Heard It Through the Grapevine

Posted by Rob Mahoney on November 20, 2009 under The Grapevine |

  • Shawn Marion will not play tonight.
  • Drew Gooden insists that his big game against the Spurs wasn’t a personal statement (via Tim MacMahon): “Not at all…From the day I got there to the day I left, I knew it was all business. That’s a great group of guys over there. I enjoyed playing with them and trying to make a playoff run with those guys. …But this is a business. I had to move on. Now, I switched sides to the team that beat us. Spurs fans don’t like it too much, but it wasn’t my choice.” That last sentence may sound strange, but Drew has a very valid point, one that I wish Mavs fans would have taken to heart in 2006. The Spurs decided to move in a different direction, and chose not to re-sign Gooden. In the same vein, the Mavs decided to move in a different direction, and chose to cut Michael Finley. Considering the circumstances, does it really make sense to declare either a turncoat? Especially Finley, whose years of playing his ass off for a miserable Dallas team were forgotten with a quick change of clothes?
  • Dirk has scored 30+ against the Spurs 10 times in his career, third to only Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson.
  • Have you seen Kris Humphries’ new movie yet?
  • It’s perfect, actually, because the Kings’ Donte Greene is apparently also a vampire. Who knew?
  • Dirk Nowitzki, on the difference between this year’s start and last year’s start (via Art Garcia): “Last year coming into camp, after Avery, we focused so much on offense, opening up the offense, let [Jason] Kidd run a lot of stuff…This year we said screw that. We’re going to do all defense. We worked a lot of defense and it’s really paid off early, but now the offense is slacking a little bit.”
  • Statistically speaking, the Mavs have been the 5th best team in the NBA this season. Not too shabby.
  • Autograph-seekers can do the face-to-face thing with Josh Howard this Saturday, who will be rehabbing his ankle by working the sharpie.
  • Sean Deveney names Rodrigue Beaubois one of the “Hidden Gems” of the ‘09 Draft Class.

Tags: , , , , ,

  • Rhett
    Interesting post idea rob - a mystery maybe you can make sense of
    :
    Dirk is having his worst shooting percentage since his rookie season. Before this season his per had dropped 3 years in a row - a full 5 point drop. Doesn't seem in prime position to have a resurgence year.

    However, despite his low shooting percentage, his PER is back up a superstar level of 26. Also, look who the +/- king of the nba is?

    http://www.nba.com/statistics/...

    Hard for a first team all nba guy to have a resurgence - but he is. And is doing it differently than he's ever done it before (the aforementioned low percentage). Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to figure out wtf is going on and how it's happening.
  • dude
    The cheers switched to boos after dirk confirmed that fin was the enemy and it was okay to boo him. Cuban said it initially but having dirk confirming it caused them.
  • Brayden
    I am by no means the expert on this matter, but I seem to remember one particular pivotal point where the ovations switched to booing. I believe it was game 5 of the 2006 playoff series (real championship) with the spurs. Something about a knee landing squarely on Jason Terry's head and staying planted there while he tried to rip away a ball that was clearly in Terry's possession. A closed fist may have be swung blindly and may have collided with Finley in his nether regions. A certain team, with a certain player's help may have sent video in to the league office, ending in a Terry suspension for game 6. Not that I am condoning the booing, but I remember feeling differently about Finley from that point onward.
  • jonthefon
    I've said it time after time, but I believe most of the Finley hate during the playoffs was from Cuban's asshattery. The first game he was back in Dallas as a Spur, I remember he got a pretty big ovation, even from the bossman himself. Then Cuban started that booing campaign.
blog comments powered by Disqus
home top