post
• Avery, Harris Bonded For Nets - Fred Kerber - New York Post
  
• Devin Harris is on welcome wagon for Avery Johnson - Al Iannazzone - The Record
• Johnson gives Nets reason to believe - Al Iannazzone - The Nets Insider
  
• Sullivan: Beating odds is Avery Johnson's specialty - Tara Sullivan - The Record
• Avery Johnson is exactly what New Jersey Nets need - Ian O'Connor - ESPN New York
• Craving a General, the Nets Hire Avery Johnson as Coach - Harvey Araton - New York Times
• Ex-Mav Harris on playing again for Avery Johnson: 'We'll probably still butt heads' but will be 'good fit' - Dallas Morning News
  

Avery Johnson opened Tuesday's press conference by promising, as did his boss, to win the NBA championship.  "I'm going to work morning, noon and night to get the Big Trophy," said Johnson.

"The sky's the limit," said Johnson in front of dozens of reporters and cameramen at the PNY Center. "We can go from worst to first."

Among the other highlights of the the press conference:

--"Brook Lopez is a really terrifically talented center who I am looking forward to working with...I see a lot of potential in Brook. He should be a perennial All-Star and we are trying to help him get there."

--"We're going to get Devin Harris back to playing the type of basketball we know he's capable of playing..."Devin is a little older, he knows my system, and I can give him the reigns now."

--"We're in a great situation here with the Nets.  We've got plenty of draft picks, quite a bit of money to spend. We have an owner who is all in, and he wants to win and he wants to win now...just a great basketball mind in Rod Thorn that's heading up this whole deal and I'm just happy to be part of the team."

--"I'm all about dreaming.  I have a big dream in my mind right now in terms of where this franchise can go and where we can take it.  I see all of the possibilities, but that's going to require a lot of discipline and details and determination."

--"You look at what we already have with Devin and Brook Lopez and Courtney Lee and some of the other guys we already have on our team, Yi (Jianlian), if we add the right free agents, three really good draft prospects to our existing roster...we feel that team can have an opportunity to be really good."

At one member of last year's 12-70 team was impressed with the day's events.  "It's good to see the culture change around here," said Lopez.

• NETS: Avery Johnson Press Conference Complete (Video) - New Jersey Nets
• NETS: Avery Johnson Press Conference Highlights (Video) - New Jersey Nets
• NETS: Avery Johnson Interview (Video) - Jaclyn Sabol - New Jersey Nets
• NETS: Devin Harris Interview (Video) - Jaclyn Sabol - New Jersey Nets
• Yankee Stadium Spotlight: Johnson on his Nets (Video) - YES Network
• Avery Johnson Interview (Audio) - Michael Kay - ESPN Radio
  
• NetsBasketball on Twitter - Ben Couch - Twitter
• Nets coach Avery Johnson Spells It Out For You - Dave D'Alessandro - Nets Blast
• Harris on hand to welcome Johnson to Nets - Fred Kerber - New York Post
• Avery Johnson says Nets 'can go from worst to first' - Julian Garcia - New York Daily News
  
• Avery Brings Optmism, Direction to Nets - Al Iannazzone - In the 'Zzone
• Al Iannazzone Interview (Video) - Bob Lorenz - YES Network
  
• Avery Johnson says sky is the limit for lowly Nets - Tom Canavan - AP
• Johnson stepping into a whole different world in Jersey - John Schuhmann - NBA.com
• Avery Johnson optimistic in introductory conference - John Krolik - NBC Sports
  
• Avery Johnson Brings Hope To New Jersey - Daniel Marks - DIME
• Johnson dreams high as he takes over - Adam Zagoria - SNY
• Accountability returns to Nets coaching - Gregory Hrinya - Examiner
  
• NETS: Johnson Debuts, Offers 'Discipline, Details and Determination' - Ben Couch - New Jersey Nets
  

ESPN's Marc Stein is reporting former Raptors coach Sam Mitchell will be interviewed this week by the Nets as a potential top assistant to Avery Johnson, who wants at least one former head coach on the bench with him in New Jersey. Mitchell, NBA Coach of the Year in 2007, has been out of work since being fired by Toronto in 2008.

"Being an assistant would be fine," Mitchell told the Toronto Sun recently. "But I want to make sure it’s in a good place -- a team that not only has a chance to win, but to be with someone who brings something different to me, where I can actually learn something."

The hire, if it comes about, would put two coaches of the year on the Nets bench next season, a season after someone with no head coaching experience, Kiki Vandeweghe, ran the team for most of the season.  Rod Thorn told reporters Tuesday he would have no problem recommending anyone from the previous staff but that it would be up to Johnson. He added they're just starting to interview potential candidates, among them Joe Prunty of the Blazers.

• Nets interested in Mitchell for assistant gig - Marc Stein - ESPN
  

The billionaire owner was dressed in a sports jacket, t-shirt and jeans, the new coach in a suit, dress shirt and red (power) tie.  And they were talking Nets at the NBA Finals in Boston...courtside, of course. Mikhail Prokhorov flew in from Moscow Saturday, but will NOT be at the team's introductory press conference for Avery Johnson Tuesday. Instead, the two met privately for two hours before Game 5, then were driven, "presumably in a very nice car", as Julian Garcia put it, to TD North Garden.

Prokhorov's marching orders to "The Little General": "We need to create a dynasty team".

Sitting directly behind Prokhorov...someone he can't talk business with until July 1: Dwyane Wade. Will they talk then? "I can tell you that the evening of the 30th of June," Prokhorov told Newsday, "I won't be staying in Moscow." Johnson said there was no conversation. "I'm not even looking," Johnson told Fred Kerber. "One, because he beat me in the Finals [in 2006] and two because I don't want to get fined."

The Russian billionaire, who "grew up behind the Iron Curtain," told Newsday's Alan Hahn that the experience of being at the NBA Finals was "mind-blowing." Asked if the atmosphere made him excited to build the Nets to championship level, Prokhorov grinned. "I'm sure we can do better," he said. "Better."

Dave D'Alessandro and Al Iannazzone spoke this week with Avery Johnson's mentor, Gregg Popovich, about a moment that for Pop defines the Nets' new coach.  It's February 1999, the lockout season, and the Spurs are in trouble, opening the up 6-8, very un-Spur-like.  The coach and his point guard are sitting at the coach's table, when Johnson launches.

"That night, Avery is in my living room," Popovich recalled in great detail...and with great flourish. "and he says with that voice of his, ‘Pop, we’ve got to peck and roooollll.’ Pick and roll. I was running all this motion stuff, the stuff that looks so pretty on paper. But Avery said, 'This is the NBAyyyyy, we have to play peck-and-roooollll, we have to use Tim like this, and David (Robinson) like this.'"

And so the coach, knowing of his point guard's brilliant mind and his courage to speak it, goes along and the Spurs go on a run that leads to the NBA championship.  That's one side of Johnson.  The other, Pop says, is something the Nets haven't seen in a while.

"If he has trouble with a player or if there is somebody who doesn’t buy in, it’s because the guy doesn’t have the character and mental toughness to persevere and understand that things don’t come easy," added Popovich. "If somebody is not willing to put in the time and the effort, that guy is not going to play for Avery. He’s looking for men."

• Popovich recognized 'strength, intellect' in Johnson years ago - Dave D'Alessandro - Star-Ledger
• Making of Nets’ Little General - Al Iannazzone - The Record
• Avery Johnson come very highly recommended... by Greg Popovich - Matt Moore - NBC Sports
  

ESPN's Marc Stein thinks Avery Johnson is one lucky coach.  He points out how he fell into a good situation six years ago when he replaced Don Nelson at the helm in Dallas, being given a top flight roster in a top flight organization.

Now, writers Stein, it's happening again ...with the Nets!?  "The set-up might not be as unreservedly inviting as it was with the Mavs, but there's little doubt Johnson just landed the best of the four jobs he's interviewed for this spring."

The reasons New Jersey is a better fit than Philadelphia, New Orleans or Atlanta are mostly familiar to Nets fans: the empty canvas; the solid young core; the $28 million in cap space; the nine draft picks in three years and the new owner from Moscow who he meets Sunday.

"There's only one direction to go with the best 12-win team in league history, given New Jersey's copious salary-cap space to use for roster upgrades this summer and the quality building blocks already in place -- center Brook Lopez and point guard Devin Harris -- to go with the No. 3 pick in the draft later this month."

Trenton Hassell has said he would like to play another two to three years after his current contract ends June 30.  But after that, suggests DIME Magazine, his time in the NBA may not be at an end.  The 31-year-old veteran is one of five current  players DIME thinks are likely to become head coaches.

DIME's Daniel Marks cites Hassell's professionalism this year as one reason why he's got the chops to run a team. "Hassell would frequently go from starting one game to being benched the next three. It was a season of up-and-downs, not just for him but the entire team, yet he never complained and never requested a trade." In fact, Marks compared Hassell to Avery Johnson.

• 5 NBA Players Likely To Become Head Coaches - Daniel Marks - DIME