Man, I was ready to get caught up on all the articles this morning and see a bunch of 'optimistic - looking forward to a new season' type stuff.   Instead it's all pretty depressing.  Like this by Tim Cowlishaw with the headline "Mavericks not as bad as they've looked in preseason".  The headline almost scared me away, but Cowlishaw does say he expects the Mavs to better than last season.

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Carlisle says there is a lot of work to do before the season starts and are 'behind where they need to be'.

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Sefko gives a possible explanation for the preseason.

The Dallas Mavericks seem to have made that leap into middle age and accepted that the preseason is a nuisance and not to be taken seriously.

Okay, the loss to Indiana on Thursday sucked, but the preseason wasn't that bad.  Carlisle committed to resting starters in the 4th quarter of pretty much every game, but that's something I think a coach should do no matter how old the team is.  Just look around at the long list of injuries to key players this preseason and you'll see why.

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The Mavs cut Keith McLeod and are planning to open the season with 14 men on the roster.  That means for now JJ Barea and Jason Terry are  Kidd's backups.

Mike Fisher isn't convinced the Mavs are OK with that scenario, but nobody is telling him anything to back that up.

"The other part of this,'' Carlisle said Thursday night, "is that we have three guys we feel are good point guards.''

Well, OK. Properly chastised, gently comforted and generously schooled, I fully believe the Mavs have no issues at backup point guard.

I think.