Posted by Rob Mahoney on February 20, 2009 under Commentary | 
…Do you hear that?
Silence.
No one will be riding in on a white stallion to save the Mavericks’ season. There will be no ‘this year’s Pau Gasol.’ Instead, we’re left with the quiet resolve of a team finally forced to face facts and get something done on their own. Call me crazy, but I think I like it.
For as long as I have watched the Mavs, they’ve held the “regular season team” tag. That’s analyst-speak for “well, you never won a championship.” Fine. But most models of playoff success involve playing your best basketball at the right time, and the Mavs are doing just that.
It’s given me rose-colored glasses. Refusing to make a trade out of desperation takes a certain mental fortitude, and I really do applaud Donnie, Mark, and the Mavs staff for not blinking with the deadline staring them in the face. This team has holes, but they’ve also shown themselves to be capable of hanging with the big dogs. Can the Mavs beat the Lakers? Probably not. That doesn’t mean they can’t find their own relative level of success and at least give L.A. (or San Antonio, or whoever) a run for their money.
The problem with the Mavs isn’t necessarily an issue of talent. The bench isn’t incredibly deep, but on face a team of Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Josh Howard, and Jason Terry isn’t exactly a runt. For a team just showing signs of ‘getting it,’ that has to make you a little excited.
As it is so often in basketball, it’s not just who you are, but who your opponents are not. Aside from the Lakers and the Spurs, the rest of the West has yet to put together a convincing resume:
- The Hornets have been short of contending status all season: Tyson Chandler has been injured or ineffective, James Posey has disappointed, and the already thin bench was gutted.
- The Rockets have yet to see their team really click, and on top of that they’ve lost Rafer Alston and Tracy McGrady. Rafer has serious flaws in his game, but he’s also been a relative constant to the craziness that’s been going on in Houston. Being overly reliant on Aaron Brooks and Kyle Lowry may not be as safe of a plan as it seems, especially in T-Mac’s absence.
- The Spurs are playing well, but they’re still mortal. They lose games to small-time teams, and Manu Ginobili is going to miss some time.
- The Blazers are the Blazers. They’re everyone’s darling, but they struggle on the defensive end, still miss Steve Blake (EDIT: Blake returned on Wednesday against the Grizzlies. Thanks, David.), and have never been a team to cause the Mavs many problems.
- The Suns…played the Clippers twice. They were awesome, but I’ve got no idea where the true pulse of this team is. EDIT: ESPN just reported that Amar’e Stoudemire may “miss the rest of the season” with a partially detatched retina. Suns.com lists his recovery time as “eight weeks, depending on his healing process.”
- The Jazz are still missing Carlos Boozer, and working him back into the lineup could cause complications. Or maybe they won’t even make the playoffs. Either way.
- The Nuggets. I don’t even want to talk about the Nuggets anymore. They’re for real.
Supposing the Mavericks are truly on the ascent, isn’t a top-4 seed a reachable goal? The Lakers are a lock, the Spurs are probably down just a peg, and the Nuggets aren’t far behind. If the four spot is up for the taking, Dallas seems to be in a prime position to snatch it. All because of the confidence management showed in this core and in the abilities of this team.
There’s a great possibility that in a week or two I’m going to eat my words. The Mavs tend to do that to me. But look at what the Mavs have done without Jason Terry. Look at how Josh Howard has steadily improved. Look at how Jason Kidd has been contributing across the board. Look at how Antoine Wright has stepped up in Terry’s absence. Factor in a healthy Terry and possibly some marginal production from Jerry Stackhouse, and things could get interesting. Above all, though, look at how all of this improvement hasn’t come at the expense of Dirk’s game. The players look comfortable, the coach is trusting, and it just might be all coming together for the boys in blue.
I just hope I didn’t jinx it.
Posted by Rob Mahoney on February 19, 2009 under Rumors |
About half an hour until the deadline, and not much out of Mavs-land. Considering the Mavs most expendable trade asset (Jerry Stackhouse’s contract) can actually be used over the summer (the Mavs have until August to turn down the non-guaranteed portion of his deal), I don’t think they’ll be panicking. Hell, the Blazers aren’t panicking, and that’s with Raef Lafrentz’s mammoth expiring contract. Here’s the latest chatter from around the interwebs:
- Mark Cuban, via Eddie Sefko’s piece this morning: “‘I don’t know that there’s a whole lot more that’s going to be done,’ owner Mark Cuban said. ‘Everybody’s looking to do the same thing, save money and to save cap room [for the future]. It’s hard to do both.’”
- Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo Sports: “‘It feels like Dallas has 100 different scenarios juggling in the air,’ one Western Conference executive said Thursday.”
- Eddie Sefko, DMN Mavs Blog: “You never know when a rebound will fall in your lap. And the Mavericks are still working the trade grapevine to see if anything crazy happens in the last hour. Doesn’t seem likely, but you never know with this bunch.”
- Mike Fisher, DallasBasketball.com: “‘How many trade offers have you had?’ Donnie [Nelson] was asked on Wednesday night. ‘Today? Seventy-five. Maybe 100. A lot,’ he responded. ‘I just got five in the 45 minutes I’ve been talking to you guys.’”
Here are the completed trades of the day:
- The Kings trade Bobby Brown and Shelden Williams to the Timberwolves for Rashad McCants and Calvin Booth. The motivations for this deal are largely financial, although Bobby Brown showed potential in the summer league and I’m confident Rashad McCants can be a solid rotation player. Shelden Williams may still have a few tricks up his sleeve, but Calvin Booth’s deal expires this summer.
- The Knicks trade Malik Rose and cash to the Thunder for Chris Wilcox. I don’t get this one at all. It’s a no-brainer from the Knicks perspective; both players have expiring deals, and their production levels aren’t even comparable. I doubt Wilcox will re-sign with NY, but they’ll get a free look at a much better player. If you can figure out what’s in it for OKC, please, by all means.
- The Bulls trade Larry Hughes to the Knicks for Tim Thomas, Anthony Roberson, and Jerome James. Jerome James is likely to retire after this season, meaning most if not all of his 2009-2010 salary will be covered by insurance. This could be the Knicks trying to consolidate their deals into one neat little package, or maybe D’Antoni seems some real value in Hughes. Either way, if for whatever reason the Knicks do decide to play the trade market next year, Hughes’ expiring deal will be worth more to teams than Thomas’. The Bulls can plug Thomas into Nocioni’s role, and on top of that they should save some coin if Jerome James retires as planned. Anthony Roberson’s a freebie.
- The Bulls trade Thabo Sefolosha to the Thunder for a nondescript future first rounder. More on this as it’s confirmed; I haven’t seen a release yet.
- The Kings waive Mikki Moore. The Cavs and the Celtics are the early favorites to bid for his services (each has at least part of their midlevel exception remaining).
- Three-team deal: the Magic acquire Rafer Alston, the Rockets acquire Kyle Lowry and Brian Cook, and the Grizzlies acquire Orlando’s first round pick. Rafer’s got the experience and did a surprisingly good job during that 22-game win streak last season, so why risk changing point guards with T-Mac already on the shelf? Even if Lowry is younger and a marginal upgrade, aren’t the Rockets hinging an awful lot on the shoulders of a young point guard that has shown little to no improvement in his first NBA seasons and has looked shaky as a starter. Magic fans are in for quite the headache, and the Grizz are saving up their lunch money.
- Another three-teamer: the Raptors get Patrick O’Bryant, the Kings get Will Solomon, and the Celtics get a virtually nonexistent second round pick that’s as conditional as fine print. No comment.
Fin. Done. It’s over. These are the Mavs you’ll see for the rest of the season, folks — for better or worse.
Tags: Bobby Brown, Brian Cook, Calvin Booth, Chris Wilcox, Jerome James, Kyle Lowry, Larry Hughes, Malik Rose, Mikki Moore, Patrick O'Bryant, Rafer Alston, Rashad McCants, Shelden Williams, Thabo Sefolosha, Tim Thomas, Will Solomon
Posted by Rob Mahoney on under Recaps |
Photo by AP Photo/LM Otero.
Box Score — Play-By-Play — Shot Chart — GameFlow
“Progress comes from the intelligent use of experience.”
-Elbert Hubbard
Man, that’s a low-scoring game. It could have a little something to do with the fact that I missed the second half of the game because I had a little intramural game of my own to attend. We lost, and I am totally pissed. But that’s a story for another day.
All I have to go on are my notes from the first half, mostly because I feel a little dirty about going through the AP recap and forming my assumptions on those terms. So here are some of my thoughts from last night’s affair:
- Josh Howard did not score well in the first half. He was something like 1-7 in the 1st quarter, but he did a good job of balancing his shoot-first mentality by rounding out the box score (4 assists and 3 rebounds in the first). It’s these types of quarters that can make Josh a valuable player even when he’s not scoring, and that just might be what the Mavs need. I’d rather he facilitate the flow of the offense rather than trying to be Plan B, and if he does that he just might find it even easier to get involved points-wise.
- I get the feeling that when Brandon Bass sees Ryan Anderson guarding him, he salivates…no homo.
- It’s about sending a message - Harris dominated Kidd in the first match-up, and this time around he wasn’t having nunnuvit. He hit three three-pointers early, all while exemplifying “letting the offense come to him.”
- For what it’s worth, I thought Antoine Wright played good defense on Vince Carter in the early going. He finished the first quarter with 10 points on 5-7 shooting, but most of those were “good D, better O” moments: crazy spin moves, fadeaways, and contested attempts. Judging by his final FG% (he finished the night at 33.3%), I’m guessing it caught up to him.
- Oddly enough, Devin Harris and Josh Howard ended up guarding each other a lot in the first quarter. Huh.
- I’ve made note of this before, but apparently no one listens to me: zones against the Mavs do not work. The team wants to shoot jump shots and Dirk wants to operate out of the high post. So stop it, Nets, you’re just embarassing yourselves.
- Dirk went nuts in the second, making up for his first quarter disappearance with 16 points. Notably, four of Dirk’s points came off of uncharacteristic drives to the front of the rim. Dirk doesn’t have the quickest feet in the world, and he isn’t a powerful finisher. So when I say that on two separate possessions Dirk punished New Jersey’s zone with hard cuts to the basket that resulted in easy buckets, you need to understand just how rare that is. Not to mention his one-man dribble-drive on the break to close out the first half for the Mavs (it resulted in free throws, but whatever). It’s not something I’d anticipate seeing on a regular basis, but watching Dirk score in ways that don’t involve fifteen feet between him and the basket, a hand in his face, and all sorts of bodily contortions was a welcome surprise.
So what did I miss out on? From the looks of things, a three-point barrage and a balanced Maverick attack are what did the Nets in. Was Josh’s second half as good as the box score makes it look? How was Kidd’s second half defense on Harris? Fill in the blanks for me, guys.
Posted by Rob Mahoney on under xOther |
The trade deadline is at 2:00 PM CST this afternoon, and there’s just no way I’m going to finish what’s left of the player valuations by then. I know, I’m a terrible, terrible person. Still, here’s an index of the valuations that did go down:
Shawne Williams
Devean George
James Singleton
Ryan Hollins
Antoine Wright
Matt Carroll
Gerald Green
As they say in the consolation/parenting world, “Maybe next year kiddos.”
Posted by Rob Mahoney on under News |
Tyson Chandler met up with Doc Brown late last night, and apparently that whole trade thing will be undone. Back to the Hornets it is. The situation should still be of interest to the Mavs and the rest of the West, however, because Chandler’s only heading back to New Orleans because he failed his physical. His injury situation is apparently enough of a cause for concern for the Thunder to nix the deal entirely. What does that mean for the Hornets’ long-term championship dreams? No one can really say, but if it’s a big enough red flag for OKC to rescind the trade, I’d wager there’s something there.
You can check out my thoughts on the latest trades at Hardwood Paroxysm:
This is How You Give Every Team in the League ‘The Cold Shoulder’ (Miller/Salmons for Nocioni/Gooden)
You’re a Sly One, Mr. Wallace (Chris Mihm to the Grizzlies)
Somebody Forgot to Call ‘No Takesies Backsies’ (Chandler trade rescinded)
Posted by Rob Mahoney on February 18, 2009 under News |
Find new trade machine fodder, Mavs fans: John Salmons has been sent to Chicago along with Brad Miller for Andres Nocioni and Drew Gooden. A good catch for the Bulls, who ditch Noc’s contract and essentially get two contributors for Gooden’s contract. Is it enough for a Chicago playoff push? We’ll see. Either way, I’m not sure I understand why the Kings are trading their valuable assets (practically half the league wanted Salmons) for overpaid backups.
Hat tip to commenter David.
Posted by Rob Mahoney on under Previews |
The New Jersey Nets visit the Dallas Mavericks
7:30 CST
Now that we’ve all had a good year to digest the Kidd-Harris swap, and at least one good thrashing at the hands of Devin, everybody’s in the mood to reminisce. This is what we were thinking when we traded for Kidd. This is why the Mavs should have kept Devin. These are the intangible ways in which Kidd helps our team. Blahdy, blahdy, blah.
These dialogues aren’t new. We’ve beaten the trade like a dead horse, whipped out the defibrillator, brought it back, and then beat it some more. To some extent, it will always be a haunting trade to the Mavs. Harris will make more All-Star teams, and those lost draft picks (the productive Ryan Anderson and a future pick) are a punch in the gut. That doesn’t change the fact that we should be beyond this by now. After all that’s happened this season, is another game against Devin Harris really our biggest concern?
For me, tonight’s game is more about seeing where this team is emotionally. They were riding the big one, coasting into the All-Star break, and finally playing well. They blew it late against the Celtics on the break’s eve, and tonight we’ll see if the Mavs are ready to pick up where they left off or if they’ll curl up in the fetal position in the paint and sob. This team once had Devin Harris and draft picks. This team had a win against the Celtics in their clutches. What they have now is a chance to put something tangible together to close out the season, a chance to secure a playoff berth, and a chance to build up whatever momentum they can muster going into the postseason.
I’ll take my chances.
Posted by Rob Mahoney on under Rumors |
Marc Stein of ESPN.com:
The Mavericks have been offering Jerry Stackhouse’s virtual expiring contract ($7 million this season, only $2 million guaranteed next season) and Brandon Bass ($826,000) to the Kings since this past summer, when Sacramento was shopping Ron Artest. The biggest obstacle for Dallas on a Salmons deal has been the Kings’ insistence that the Mavericks — lacking draft picks to sweeten the deal — also take back guard Beno Udrih, who has four years and nearly $27 million remaining on his contract after this season.
There is another complication for interested parties: Sources revealed Tuesday that Salmons has a 15 percent trade kicker in his contract that would require the team that acquires him to pay him a bonus of nearly $2 million and add that figure to its payroll. Salmons otherwise would rank as one of the league’s better bargains, earning just $5.1 million this season while averaging 18.3 points and shooting 47.2 percent from the field and 41.8 percent on 3-pointers.
Beno Udrih sucks. Been there, talked about that. But would this $2 million trade kicker influence a potential trade with the Mavs? I’d doubt it. Cuban has said he’s willing to spend to make things happen, and though the luxury tax implications make things a bit painful with the kicker (it’s effectively doubled, with $2 million going to Salmons and $2 million going to the league to be dispersed among the teams under the tax), I doubt it would deter Cuban from making an impact deal.
Posted by Rob Mahoney on under Rumors |
Bad movie. Better trade rumor. From Eddie Sefko on the DMN Mavs Blog:
The Mavericks, by the way, still are working the phone lines with nothing concrete yet. This thing looks like it will go right down to the final hours. They still are chasing Sacramento’s John Salmons, but don’t be surprised if a name like Marquis Daniels or some other swingman (or a center) pops up.
Emphasis mine. Could it really be true? Is there any truth to the idea that ‘Quis could be coming home? And more importantly, could it be possible for me to wear my Marquis Daniels jersey in public without looking dated or making some kind of semi-ironic statement?
Posted by Rob Mahoney on under Commentary, xOther |
Specs: Shooting guard/small forward. 6′8”, 200 lbs.
2008-2009 Stats: 5.5 PPG, 1.6 RPG, 44.4% FG, 31.4% 3FG, 11.3 PER
Why we want him: Gerald Green is what the Mavericks are not. Young. Athletic. Full of promise. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. He’s undisciplined. Turnover-prone. Looks lost on defense when he’s not on the ball (okay, maybe he and the Mavs have something in common). All that said, Green is exactly what you want out of your minimum salary players. He gives fans something to cheer for and a reason to hope. Green seems legitimately set on developing his game to trump his reputation as a dunker (boy, can he get up) and that type of mindset has a lot of people optimistic. I don’t think he’ll suddenly actualize the superstar projections, but if the Mavs hold the course and provide Green with a steady environment, he could be a valuable weapon as a starting complement or second unit artillery.
Why they want him: He’s a low risk, high reward player. I could see a lot of ‘older’ teams liking Green as a trade throw-in because of his contract and his athleticism. Let him incubate for awhile, throw a few minutes his way every now and then, and hope for the best. If he turns out to be a reliable contributor, awesome. If not, oh well.
Trade value: Low-Moderate. Since the Mavs lack expendable draft picks, the best way they can “sweeten the pot” of any potential trade is to throw in either Brandon Bass or Gerald Green. Bass’ value is much higher than Green’s, but Gerald still presents an intriguing opportunity and an easy-to-swallow contract.
Likelihood of Being Traded Before the Deadline: In honor of Jim Jackson, former Maverick and the most stereotypical NBA journeyman to ever journey, man, each player’s likelihood of being traded will be evaluated using the Jim Jackson Index (JJI; a scale of 0-5):
1.5 Jim Jacksons out of 5.