Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on May 2, 2013 under Commentary | 
Looking over Quoteboards allows you to refresh your memory over buzz comments that were made. There’s one that has stuck in my mind and has me wondering.
This is what Mark Cuban said when the front office has to decide the worth of perspective free agents versus years and money and deciding whether or not to pursue:
“We don’t try to win the summer. We don’t try to say okay, we’re going to give a guy a lot of money. He’s got to be worth the money. There are guys that are team difference makers and none of these guys that you’ve mentioned (like Goran Dragic) went to a team and that signed as a free agent and turned them around. What kind of impact would he have on your team? End of story. That’s it. How many games can he win me, if at all? If he’s not going to be a difference-maker why would you do it (sign him to a lengthy contract)?
“I have to look at Donnie and Rick. Donnie’s going to say don’t do it and Rick’s going to say don’t do it. I’m going to say to Donnie, should we do it? And he’ll say no. Teams sign guys all the time that they end up having to get rid of all the time. And it’s just a different animal when you’re trading for him and you get off a guy and you have to take bad contracts to get a good contract. We’re wide open for whatever puts us in a position to get a difference maker and if we can’t then we’ll deal with whatever it is.”
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Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on May 1, 2013 under Commentary |
The Mavs front office has always been known as a group of outside the box thinkers. They’re willing to come up with three or four-team deals that many other organizations are willing to try to come up with. With that as a known attribute, I wonder if they have another theory that could build even more flexibility this offseason.
Shawn Marion has an Early Termination Option on his the final year of his deal which is this coming season. If he exercised the option, he would be turning down roughly $9,316,796 and test the free agent market. We discussed yesterday the odds and ends of Dallas’ cap situation. At 34, Marion is still considered one of the best perimeter defenders the league has to offer. You can look back over the last two seasons and see that he has dynamic versatility as a defender. He’s guarded the likes of LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant, but he’s also mixed it up by guarding power forwards such as Blake Griffin and also point guards such as Chris Paul. There are few elite defenders in the league that have that range of defensive ability in the league.
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Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on April 25, 2013 under Commentary |
Episode 74 of the Mavericks Outsider Report is here.
For those who don’t know, MOR a podcast entirely devoted to your Dallas Mavericks.
The end of the regular season passes without a Mavericks playoff game for the first time since 2000. It’s already time to move on from this season and look ahead to what the Mavericks can do to make sure this year is just a minor bump in the road.
But first, we want to cover Rick Carlisle’s entertaining post-game O.J. Mayo commentary, and the thoughts shared by Mark Cuban following the team’s mathematical elimination from the playoff picture. Then, we look forward by pulling out the oldest segment we have – Buy, Sell, Hold – to run through Mavericks’ free agents and possible free agent acquisitions. The end result shows that there are more holes to fill than money to spend. We take a quick run through the playoffs in NBA Nuggets, and we close with some talk about Lamar Odom and VIP floor tickets.
Intro – Banter / Rick on OJ
22:45 – Cuban’s Concession Speech
42:10 – Buy, Sell, Hold (Current Mavs)
1:03:25 – Buy, Sell, Hold (Potential Free Agent Signings)
1:28:35 – NBA Nuggets, Playoff Edition
1:24:08 – Yelling at Lamar Odom from Baller Seats / Closing Thoughts
Catch us again shortly after the draft in June as we have our “Judgement Day” episode. We’ll have the Mavs Jedi Council in the house to really dig in and figure out if Dallas made the right move(s) during the draft, and is prepared for the pivotal summer that is staring them directly in the face.
Bryan Gutierrez writes about sportsmen. He also attended Ball So Hard University. Bryan channels his inner-Clark Kent on a day-to-day basis. You can follow him on Twitter @BallinWithBryan.
Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on April 22, 2013 under Commentary, Recaps |
The Rundown is back. Every Monday during the regular season (unless there’s a better feature to run with), The Rundown will chronicle the week that was for the Mavs, as well as let you know what is coming up for the boys in blue, with a unique spin. Simply put, it is your Monday catch-up on all things with the Dallas Mavericks.
The end is here. The 2012-13 season for the Dallas Mavericks is officially over. There is some solace that the Mavs were able to finish the season with a record of 41-41. They became the 13th team in NBA history to be 10 games below .500 in a season and finish at .500 or better. The most recent team to achieve that feat before the Mavs was 2010-11 Philadelphia 76ers. The last Western Conference team was 1980-81 Portland Trail Blazers.
That’s a great accomplishment for a team that looked dead in the water back in December and January. That being said, there’s a lot of work to be done this summer for the Mavs if they want to get back to where they were just two years ago. They don’t need to be the number one overall seed in the Western Conference, but they need to get into a spot where they’re not having to scratch and claw just to have a chance to make the playoffs. There will be plenty of time to dissect what the Mavs can do this summer to fix what is ailing them. For now, let’s just look at what exactly happened this season.
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Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on April 19, 2013 under Interviews |
There’s not a great way to classify Dirk’s 2012-13 campaign. It started with the incredible personal highlight of being able to play in Germany in an exhibition game. Concern then started to circulate as he had issues with his knee, which ultimately led to surgery. He missed more than a quarter of the season due to the surgery. When he came back, he had doubts about whether or not he could actually return to the form everyone is used to seeing from him. The doubts eventually went away as he swagger returned. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough time for Dirk to help get the Mavs into the playoffs.
A pivotal summer is on the horizon for the Mavs. Dirk will be ready to do whatever he can to help the franchise get back to the playoffs and make this year more of an aberration than the new expected norm.
Here is the final exit interview of the season. Here is Dirk Nowitzki’s exit interview.
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Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on under Interviews |
Though the team’s record was 41-41, many would say that this year was one of Rick Carlisle’s best coaching performances of his career. He had to endure over a quarter of the season without his best player and found a way to make sure his team never quit. Carlisle had to balance the juggling act of a roster that was in flux and it was a roster that easily could have turned on him with new contracts on the horizon. That said, they didn’t turn because the coach never gave in.
It was a year of work for Rick Carlisle. The results didn’t bear any fruit, but it’s not due to his negligence. The summer begins early for him, with potentially a new set of issues he’ll have to prepare for. Dirk Nowitzki might be the best on-the-floor asset the Mavs have, but Rick Carlisle is truly an asset that should not be taken for granted.
Here is the exit interview with Mavs coach Rick Carlisle.
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Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on under Interviews |
As the General Manager and president of basketball operations, Donnie Nelson provides a different perspective of how the season went for the Mavs. He also gives a different vantage point of how the offseason will have to be observed.
Here is the exit interview with Donnie Nelson.
Opening remark: “We weren’t expecting this. This time of year, we’re gearing up for the playoffs, so this is an out of body experience for all of us. We’ve got some work cut out for us. We’ve got a big summer, moving forward. We don’t expect to be here in the same situation next year at the same time.”
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Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on under Interviews |
What a year it turned out to be for Vince Carter. He played relatively well in his first season for the Mavs, but it appeared that he was being asked to do too much and his impact fell off near the end of 2011-12. Fast forward one more year, Carter once again did most of the heavy lifting, especially when Dirk Nowitzki was on the shelf, but Carter never broke down. Outside of rookie scale contracts, Carter has to be one of the better bang for your buck players in the entire league.
His grit and determination really won Rick Carlisle and Mark Cuban over. He also showed that he could be a presence on the floor even on the rare nights where his shooting wasn’t on line. He took handfuls of charges over the course of the year, attacking the rim for rebounds and was a solid playmaker. Sure, he took and missed his share of shots at the end of the games, but the pros far outweigh the cons for Vince Carter this year. It will be interesting to see if the Mavs decide to keep him or see what he could fetch on the open market. One thing is for certain, Vince Carter isn’t ready to take the loss against Father Time just yet.
Here is the exit interview for Vince Carter.
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Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on under Interviews |
O.J. Mayo and Darren Collison were seen as pieces that presented the backcourt of the future. With both of them still in their mid-20s, the sky was the limit for both Mayo and Collison. Unfortunately, the two never really seemed to click at the same time. With Dirk Nowitzki out for the first 27 games of the season, Mayo led the team in scoring and minutes and was primed to be the player everyone hoped he would become. Ultimately, he hit a wall and was unable to really recover from it.
Collison saw his starting position taken away from him by two veteran point guards who joined the team during the middle of the season, Derek Fisher and Mike James. It was an extremely up and down season for the young point guard. You only have to look at the team’s regular season finale where he scored a game-high 25 points to see that there’s potential there.
Both could easily be with the Mavs next season or both of them could be playing on new squads, creating a new void for the franchise. You can make a case that either route is a solid decision for the franchise. Time will tell what they ultimately do. For now, here are the exit interviews for both Darren Collison and O.J. Mayo.
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Posted by Bryan Gutierrez on April 17, 2013 under Previews |
The end is here. For 12 years, most people didn’t have an idea when the year would be ending for the Mavericks. Now, we know that game 82 will mark the end. The Dallas Mavericks (40-41) finish their season against the New Orleans Hornets (27-54). Normally, the final day of the season usually brings a sense of excitement as everyone waits for everything to play out and see who the Mavericks would face in the first round. After the exit interviews tomorrow, we know that things will be dormant until the anticipation of the NBA draft on June 27.
The toughest day of the year for a team is the final game of the season when they have nothing else to play for. We shall if the team led by prideful veterans will impose their spirit on the rest of the team, ensuring that the season ends on a high note.
Here are the notes for the game between the Mavericks and the Hornets.
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