Staying the course

The Mavs have run off seven consecutive 50-win seasons. The Pistons own a streak of five in row. Why? Coaching and player continuity have to rank as top of the top reasons.

“That’s why we wanted to make incremental changes, didn’t want to do anything sweeping, turn over the roster year-in and year-out,” Avery Johnson said. “I think that has something to do with it. Obviously, Flip [Sunders] has done a great job taking over there. We haven’t had as many coaching changes as some organizations in that short period. We’ve been able to have stability in both situations and the star players have been pretty consistent.”

That doesn’t mean the temptation isn’t there to making dramatic changes.

“It’s really a breath of fresh air because a lot of times you want to hit that home run,” Johnson continued. “I think that Boston had to do what they had to do because they hadn’t had any success and they had a lot of young guys, so they had to try to turn over their roster quite a bit and get two guys there that are battle-tested. But for the rest of us we think the best chance is keep the core and just add to it.”