Saturday stuff

by Toddy on Aug 2, 2008 12:26 PM CDT in News

So much is made of the NBA trio's in the league recently, that Chris Broussard has ranked the the top 10 trios. While Donnie Nelson seems to think that Dallas's trio can "run with the best of them", reality of the situation in Dallas might put Kidd, Josh, and Dirk in a tier of teams a bit lower than that of the top 3 or 4 teams...

Boston
Spurs
Lakers
Houston
New Orleans
Suns
Detroit
Mavs
Wizards
76ers

8. Dallas: Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Josh Howard
Man, I'm giving the old trios lots of credit. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Rick Carlisle and an offseason of meditation will help these three mesh better. Like Phoenix and Detroit ahead of them, they're done contending for rings, but they can certainly play better than they did last season. Almost went with Washington and Philly over them, but I had to admit that in the East, Dallas would be a force.

In ranking the trio's, I find this to be about right. If you notice, Utah or Portland both didnt make the list. Portland is understandable at this point, because we don't know what to expect, and Utah doesn't really have that 3rd guy to complete it's trio. I guess it goes to show how much Williams and Boozer carries that team.

-----------------------------------------------

Bill Ingram says that the Mavs have practically been blinded by the fact that the Kidd trade and (lack of moves) this season, has caused them to go from first to worst.

You would think so from the way the Mavericks have approached the offseason. To date they've made no trades, and spent their entire mid-level exception on Gana Diop. Granted, they needed a back-up center and loved what Diop brought to the table on the defensive end during his tenure as a Maverick...

So far. . .nothing. Mavs GM Donnie Nelson tells us he'll fill the final two roster spots with young players from the summer league squad and call it good...

So how exactly will the Mavericks be competitive next season? Apparently they're hoping for a miracle.

Frankly, the Mavericks are holding onto the playoff berth most likely to be claimed by the Portland TrailBlazers.

----------------------------------------------------

Tim Cowlishaw also suggests the playoffs are no given for the Mavs, tells us his thoughts on the Artest deal, and where the Mavs rank in the West.

The Mavericks had no chance of getting into the Artest sweepstakes because, among other things, they lack a No. 1 pick in the 2009 draft which the Rockets were willing to trade to Sacramento...

Are the Mavericks even capable of reaching the first round?

They were a No. 7 seed a year ago and, other than a possible upgrade at coach, the Mavericks have done little to dramatically improve their club.

-----------------------------------------------------

Faz released, and is now a FA.

-----------------------------------------------------

Cuban has to pony up and pay Nellie his 6.3 million... check out GSoM and what they have to say about it... Always a fun time over there when it concerns the Mavs.

----------------------------------------------------

And I couldnt resist this...

Tweet Comment 3 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

I don't know

I still believe that JKidd can work in Dallas. What’s more important than personnel right now is the coaching style/overall team strategy. Kidd is still one of the NBA’s best transition players of all time and a half-court style that emulates transition basketball (ie, more free-flowing, more off the ball movement, something similar to the Princeton sets Kidd had under Byron Scott in New Jersey) would really help show his talents more. In my estimation, Dallas would be much better off increasing its pace from last year’s sluggish 90.2. Obviously you guys have watched way more Mavs games than I have, so I could be way off.

by Rohan on Aug 2, 2008 1:23 PM CDT reply actions

yeah

I’m still holding final judgment on the Kidd trade til the end of this next year. And it wont be championship or bust for me also on determining if the Kidd trade was the right move or not either. Looking at some of your GREAT write-ups on how Kidd, CP13, and D-Will are doing in the Olympics though, and watching their play, I am kinda brining myself down from pre-Olympic hype that Kidd received from everyone.

I think Donnie was right in saying that the Big 3 here can run with anyone… but consistently over an 82 game season and in a 4, 7 game series to a championship? I dont know. All signs seem to suggest that its probably not the case. On any given night though? Absolutely.

Consider this though. Before Kidd came here, we really did not have a legitimate 3rd option behind Josh and Dirk. (though some will still argue we still dont have a 3rd option in Kidd, and maybe even a 2nd in Josh) At any given time pre-Kidd, that third person could have been JET or Harris. Even though I think the potential for Harris to have taken that role as the 3rd option had been there for about a year when they decided to do the Kidd deal, Avery always seemed to have held him back from breaking loose. So you really had two guys filling that role of the 3rd option.

Harris is long gone now, but JET still remains. If JET can somehow return to his 06-07 form, he may make up for the shortcomings of the Dallas trio. I am still excited to see what the coaching change and Kidd can do this next year… but I think its asking a lot of those two things happening to equal that of a Championship caliper type team.

by Toddy on Aug 2, 2008 2:17 PM CDT up reply actions