Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on October 19, 2012 under News | 
News broke on Friday afternoon that Dirk Nowitzki underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on his bothersome right knee Friday. The waiting game is officially over. According to the organization, the surgery was performed at Texas Sports Medicine by team orthopedic surgeon T.O. Souryal. Nowitzki is expected to resume on-court activities within approximately six weeks. “We’ve been preparing for this possibility,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said on Friday afternoon. “It’s never going to be easy to lose a game-changer for six weeks. We know that, but we’re going to have to make up for that in other areas. We’re going to have to play with grit, guts and we’re going to have to raise our level of efficiency in all areas.”
After having his knee drained on multiple occasions during the preseason and speculating if he could continue to work through the issue, Dirk decided to shut it down and begin the healing process. Dirk has been known as a machine as he’s had the ability to recover quickly from injuries, but this will push the boundary of that status, especially when it involves the knee. Carlisle did lighten to mood by sharing his own experience with the procedure, which was done during the 2010-11 season. “If it ‘s any comfort to you, I had a scope two years ago and I was back playing ping pong within six weeks,” Carlisle said. “It didn’t affect my game at all.”
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Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on under Commentary |
Depending on how you assess thing, your glass is either half empty or it’s half full. Dirk Nowitzki (the basketball snuggie) has a gimpy knee and that could really dampen the mood for fans or inside the organization, but that isn’t raining on Mark Cuban’s parade. The man who signs the checks has his glass completely full right now when looking at the potential for his new-look Mavericks squad. “I’m excited. I’m fired up about this team,” Cuban said as he was conducting his customary stairmaster interview prior to Wednesday’s preseason game. “It’s energetic, fun and exciting. It’s a new chapter. I’m ready to go.”
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Posted by David Hopkins on October 18, 2012 under Commentary |
David Hopkins is a freelance writer — a regular contributor to D Magazine and Smart Pop Books. Follow David on Twitter at @davidhopkins.
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“Are you sure it’s okay for me to wear Jason Kidd’s jersey?”
My wife April has asked me this question about three times now. She loves basketball. She knows the game. But April is still leery about jersey etiquette. I reassured her that people still love Kidd, and it’s very respectable to wear the jersey of a former player… as long as it’s not Bruno Sundov. That’s just weird.
I bought the Kidd jersey for $8 as the pro shop purged their warehouse, before shipping the lonely remnants to Central America.
Thus, the benefits of Jason Kidd leaving:
- Cheap jerseys
- The Mavs’ fast break will no longer look like when the P.E. coach tells the stoner kids to hustle.
- I don’t have to give a damn about his DWI.
April wanted a Kidd jersey ever since our first game together, when she pointed from our upper-deck seats down to the old man with the ball. “I like him. He’s all business.”
April has good instincts. She foresaw the greatness of Tyson Chandler in 2010 while I was still weighing the benefits of Brendan Haywood. And she gave up on Lamar Odom months before I did.
We were going to the Mavstoberfest event to see the Blue vs. White scrimmage. She wanted to wear her new jersey, and I saw no crime in it.
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Tags: 2012 Preseason, Brandan Wright, Chris Kaman, Darren Collison, Dirk Nowitzki, Dominique Jones, Jae Crowder, Jason Kidd, Josh Akognon, Lamar Odom, Rick Carlisle
Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on October 17, 2012 under Commentary |
Things are in a state of questionable despair with the possibility of Dirk Nowitzki needing to get arthroscopic surgery on his ailing right knee. There was a figurative dark cloud looming over the American Airlines Center on Monday night as the Mavericks had their first home preseason game against the Houston Rockets. Despite big performances from new Mavericks, everyone wondered what Dirk would have to say after the game. We obviously continue playing the waiting game, but there were tangible positives that the Mavericks can build off of, whether or not Dirk is in the mix or not.
The three new rookies, Jared Cunningham, Bernard James and Jae Crowder, showed that they were not afraid of the moment of playing in an NBA game (even if it was the preseason). Out of the three rookies, there was one who has caught my eye and I truly believe will have a chance to become a member of the eight or nine -rotation this season.
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Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on October 16, 2012 under Interviews |
Dallas used a 24-2 run from the 10:45 mark of the third quarter through the 5:19 mark of the period to turn a five point deficit (62-57) into a 17-point advantage (81-64). That proved to be the key run as the Mavericks went on to beat the Rockets 123-104 on Monday night. After scoring a combined nine points in the Mavericks’ first two preseason games, O.J. Mayo surged as he scored 10 first-half points. He finished with a team-high-tying 20 points to go along with four assists in only 24 minutes of action.
Rookie Jae Crowder shared team-high scoring honors with Mayo with 20 points. He also added five rebounds, two assists and two steals in just 15 minutes of action off the bench. Eighteen of his 20 points came in the game’s final quarter.
I could do an adequate job of recapping the game, but I’ll let the guys who coached and or played in the game handle the responsibilities of talking about it. Here is your quoteboard for the preseason home opener against the Houston Rockets.
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Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on October 10, 2012 under Commentary, Roster Moves |
Ed. note: This post doubles as an introduction to a new member of The Two Man Game family, even if Mavs fans are undoubtedly quite familiar with his work already. Bryan Gutierrez is a contributing writer for Mavs.com, and formerly worked the Mavericks beat for Mavs Moneyball. You can follow Bryan on Twitter at @BallinWithBryan.
Ranking teams or players before the real season tips off is a chore that doesn’t really make a lot of sense but it’s great for conversation. Unless you live under a rock, you probably followed ESPN.com’s #NBARank project. We’ll put a wrinkle on it by ranking the Dallas Mavericks’ expected 15-man roster.
The experts who rated each player ranked them in terms of “the current quality of each player.” Here are the rankings for the Mavericks, alongside a notable player for comparison.
#463 – Jared Cunningham – Comparison: Mike Bibby, 472
#447 – Bernard James – Comparison: Hasheem Thabeet, 443
#381 – Dominique Jones – Comparison: Jonny Flynn, 386
#339 – Jae Crowder – Comparison: Kelenna Azubuike, 345
#301 – Dahntay Jones – Comparison: DeShawn Stevenson, 319
#212 – Brandan Wright – Comparison: Drew Gooden, 213
#204 – Roddy Beaubois – Comparison: Corey Brewer, 203
#185 – Vince Carter – Comparison: Richard Jefferson, 181
#159 – Delonte West – Comparison: Jason Kidd, 157
#113 – Chris Kaman – Comparison: Kendrick Perkins, 120
#98 – Darren Collison – Comparison: Jose Calderon, 96
#92 – Shawn Marion – Comparison: Thaddeus Young, 91
#90 – O.J. Mayo – Comparison: Jason Terry, 81
#85 – Elton Brand – Comparison: Taj Gibson, 82
#11 – Dirk Nowitzki – Comparison: Kevin Love, 7
ESPN.com’s panel views the Mavericks in a lone star way as Dirk Nowitzki is the only player ranked inside the top 50. Here at The Two Man Game, we’re down for a discussion or starting another string of debates. Over the next few days, we’ll have player capsules for each Maverick and rank them in terms of projected importance for the team this coming season. It’ll start with the back end of the roster and work our way up to Dirk, whoops, I mean the top of the roster. Here are players 15 to 10.
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Posted by Rob Mahoney on August 7, 2012 under Commentary |
One of the problems with building in waves — as all NBA teams are forced to do — is that the guidelines for construction can be swept right out from under a team that’s only doing right by logic. What was applicable in June isn’t quite so valid today; it once made perfect sense for Dallas to move down in the draft to select multiple players and pick up a combo guard prospect, but now Jared Cunningham and Jae Crowder are buried in the depth chart, Bernard James is a distant 12th man, and Tyler Zeller (whom Dallas could have selected with their original 17th pick) looks to be one of the more NBA-ready players in this draft class.
The situation has shifted, and yet history has a way of only being recalled in the absolutes afforded to perfect hindsight. Consider this a preemptive strike against that line of thinking, much like the one that was needed when Dallas re-signed Brendan Haywood to a six-year, $55 million deal in the summer of 2010.
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Posted by Rob Mahoney on July 16, 2012 under Commentary, Recaps |
The Las Vegas Summer League is a meal best consumed in buffet style — there is little order to the layering of flavors for the event, but one can nonetheless find plenty of tasty morsels, however disparate they may be. With that in mind, here is a closer look at a few of the notable prospects from Dallas’ first game in Vegas, assembled for you in the most edible form:
- The offense in Monday’s game still revolved around Dominique Jones, albeit in a very different way; having proved his point in the Mavs’ Summer League premiere by dropping 32 points on just 25 shots, Jones slid into a pattern of more altruistic shot creation in the follow-up. The assist totals don’t show it, but Jones consistently made plays for his teammates through his dribble penetration, and did well as a spot-up option when other Mavs drew additional defenders or got themselves into trouble. He didn’t necessarily strike a perfect balance between scoring and playmaking, but Jones inched closer to that equilibrium — a state that will be essential if he’s going to fill minutes in the season to come.
- Related: Jones is so quick and so strong that a euro step almost seems unfair.
- David Harrison certainly has the potential to be a nice player, but is distractingly emotive to both himself and observers. He reacts demonstratively to virtually every call that goes against him or the team, occasionally to the point where his teammates are forced to counsel him on-court. That’s not necessarily a problem beyond remedy, but it’s a turnoff in a competitive business with so many comparable talents.
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Posted by Rob Mahoney on July 15, 2012 under Commentary, Recaps |
The Las Vegas Summer League is a meal best consumed in buffet style — there is little order to the layering of flavors for the event, but one can nonetheless find plenty of tasty morsels, however disparate they may be. With that in mind, here is a closer look at a few of the notable prospects from Dallas’ first game in Vegas, assembled for you in the most edible form:
- The Mavs’ stint in Vegas is very clearly an audition process of sorts for Dominique Jones, whose role in the upcoming season is an open question due to Dallas’ open roster. With Rodrigue Beaubois almost perpetually shaky off the dribble and Delonte West as of yet unsigned, there’s a distinct possibility that the Mavs will be forced to rely on Jones as a reserve ball-handler and playmaker.
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It’s in that regard that Jones’ Summer League success becomes a bit tricky to translate. On this team, he’s the end-all creator, the primary scorer, and the bailout option. He has a lot to prove and a considerable weight to carry, giving these showings a notably different dynamic than what he has and will encounter as a member of the Mavs’ A-team. He did a tremendous job of pouring in points, but I’m not sure there’s much to take away from his shiny scoring total aside from the physicality and skill behind it.
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There’s no question that Jones is a reasonably safe ball-handler with good driving instincts and imposing strength, but none of that is exactly new. What is new — or at least renewed — is his capacity to finish around the basket after drawing contact. That was the crux of Jones’ college success, but he hadn’t yet managed to convert that element of his utility to NBA defenses and NBA bigs. We may have seen the start of that transition with this kind of performance, even if the level of play makes for an imperfect comparison to standard NBA basketball.
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Posted by Rob Mahoney on June 29, 2012 under Commentary, Roster Moves |
Draft night has come and gone, but the urge to instantly evaluate the Mavericks’ performance remains. That doesn’t make such a review any less impossible, but it certainly adds noise to what should already make for an incredibly chaotic off-season.
If you’re in the minority who can accurately speak to the specifics in the games of Jared Cunningham, Bernard James, and Jae Crowder — much less the even more extreme minority who can feasibly predict how any of the above might pan out against NBA competition — then by all means: chatter away. But if you’re in the other, significantly larger camp, I suggest that you — and we — table our judgment. We have an entire off-season, the full run of summer league, a training camp, a preseason, and a good chunk of regular season competition to go before we can even begin to determine what each new Maverick is capable of — and that’s assuming that James and Crowder stick around to make the roster in the first place.
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