Heard It Through the Grapevine

Posted by Rob Mahoney on September 29, 2010 under The Grapevine | 5 Comments to Read

• This.
• Rick Carlisle will have no tolerance for players complaining about their minutes this season. Considering how many players have found success in roles off the bench and the token importance of starting in the first place, I still don’t quite see what the big deal is about playing the opening tip.
• Jamal Mashburn owns 34 Outback Steakhouses and 37 Papa John’s locations. He also might want to buy the Detroit Pistons, and thinks Michael Jordan’s flu game was mostly hype. Just a Chatty Cathy, that Mash.
• Gina Miller, on Caron Butler’s efforts to slim down this summer as a part of a workout program with Tim Grover: “He told me his trainer had people at his hotel spying on him.  If he wanted to cheat and order pancakes from room service – not happening.”
• Bobby Simmons, once a candidate to join the Mavs’ training camp before being bypassed in favor of Steve Novak and Brian Cardinal, is in camp with the Spurs.
• John Hollinger (Insider) forecasts the Mavs’ coming season, which he predicts will bring 48 wins and the 5th seed in the West. Honestly, the relative ranking isn’t a bad as it sounds. The West’s second tier is no cakewalk, and to make matters worse, Hollinger’s qualms (reliance on victories in close games, roster shortcomings, slight drop-off due to age, player utilization, etc.) are legitimate.
• Monty Mathis has been bumped from player development coach to full-fledged assistant, and will work from the bench this season.
• Jason Kidd advised Carmelo Anthony to be wary of the Nets. Or not.
• Tuesday was the first day of training camp, and all foundational, non-contact work. Apparently — and this is news to me — teams are not allowed to hold more than one contact practice per day. Just some food for thought as the Mavs continue to conduct two-a-days through camp.
• Jason Kidd, on Dirk dropping five pounds in the off-season to make it “easier on [his] body, easier on his joints,” (via Mike Fisher): “I think he’s tired of people telling him he’s a ‘power forward.’ I think he wants to get down to 220 so he can be a 2-guard.’’
• Dee Brown, Mavs camper (via his Twitter account): “Man I see why J.Kidd has had an hall of fame career amazing player much respect big homie!”
• Shawn Marion may be shooting more threes this season.
• Tim Thomas has been officially waived.
  

And a few older bullets from an edition of the Grapevine that accidentally went unpublished:

• Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News, with the off-handed downside of Alexis Ajinca’s upside: “The Mavericks have been intrigued by the way Ajinca has worked out the past month or so. Coach Rick Carlisle has watched some of the workouts and especially likes the fact that Ajinca is closer to 7-1.”
  
• The NBA has adopted some absolutely ridiculous new provisions to the technical foul rule.
• Jeff Caplan of ESPN Dallas posits that Dirk Nowitzki could be in a position to win his second MVP award this season, even though he’s not the current favorite. Based on Nowitzki’s production and the Mavs’ likely success in the coming year, I’m also inclined to believe that Dirk will be a part of that discussion. He doesn’t get much further than that, though.
• An NBA player doing a tremendous amount of good.
• Shawne Williams will reportedly be joining the New York Knicks for training camp. Congrats to him, I suppose.
  

Across the Pine

Posted by Rob Mahoney on September 20, 2010 under Commentary | 4 Comments to Read

Tim Thomas won’t be playing for the Mavs this year after all. In his place, Dallas is apparently looking to fill the void with a cartoon character capable of fulfilling what would have been Thomas’ most basic function: spacing the floor.

Maybe I’m the only person who still views Thomas as a three-dimensional talent, but his value for Dallas last season really did stretch beyond his ability to hit the three. Thomas wasn’t as bad as advertised defensively. He showed off off some of his post-up scoring ability. He displayed a great sense of court spacing that went beyond parking himself in the corner or rotating around the perimeter; Thomas found spots behind the defense and dug up free scoring opportunities. He even rebounded a little bit, and kept his turnovers in check.

Shooting from the perimeter was undoubtedly one of Thomas’ strengths last season, but he was far more versatile in his season as a Maverick than many of the free agent bigs left on the market will likely be in the coming year. Namely, the three candidates that Mavs are currently considering to slide into Thomas’ proposed role, according to Art Garcia of NBA.com: Brian Cardinal, Steve Novak, and Bobby Simmons.

Oddly enough, Cardinal, as the seasoned veteran of the trio, has somehow become the headliner and “early favorite” in spite of his limited athleticism and abilities. Perhaps this view of Cardinal’s game is overly simplistic, but I fail to see what he can offer any team that Steve Novak couldn’t; both are pretty poor defenders both in the post and on the perimeter, and find their strength in scoring from the outside. Though while Brian Cardinal has posted impressive three-point shooting averages in nearly every season he’s been in the league, he’s never really had the in-season volume to validate those percentages.

In his 10-year career, Cardinal has shot a total of just 517 three-pointers. Novak attempted 286 in a single season, and hit 41.6% of them. Cardinal has proven himself as a reliable deep threat, but Novak seems like a superior three-point shooting option, and is six years younger, to boot. Novak has shown that his shot holds up even when his attempts skyrocket, and that in a jam, he can use up minutes without taking anything away from the Mavericks offense. Novak isn’t leaps and bounds better than Cardinal, but if the Mavs are looking for a token three-point shooter, why settle for anything less than the best one left on the block?

We’ll conveniently neglect to discuss either player’s defensive abilities. They’re end-of-the-bench candidates for a reason, folks.

In fact, Simmons may also be a more attractive candidate than Cardinal to fill the roster vacancy. Simmons, too has a terrific career mark from the three-point line (.401 in eight seasons), is a few years Cardinal’s junior, and at least has a tinge of utility beyond three-point shooting. Novak and Cardinal are pure specialists, but Simmons does have some aptitude as a slasher, and a bit more defensive versatility. His absolutely absurd contract has made Simmons into a bit of a laughing stock over the last few seasons, but Dallas could do far worse for a 14th or 15th man.

In all likelihood, neither Cardinal, nor Novak, nor Simmons would really come into play (they’d come in to play, but not come into play, if ya dig) for the Mavs, so debating this issue too much is just splitting already-split hairs. There would have to be notable injuries at the top end of the roster for any of these players to register consistent minutes, and in that case, Dallas will have far more to worry about than the relative shooting abilities of these gents.