first of all, drew gooden is not on the spurs anymore, and neither is jacque vaughn, and antonio mcdyess would be in the starting lineup rather than rookie dejuan blair and bruce bowen is not ont he spurs anymore. do some homework next time before you try and make a comparison between the mavs and spurs. Nice Try BUDDY!!!

Zain521, you’re an absolute moron. Vaughn is on the Spurs still…. He said Drew Gooden is on the mavs.. he put him on his starting roster. He said Bruce Bowen wasn’t on the Spurs.

The only thing you’re probably right about is blair not starting. That’s quite ambitious for a late pick to start over mcdyess… Learn to read before you start criticizing someone. Also, learn to discuss before insulting someone.

Anyways, Dallas is obviously ahead of Houston, but I don’t think they’re to the level of the Spurs, at least in the regular season. Houston lost Yao and Artest, and they get a gimpy T-Mac and a young Ariza. They won’t fare as well.

so did the MAVS. Buckets mentioned the Spurs getting Jefferson…well we got Marion. Personally I think the MAVS are right up there with the Spurs. I think a lot of what each team will do will come down to injuries. And let’s face it…..although Josh had his share last season SA as a team had way more. Hell, Jefferson is ALREADY hurt. Same thing can be said about Tim Thomas too, but the big difference is that Thomas is a role player while Jefferson is a starter. It’ll be interesting to see how RJ holds up this season because in the past his health has not been so good. Most people would give SA the edge because they’re SA and have won multiple championships. At the risk of sounding like a homer (which by the way…I’m proud to be!) I’d rank the MAVS right up there with SA any day. Based on past interviews with Duncan and Ginobli I’m pretty damn certain the MAVS are one of if not the last team SA wants to face come playoff time.

I don’t think he was close to that good to start right out of college, especially for a championship contending team… McDyess is a great player, I see him having a good impact for the Spurs.

We crushed the Spurs in the playoffs last year. Ginobli was out and that obviously hurt the Spurs. Howard was severely limited and that hurt us. Adding Jefferson is a nice addition and the Spurs will no doubt be good again. I’m not sold on their depth. Blair may be good, he may also suck. Who knows. This is the deepest Mavs team I can remember. So while the Spurs may have a slightly better starting 5 I believe the Mavs have a much better bench. It will be fun rivalry as always.

Much deeper?

Starting 5 Mavs:
Gooden
Dirk
Howard
Marion
Kidd

Starting 5 Spurs:
Duncan
McDyess
Jefferson
Parker
Ginobli – Assuming he starts

Center, the Mavs are so much weaker and can’t really defend Duncan. This also allows Parker to penetrate. Their guards are just as talented as ours, except Parker is better than Kidd. J-Ho is probably the most talented SG/SF whatever he’s playing out of SA/Mavs, but only when he’s healthy

Bench Mavs:
Jet – Huge advantage most of the time
Barea (Seems to only be useful against the Spurs, I mean any team with big men who don’t like to move on defense)
Dampier (Solid against Duncan defensively, but against athletic and powerful centers he’s quite exposable)
Thomas role player I don’t see him producing much honestly.
Ross – Good defense?
Carroll – We don’t trust him or seem to like him at all… why did we say we wanted him

Bench Spurs:
Finley
Mason
Bonner
Hill
All are established role players for the Spurs. They are all well placed in Pop’s system.
Ratliff
Blair

I think the benches are quite matched. Jet maybe the best player out of the bench, but the Spurs bench all have roles and blend well into their offense, corner 3 shots especially. When their bench is hitting shots, they’re hard to beat.

Dallas isn’t obviously the better team on paper, we’ll have to wait til the season to see how it actually matches up. Still concerned about how Dallas plays d, and especially on the boards and their big men.

I see why not. Houston will compete, but won’t challenge for a division title. They’ll be a few games back without Yao and Ariza for Artest. T-Mac’s status is unknown whether he’s back to the good ol` T-Mac, or a faded T-Mac. And Memphis… No comment.