Posted by Rob Mahoney on November 23, 2011 under Commentary | 
Amid all of the lockout nonsense, yesterday actually brought some fairly good news for Maverick fans: according to ESPN.com’s Chris Broussard, Tyson Chandler, who was being pursued by the Zhejiang Guangsha Lions of the Chinese Basketball Association, has opted to reject the team’s offer and remain stateside. As a free agent, Chandler was among the limited number of players who would actually be allowed – per a recent CBA ruling — to sign in China, and the fact that he turned down the offer could be seen as an initial indication that Chandler might skip out on overseas basketball altogether.
Which, given Chandler’s somewhat fragile injury history, is the greatest victory Mavs fans can claim on a day ruled by the lockout’s legal proceedings.
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Posted by Rob Mahoney on November 7, 2011 under Commentary |
Every bit of optimism that has seeped into the collective bargaining negotiations has been dealt with in short order. The NBA is uncompromising, and the players’ willingness to negotiate has been coopted by hardline owners as a free avenue for player concessions. The owners have given little to nothing in return, and now yet another arbitrary deadline threatens the 2011-2012 season altogether.
On a more local level, Tyson Chandler discussed another sobering reality on the Ben & Skin show on ESPN Radio in Dallas: even if the players and owners do somehow get a deal in place to end the lockout, the likely luxury tax framework of such a deal could prevent Chandler from re-signing with the Mavs:
“With the collective bargaining agreement and some of the things that they’re trying to enforce, it would basically prohibit me from coming back. It would take it out of my hands — and the organization’s — because it would almost be pretty much impossible for me to re-sign. I just think that can be the worst thing that can happen. For years, the Lakers have been able to win championships and re-sign their players and keep them there so they can go out for another title. Now, to put that deal in place after we win ours, I don’t like it one bit.”
Chandler’s concerns are real. An actual hard cap is almost an impossibility at this point, but a soft cap with harsher penalties for taxpayers is virtually guaranteed. That could deter Dallas — a team already committed to $64.7 million in 2011-2012 salary before accounting for the potential re-signings of Chandler, Caron Butler, J.J. Barea, DeShawn Stevenson, Brian Cardinal, or Peja Stojakovic — from bringing back its second-best player. Considering that Chandler would cost more than double of what would surely be a substantial salary, no one should blame Mark Cuban for refusing to foot the bill, even with the added cost of losing out on top-tier contention.
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Posted by Rob Mahoney on November 3, 2011 under Commentary |
I was honored to join Rahat Huq (of Red 94) and Tim Varner (of 48 Minutes of Hell) for what we’re hoping will be a bit of a recurring feature: a three-man panel dealing with pertinent, Texas-centric NBA questions. Like it or not, the competitive dynamic between fans of the three Texas teams is very real. The rivalry between the Mavs and Spurs is undeniable, and though the Rockets haven’t butted heads with the Mavs in any kind of formal fashion since 2005, geography alone makes competitive run-ins — among fans and among the two teams — a frequent occurrence.
To have a little fun on that theme, Huq, Varner and myself voiced our picks for the best Texas ballplayer of the last 20 years, the most significant event in Texas basketball over that same timeframe, and the Texas team with the brightest future. Even with the Mavs’ core seemingly on their last legs, the answers to that final question may surprise you:
1. Tim Varner: Dallas. Mark Cuban has the means and the vision to field a competitive team on an annual basis. Cuban is an innovator whose dedication to winning finally brought home a trophy last season. I see that continuing, even after Dirk Nowitzki retires.
2. Rob Mahoney: None of the Texas teams are particularly primed for the long haul, but I’ll go with Dallas. Dirk Nowitzki could contribute in the NBA until he’s 50 if that’s his aim, and the Mavericks have the infrastructure to reboot with relative ease. Mark Cuban, Donnie Nelson, and Rick Carlisle give Dallas the means and savvy to transition quickly, and it doesn’t hurt that the Mavs also have a few young pieces (Rodrigue Beaubois, Dominique Jones, Corey Brewer) to fiddle around with.
3. Rahat Huq: I’ll say Dallas. You have to get really bad to get good as titles are won through the draft. Mark Cuban is the only boss from any of these teams to have made public acknowledgment on this point (stated last year at the Sloan Analytics Conference) so I trust he’ll tank when it’s time. Meanwhile, the Rockets are on a track to pick 14th every year and we’re not sure what the Spurs are planning.
Follow along to Red 94 for the full post.
Posted by Rob Mahoney on November 2, 2011 under xOther |
Now that we’re crossing off days and games from the formerly official NBA schedule, lockout remorse becomes a bit more concrete. Gone is the sense of dread, but in its place, one of actual loss.
With that in mind, Jesse Blanchard of 48 Minutes of Hell added some levity. Last night would have marked the Mavericks’ first ever ring ceremony and the illustrious raising of a championship banner…but apparently Mark Cuban had to settle for a smaller, more private ceremony:
Posted by Rob Mahoney on August 29, 2011 under Commentary |
Great success in the NBA is almost always met with a flurry of willing copycats. The league’s cycle of title winners makes imitation incredibly alluring; with so many NBA champions winning it all through similar blueprints, the secret of the championship is democratized. Coaches and general managers across the league are given full view of what works, and those looking to emulate the NBA’s best teams are simply left to their own devices in terms of executing a known plan. I don’t intend to undersell the importance or difficulty of actually obtaining the right personnel to implement a successful system (after all, netting that superstar player through the draft, trade, or free agency is more than half the battle), but there’s still something to be said about watching the 2000s Spurs or Lakers execute their in-game strategy in plain sight. That fact, coupled with the reality that repeat title-winners have made the entire process at least slightly formulaic, makes the borrowing of strategies and systems a no-brainer.
Teams look to steal actual player components from championship rosters, not merely because of their title-winning experience, but also because they boast a proven skill set that works in a system that can usually be replicated (or at least attempted to be). Even more conspicuously, teams poach assistant coaches away from title-winning clubs — a la the Toronto Raptors’ hiring of Dwane Casey — in the hopes of also snaring their systems. P.J. Carlesimo and Mike Brown were signed for head coaching jobs based off of their success with Gregg Popovich’s defensive system. Kurt Rambis was given rein over the Timberwolves so that he could implement the wildly successful triangle offense. All of such moves are done in an effort to bottle up greatness; pedigreed coaches and players are acquired in an effort to import the successful systems and strategies that empowered them.
Franchises such as the Spurs and Lakers provide the NBA’s models. Through them, other teams can envision their own future successes; they can imagine a world of paired superstars (or a trio of them, in the post-Celtics, post-Heat era), or of a suffocating team defense. They see a basic structure that could eventually accommodate their team, even if the likes of Tim Duncan or Kobe Bryant aren’t at the center. Even the same is true for one-time champs like the Pistons, Celtics, or Heat; the way that those particular rosters coalesced is a real, achievable possibility for the NBA’s also-rans. They can look to the way the Celtics jumped from a 24-58 record in one season to NBA champions in the next, and use that tale as a basis for hope. The mystique of the NBA model is its attainability; every team is just a player or two away from really making some noise. Just look at [team x].
The Mavericks could very well be the first team in the modern era to truly buck the modeling trend. They are a singularity; try as any owner, general manager, or coach might, and they still wouldn’t be able to capture what makes this particularly weird franchise so great. Other franchises could put the same diligence into scouting, analytics, and the details of player acquisition in general, but it would be almost impossible for another franchise to emulate the Mavs based on two specific elements of their formula: Dirk Nowitzki and Mark Cuban.
Nowitzki isn’t just a highly successful player, but one without precedent nor successor. There is no “next Dirk Nowitzki,” because even as Dirk enters his 14th NBA season, he remains completely baffling as a player. He simply shouldn’t be as successful as he is; Nowitzki benefits from posting up and getting to the free throw line, but he still makes a living based on bucking the odds — and the efficiency numbers — from mid-range. He thrives by accomplishing what shouldn’t be possible, and yet here we are, and here Dirk is, standing as one of the greatest the game has ever seen. The Mavericks create on offense with only one true star, entirely because of Nowitzki’s weird skill set. This type of construction just wouldn’t be possible around most any other player in the NBA; there are a select few who are objectively better NBA players than Nowitzki, but I’m not sure any could anchor an offense in the same way. Thus, another team reimagining itself with the Mavs in mind misses the point. It only works — and worked — because of Dirk, and unless there’s a way to manufacture superstars with not only Nowitzki’s elite production but also his unique ability to tilt and exploit defenses, looking to Dallas’ offense as a model is a misguided endeavor.
Yet even more unique than Nowitzki may be Cuban, an owner willing to pay his way out of mistakes in order to maximize the window that the talent provides. Cuban and Donnie Nelson have been relentless tinkerers over the years, and have employed coaches who shared their love for adjustments. Donnie Nelson, Avery Johnson, and Rick Carlisle have never been afraid to fiddle with the starting lineup or the entire rotation, a floor-level embodiment of the entire franchise’s approach over the last decade-plus.
Nowitzki is the star, and around him were positioned whichever pieces were thought to fit. Some exceeded their usefulness, others were proven to be redundant. Some took contracts elsewhere, and some were brought in on a gamble. Regardless, Cuban and Nelson kept shuffling until they found a formula that fit; you could see the basis of it in the 2005 playoffs, and that core retained its shape until 2008. Then, the duo again rebooted the roster, opting to trade for Jason Kidd (at great cost), sign Shawn Marion (for nearly $40 million), acquire Tyson Chandler (who has a horribly inconvenient injury history and was free to bolt at season’s end), overpay Brendan Haywood (for depth’s sake), and bring in a ball-stopper in Caron Butler. As a result of employing so many B-level players (in addition to Nowitzki and Jason Terry, who were already on the roster), the Mavericks didn’t just exceed the luxury tax line — they laughed at it. Cuban has made plenty of minor cost-cutting moves throughout the years, but rarely have they ever come in conflict with the team’s ability to compete at an elite level.
Save for James Dolan, no owner can be considered Cuban’s equal in terms of his willingness to spend. Of course, what separates Cuban from a punchline owner like Dolan is the payoff for his relentlessness; Cuban has put intelligent decision-makers in positions of power, is as informed as any owner in the league, and makes an effort to keep the Mavs in the know via player and lineup data. He’s willing to open his wallet if need be, but only for moves that make sense; he doesn’t acquire talent for his team, but pieces that fit together in an attempt to form that elusive, championship-worthy whole. It didn’t always work out, but that didn’t stop Cuban from trying — even as the Mavs raked up an astounding bill in their pursuit of a title.
The NBA has plenty of great owners and ownership groups, but none with Cuban’s deep pockets, undying passion for his team, commitment to making informed decisions, and willingness to spend. Most teams in the league couldn’t afford to acquire talent in the same way the Mavs did, which makes the structure of the roster — one true star surrounded by a flurry of quasi-stars — that much more difficult to replicate. It’s that intersection between two truly unique individuals that makes Dallas an unattainable model; that which Dallas has built depends so heavily on an impossibility (Nowitzki’s astounding success) and an improbability (an exceedingly wealthy man who sees reason to part with that wealth for the team’s gain, to almost no limit) that any other franchise would be insane to even attempt it.
Posted by Rob Mahoney on June 29, 2011 under xOther |
There are a lot of reasons to be proud of this team and its owner right now, but nothing even comes close to this.
Posted by Rob Mahoney on April 22, 2011 under The Grapevine |
Kevin Pelton, Basketball Prospectus: “[Nate] McMillan also changed his finishing lineup. While [Brandon] Roy got back on the court when the Blazers needed more shooters and ballhandlers to close out the game, Portland played with its starting lineup most of the stretch run, putting more size and rebounding on the floor. I’m not sure there was a verdict on that decision, as the teams played even during the stretch the Blazers used their starters. Over the course of the season, however, Portland has been much more effective with Aldridge at center and Wallace at power forward in a smaller, quicker unit. Looking ahead to Saturday’s Game Four, the Mavericks can feel good that they had a chance to steal a game in which the Blazers rode their crowd to an early lead. Dallas can also point to missed opportunities at the line, where they shot just 56.5 percent (13 of 23), including an atypical 4-of-7 effort from Nowitzki. Nonetheless, if Roy has found a way to contribute for Portland in this favorable matchup, that might prove the most crucial takeaway of all.”
Ben Golliver, Blazersedge: “Portland’s initial push came courtesy of Matthews, who practically refused to talk about his individual play after leading Portland with 25 points on 8-12 shooting. Thankfully, LaMarcus Aldridge was there to do it for him. ‘I think every game [this series] the team that’s won it has had someone play really, really well,’ Aldridge said. ‘Tonight it was Wesley.’ There’s been so much to like about Aldridge’s maturation this season but that quote is near the top. Aldridge, Matthews and everyone else with a pulse in the Rose Garden knows that the bulk of the headlines are going to Brandon Roy, who finished with 16 crucial points off the bench to help push Portland over the hump. But it was Matthews’ hot shooting that got Portland up early. 16 points in the first quarter. 22 points in the first half. Good shot selection (even including the heat checks, which you know are coming). Solid defense throughout the game on top of it. That Aldridge would single out Matthews with praise — despite his own success on the night and the mountain of questions about Roy — is a moment that will endure. Credit where credit is due. Recognition and rewards for those who have earned it.”
Tim MacMahon (and Ben Rogers), ESPN Dallas: “An object thrown from the Rose Garden stands hit Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban in the face during Thursday night’s Game 3 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. The incident occurred midway through the fourth quarter after Cuban had been interacting with the fans in the section behind the Mavericks’ bench. Cuban was not injured. ‘I don’t know what it was, but something hit me in the face,’ said Cuban, who encouraged fans to boo him more by putting his hand by his ear. Extra security was assigned to the area behind the Mavericks’ bench for the remainder of the game. There were no other issues.”
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Tags: Brandon Roy, Brian Cardinal, Caron Butler, Dirk Nowitzki, Gerald Wallace, LaMarcus Aldridge, Mark Cuban, Nate McMillan, Nicolas Batum, Rick Carlisle, Shawn Marion, Wesley Matthews
Posted by Rob Mahoney on December 14, 2010 under The Grapevine |
- Mark Cuban’s sage concern, expressed prior to the Mavs’ loss last night (via Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News): “Some parts of what we do have gotten better (during the streak). I think we’ve let up a couple times instead of really focusing on what it takes to be a championship team. We try to say this is what it takes to win this game. That’s my biggest concern with this team. We try to win games instead of focusing on executing for 48 minutes so that we’re championship caliber. That’s just my concern.”
- Sebastian Pruiti broke down the Mavs’ final play from last night’s game over at NBA Playbook. It would have been tough to overcome a four-point deficit with less than 11 seconds remaining regardless, but Dallas didn’t do themselves any favors by botching the play. The primary culprit looks to be Jason Terry, though it can be tough to tell without the clipboard in hand.
- Rick Carlisle’s evaluation of last night’s game (via Jeff Caplan of ESPN Dallas): “They kicked our ass. I don’t know any simpler way to say it.”
- Jeremy Schmidt of Bucksketball: “When things looked their bleakest during the game, it was usually because Dirk Nowitzki was doing something awesome. Dirk scored 30 points on 12 of 24 shooting (3-6 3FG 3-3 FT) and it looked for a second like he was about to take the Bucks back in a time machine. His impossible looking fadeaway jumper beat the Bucks in overtime last season and he had an even better look to tie the game with :11 to go in regulation this season, but failed to convert on the 8-footer. The defense was there, but Dirk was shooting over and around every Buck all night. This time though, all he had left was a blank. For once.”
- Frank Madden of BrewHoop gave praise to Keyon Dooling, the sadly forgotten man from my recap. Damn the limits of my own self-imposed bullet format. “We easily could have gone with the more efficient CD-R here, but I’ll give the nod to Dooling, whose 16 points (4/10 fg, 3/4 threes, 4/4 ft), four assists, and no turnovers included a number of big plays that helped the Bucks stick around and eventually put the game away. His three with less than two seconds remaining in the first half kept the Bucks within nine at the break, and he followed it up by drawing a transition foul on Dirk near the third quarter horn to boot. When Nowitzki got a tech for bickering he turned it into a three point play that gave the Bucks the lead, and he later sealed it with two free throws that provided the final margin.
- Statistically speaking, the Mavs had only a 0.3% chance of successfully executing their late 12-game winning streak. Never tell them the odds.
- Apparently, the Mavs are set to win the title. Good to know.
- Andrew Unterberger is on a quest to visit every NBA arena in 60 days, and has been keeping record of his journey at The Basketball Jones. He caught the fantastic Mavs-Jazz game in Dallas this past weekend, and this bit might resonate with those who have been lucky enough to catch Mavs games at the AAC this season: “‘Do they talk up defense as much at other stadiums?’ Mat asked me at some point during the third quarter. No, not really — the AAC called out its fans to get the ‘DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!’ chant going just about every time the Mavs trotted back on their heels downcourt, even though no one but a group of young girls in attendance seemed to pay it any mind until the fourth quarter. You gotta use that sh*t in moderation, Mavs PA guy.”
- Here’s how the $100,000 Mark Cuban gave to the city of Dallas is being used.
- Dominique Jones is a little dinged up.
- Is the intentional fouling of Brendan Haywood (a.k.a. Hack-a-Haywood) a legitimate concern? I see it as probably being a situational problem, but find it hard to believe that this is a strategy we see all too often. The combination of coaching strategy and opportunity make this a situational tactic at best, and while it may be unfortunate every now and again, it’s no epidemic.
Posted by Rob Mahoney on November 9, 2010 under The Grapevine |
- Jason Terry, doing his best Michael Caine (via Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News): “We endured.”
- Zach Lowe wrote a fantastic piece on Tyson Chandler and the Mavs’ defense for The Point Forward (SI’s NBA blog). I’m going to quote it liberally, but follow through and read the piece in its entirety: “[At] the 3:45 mark of the second quarter, when Paul Pierce appeared to have Caron Butler beat on a drive along the left baseline. Chandler, who was guarding KG on the right baseline, took a big slide-step into the paint and deterred the drive without giving Pierce an easy passing lane to KG. Pierce pulled up for a contested mid-range shot and missed. That type of shot — a contested, mid-range shot — has been the basis of Dallas’ stinginess so far. Only five teams are allowing opponents to take more shots from the “floater” region between the rim and 10 feet out, and none are holding teams to a lower percentage on those shots than Dallas (33 percent). Boston was 5-of-18 from that range Monday.”
- Could this be why Caron Butler has been so ineffective?
- Paul Pierce on Rajon Rondo’s decision to take what could have been a game-winning three in the final seconds of last night’s game (via Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe): “He’s wide open. He was open two or three seconds before he even took it. We were begging him to shoot it. Hey, we’ll take that, a wide-open look. Rondo, he’s showed he can make those shots, especially under pressure situations. I take it. I told him after the game, I’ll take that shot.”
- Two fantastic points from NBA.com’s John Schuhmann: Jason Kidd’s presence may make the 1-3 switch easier on the Mavs than any other team in the league, and Rajon Rondo has attempted just five three-pointers this season, all of which have come with the clock winding down.
- A stray thought forgotten from the recap: the Mavs did an excellent job of completely eradicating the threat of Rajon Rondo’s scoring.
- Dirk Nowitzki nails the irrelevance of Terry’s starting status (via Jeff Caplan of ESPN Dallas): “His role, starting or not, is not going to change much. We want him to score. We need him to score and we need him to be aggressive.”
- A thought that teams should play more zone on endgame out-of-bounds plays, in part because of one particularly successful Mavericks play.
- Again, wayward Celtics fans: don’t blame the refs.
- The first installment of John Hollinger’s Power Rankings has emerged. Be angry, if you’re the kind of person who likes to rage against the Mavs’ statistically inferior start.
- Del Harris is now doing radio broadcast work — in Spanish!
- Not to get snooty, but isn’t Mark Cuban bigger than an “Owner:” headline?
Posted by Rob Mahoney on October 21, 2010 under The Grapevine |
- Mark Cuban. The Situation. Why not? (UPDATE: See the pairing, along with Vinnie and Ronnie, in all of their photoshopped glory.)
- Rick Carlisle, on his trip to Orlando last summer to recruit and sign Marcin Gortat (via Eddie Sefko): “I came down here and had a great recruiting trip. He let me drive his car. It could go 220 mph. At one point, he said: put the pedal all the way down to the bottom.” Carlisle wouldn’t divulge his top-end speed, although he acknowledged it may have been a shade over the local speed limits in Orlando. “It didn’t work out,” Carlisle said. “We wish him the best. He still stays in touch with me. He’s a terrific guy.”
- The Texas Legends are big time. So big time, in fact, that they’ll be broadcasting one of the Legends’ preseason games, against the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, on VERSUS. Not too shabby for a team that has yet to play a single game in a league that has lacked the exposure it deserves.
- Mike Prada unveils the second edition of the Watchability Scale, and the Mavs fall understandably in the middle of the pack under the header “RELIABLE, PREDICTABLE.” Hard to argue there. Dallas is rock-steady, and while their approach has gotten them 50+ wins every season for an entire decade, it does make them a bit of a broken record. Through Nellie, Avery, and Carlisle, a lot has changed, but the bread and butter of the Dallas offense hasn’t.
- In a chat with Quick DFW, Mark Cuban was asked if he ever envisioned what the Mavs would be like had Dirk left this summer. Cuban’s response? “No. I have pictures, so I knew we were safe. :)” (via DOH at Mavs Moneyball)
- Tyson Chandler suffered a boo-boo in last night’s preseason game against the Magic, which has since been stitched up and will need about a week to heal. What happens next week again? Oh, yeah.
- Dominique Jones, on the difference between himself and Mavs’ assistant coach Darrell Armstrong, who was the point guard for the Magic when Jones was growing up in Orlando (via Eddie Sefko): “I don’t take charges.” Well, he had better start taking them if he wants to be an effective NBA defender. Armstrong, of course, chimed in as a voice of reason: “He’s got to learn how to take charges. I think he took one in summer camp. That might have been the one that hurt his feelings and he said, ‘I don’t take charges.’ He might not know how to do it, but that’s another something I got to teach him.”
- J.J. Barea is still the back-up point guard, though Carlisle hinted the job is probably Rodrigue Beaubois’ upon his return.
UPDATE:
- Royce Young had me over to his place to preview the Thunder’s upcoming season. OKC will be battling with the Mavs every step of the way, so familiarize yourself. Also, while you’ve over at Daily Thunder, take a peek through Royce and co.’s preview magazine. Very well done.
- A few scouts think Dallas can make it to the conference finals, and one picks San Antonio to win it all.
- Eddy Rivera of Magic Basketball recapped the Mavs’ brief success in their game against the Magic last night: “The Mavericks did put up a fight in the first half, trailing by two points at halftime. A big reason for that was because the Magic’s second unit got killed in the second quarter against the 5-man combination of J.J. Barea, Dominique Jones, Caron Butler, Dirk Nowitzki, and Tyson Chandler. Dallas put on a clinic offensively, running a lot of pick and pops for Nowitzki, pick and rolls for Chandler, backdoor screens for the wing players, and more. It was just beautiful to watch. Likewise, until the starters for Orlando checked into the game at the 4:37 minute mark in the period, the reserves were struggling to create for themselves on offense. That was a big reason for Dallas’ 16-2 run and six point lead in the quarter.”
- A closer look at J.J. Barea’s Under Armour kicks.