Dallas Mavericks - Best Team Ever?

by Walter Sobchak on Feb 18, 2009 4:02 PM CST

What Could Have Been...

I don't know why I did this to myself, or better yet why I want to pass this misery along to all of you, but I had a little free time a few days ago and came up with this:

Players we drafted and in parentheses, players we passed over either immediately after or pretty close after:

1980: (Kiki Vandeweghe - refused to sign, forced a trade)
1981: Mark Aguirre + Rolando Blackman - NICE picks
1982: Bill Garnett (Fat Lever)
1983: Dale Ellis (Clyde Drexler) + Derek Harper
1984: Sam Perkins (Charles Barkley) + Terence Stansbury (John Stockton)
1985: Detlef Schrempf (Karl Malone) + Uwe Blab (Joe Dumars) + Bill Wennington (AC Green or Terry Cummings)
1986: Roy Tarpley + traded pick (Arvydas Sabonis) + traded pick (Dennis Rodman or Mark Price)
1987: Jim Farmer (Reggie Lewis)
1988: traded pick (Brian Shaw) + Marlon Wiley (Steve Kerr)
1989: Randy White (Tim Hardaway or Shawn Kemp) + Pat Dunham (Cliff Robinson)
1990: traded pick (Elden Campbell)
1991: Doug Smith (Terrell Brandon or Dale Davis) + Mike Iuzzolino (Darrell Armstrong)
1992: Jim Jackson - the only option here
1993: Jamal Mashburn - same thing + Eric Riley (Nick Van Exel)
1994: Jason Kidd - great pick
1995: Cherokee Parks (Michael Finley)
1996: Samaki Walker (Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Jermaine O'Neal or Peja Stojakovic) + Darnell Robinson (Ben Wallace)
1997: Kelvin Cato (Brevin Knight) + Chris Antsey (Bobby Jackson)
1998: Robert Traylor (DIRK!!!) + Bruno Sundov (Cuttino Mobley) + Greg Buckner (Brad Miller)
1999: traded (Shawn Marion - although I think this was for Finley or Nash) + Wang Zhi Zhi (Manu Ginobili) + Gordon Giricek (Raja Bell)
2000: Courtney Alexander (Hedo Turkoglu) + Donnell Harvey (DeShawn Stevenson) + Eduardo Najera (Michael Redd)
2001: traded pick (Gerald Wallace or Tony Parker) + Kyle Hill (Carlos Arroyo) + Kenny Satterfield (Jamario Moon)
2002: traded (Carlos Boozer) + Sekulares? (Luis Scola)
2003: Josh Howard - great pick
2004: Devin Harris + traded pick (Kevin Martin) + Pavel Podkolzin (Delonte West) + Vasiliuos Spanoulis (Andres Nocioni)
2005: traded pick (David Lee) + traded pick (Jose Calderon)
2006: Mo Ager (Paul Milsapp)
2007: Renaldus Seibutis (Ramon Sessions) + Reyshawn Terry (Marc Gasol)
2008: traded (George Hill, Kosta Koufos or DeAndre Jordan) - this is the Devin Harris pick for last year

Now there are quite a lot of traded picks that hurt, but we probably received some good players in those trades. But look at how awesome we could have been with Vandeweghe, Blackman, Aguirre, Drexler, Derek Harper, Barkley, Stockton, Malone, Dumars, AC Green, Tarpley, Rodman and Sabonis in the 80's?

or Shawn Kemp, Cliff Robinson, Elden Campbell, Dale Davis, Darrell Armstrong, Jim Jackson, Jamal Mashburn, Nick Van Exel, Jason Kidd, Michael Finley in the 90's?

or Kobe Bryant, Ben Wallace, Brevin Knight, Bobby Jackson, Dirk, Brad Miller, Cuttino Mobley, Shawn Marion, Manu Ginobili, Raja Bell in the 90's transitioning to the 2000's?

or Hedo Turkoglu, Michael Redd, Tony Parker, Carlos Boozer, Josh Howard, Devin Harris, Kevin Martin, David Lee, Jose Calderon, Paul Milsapp, Marc Gasol, DeAndre Jordan in the late 2000's?

At least we hit on Dirk...that was huge.

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Comments

Hmm...inflicting pain on yourself by looking back on what could have been

Yeah, you’re a Mavs fan :)

"Fun" and "Failure" both start out the same way.

by Marie on Feb 18, 2009 4:09 PM CST reply actions

Bruno Sundov....

forgot about that guy.

The three J’s notwithstanding, we had some awful drafts in the 90s.

by MeanMr.Mustard on Feb 18, 2009 5:13 PM CST reply actions

That Samaki Walker one

ouch.

Scott Feldman for 2009 AL Cy Young
Scott Feldman for 2010 AL Scott Feldman

by Maximilian on Feb 19, 2009 7:20 PM CST up reply actions

had those

really good players the mavs didn’t pick not been picked, the mavs would have had better records and not been in position to pick the good picks in later years.

Omar Vizquel: your starting shortstop for the 2009 AL all-star team.

by gossamer on Feb 18, 2009 6:41 PM CST reply actions

can't we do this

for just about any other team?!?!

by kkengvib on Feb 19, 2009 4:03 AM CST reply actions

+1

I have witnessed time and time again.

by srdmad on Feb 19, 2009 2:58 PM CST up reply actions

Agree but...

…I still think that it is kinda cool to look back at all those names and think about the coulda-been.

"I'm not being condescending, I'm too busy thinking about far more important things you wouldn't understand." - Jimmy Carr

by Suicide Prince on Feb 19, 2009 3:14 PM CST up reply actions

we can.

I just think it’s interesting that over a span of almost 30 years, with draft picks, we only hit on 8 total picks (and another counting the draft-and-trade for Dirk). Every other pick, pretty much, was pure crap. I’d love to do this for the other teams out there, but this took me long enough…it’d be pretty interesting to see if we’re right in line or if we have lower success historically…which is my assumption. For instance, the Utah Jazz have drafted the following since the same time period:

Dominique Wilkins (traded), Mark Eaton, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Dell Curry, Greg Ostertag, Nazr Mohammed, Andrei Kirilenko, DeShawn Stevenson, Mo Williams, Deron Williams, CJ Miles, Ronnie Brewer, Paul Millsap that have all had a pretty big impact on the team (or in Wilkins’ case would have), plus Morris Almond and Kosta Koufos, who I believe have the ability to be good players in this league.

"Hang-Dai, Wu...Hang-Fu$&ing-Dai"

by Walter Sobchak on Feb 23, 2009 6:54 PM CST up reply actions

Urgh

I can’t even read all of that.

Anyone up for discussion of the real “best Mavs team ever”? I’m still calling 02-03 Mavs the best team this franchise has had. I think I would’ve taken them over the 05-07 Mavs teams.

JEFF TEAGUE TIME.

by jonthefon on Feb 19, 2009 10:19 PM CST reply actions

I'd love to take the 2005-2006 Finals team...

but the 1987-1988 team had quite a look:

PG – Derek Harper, SG – Rolando Blackman, SF – Mark Aguirre, PF – Sam Perkins, C – James Donaldson + Roy Tarpley, Detlef Schrempf, Brad Davis, Steve Alford

Aguirre and Donaldson were All Stars, Tarpley won 6th man of the year, they beat Hakeem and the Rockets 3-1, took out the Nuggets and then took the Lakers with Kareem, Magic, Worthy, Byron Scott and AC Green to 7 games in the WCF.

"Hang-Dai, Wu...Hang-Fu$&ing-Dai"

by Walter Sobchak on Feb 20, 2009 12:57 AM CST up reply actions

I'm not that sure about their D

the 03 Mavs were definitely passable on D with good perimeter and help defence, and LaFrentz and Bradley doing a reasonable job at mopping up. Post defence was generally poor.

And I think the 03 Mavs had more of a variety of offensive weapons to deal out with (600 threes!). That’s probably mainly because of Dirk’s ability to score. Aguirre could do damage but a lot of guys over the years have come up to defend his scoring types.

Shame those 03-04 Mavs didn’t go nowhere, if they had made a WCF even with that horrible defence, they’d definitely be worth a discussion.

JEFF TEAGUE TIME.

by jonthefon on Feb 21, 2009 3:22 AM CST up reply actions