I definitely agree with a lot of your points regarding the pessimism that surrounds this team. Now it should be interesting to see what Cuban can do with the expiring contracts of Dampier and Stack. If he can score big, this team would be in good position in my opinion.

The idea that he is going to go to the Knicks for a fraction of the money he could make here, on the incredibly unlikely chance that LeBron James would leave his hometown team (a team that was in the Finals two years ago, won 66 games this year, and just got Shaq) to start all over again in New York is just plain silly.

Don’t even get me started about the NY Times article that claimed he would be a bad human being if he stayed in Dallas.

Sure he’s taking his time to decide. Who doesn’t want to be fawned over a little bit? But I’d be shocked if he doesn’t come back, and fairly surprised if we don’t get confirmation sometime this week.

As for the deals that other teams have made, aside from the Richard Jefferson deal (which was a brilliant for SA, and more power to them), I honestly don’t see anything that should bother Mavs fans much. Shaq in Cleveland should make for interesting TV, but he’s not really Shaq anymore. Dallas dropping 140 points on the Suns and knocking them out of the playoff race late last year should have proved that to anyone who wasn’t sure yet.

(By the way, Shaq’s numbers in that game? 14 points and 7 rebounds in 27 minutes. Brandon Bass’ numbers in the same game? 14 points and 6 rebounds in 27 minutes. When the Big Diesel is getting canceled out by the third guy off the bench, he’s not a team changer anymore.)

I wouldn’t pay $56 million to Hedo Turkoglu, even if Dallas had it under the cap to spend. He’s a nice player, but he was only the third leading scorer on his own team, shot a fairly abysmal percentage (.416 for the season), and those drives to the basket everyone was so impressed by during the Finals are going to be a lot harder to come by without Dwight Howard carrying three defenders around in his back pocket everywhere he goes.

I had a friend telling me last night how he wished that Dallas would have gotten Ben Gordon, but when I pointed out that Gordon and JET are virtually indistinguishable in size, playing style, and stats (not to mention lack of defense), his only response was to say that BG is younger.

That might be true, but it ain’t worth sixty million dollars. It certainly isn’t worth $60,000,000.00 and all of our tradeable assets, which it what it would have cost to get him here.

Dallas doesn’t need another undersized guard. Not with JET and JJB already getting decent minutes. Anyone they get needs to be in the 6-5 to 6-7 range, to give them more flexibility in mixing and matching lineups.

I’ve moved off my short-lived T-Mac infatuation, after learning just how badly his knee is hurt, and have since fallen in love with Joe Johnson, who is one of the unheralded members of the 2010 FA class, and who the Hawks might need to move before Houston or New York steals him away for nothing next year. If Donnie can work that, I might forgive him for not drafting Marc Gasol back in ’07.

because if Tracy’s not fully healthy, there’s no reason to give up those assets. We need to make one home run deal for those two together or two risk/reward moves, both for SG/SF help.

My dream scenario now is to trade for the rights to Josh Childress and extend him, or try to pry Josh Smith (unlikely) or Marvin Williams (unlikely) from the Hawks. Although I’ve heard a lot of rumors that both of those players may be on the way out, so who knows? Hell, Joe Johnson would be a DREAM acquisition. I just don’t know how feasible these claims are about a team that had such a long playoff drought and finally made it back, to give up their key pieces. SO I think Childress, the guy the didn’t have as a part of that run last year, is most likely.

Seeing as how the fans there hate him, and Marvin has his spot at SF. But trading JJ might not be as hard a sell to Atlanta as you think. Atlanta put together a nice season last year, but it’s hard to imagine them vaulting past Orlando, Boston, or Cleveland any time soon (they were the 4th seed in the East, but they wouldn’t have even made the playoffs in the West), so Joe might be getting itchy feet, giving them a reason to listen to offers. He’s from this neck of the woods (Little Rock), and if he came here in a trade, he could get more in an extension from Cuban than he would even in a max FA deal in ’10.

I think the trick for Dallas would be bringing in a third team and working it so Atlanta gets a player out of the deal, not just cap room. Frankly, there’s not much they would be able to do with it anyway. It’s not like the line to join the Hawks is terribly long.

I find this little tidbit on dallasbasketball.com.

http://www.dallasbasketball.com/fullColumn.php?id=1794

David Lord explains how Utah might be in the market for a deal that would unload Carlos Boozer and allow them to cut salary to sign Paul Millsapp. Stack to Utah, Boozer to Atlanta, and Joe to Dallas could fit right in with what I was saying previously about finding the Hawks a player. Hell, Josh Smith and Boozer on the front line together might actually be better for ATL than the mix they have now.

And if I read this correctly, Dallas would still have Damp’s contract to deal with.

I’d rather have Rip Hamilton if it came down to that (better defender, more proven playoff performer, and played more than a third of the season last year), and I’m not particularly thrilled about him.

Atalnta probably wouldn’t want to give up JJ for Boozer. But they certainly don’t want him to walk as a free agent next year for nothing, which is very possible.

They’re nearly identical players (though Josh is a little better offensively, and Prince is a little better defensively), but Dallas fans like Tayshaun because he hasn’t missed a game in six years.

Michael Redd played in only 33 games last season, and has averaged only 53 over the last three, with his scoring average going down each year. Rip (who could probably be had with the Boozer deal fairly easily, since the salaries match up better than with JJ and the Pistons supposedly wanted Boozer as a FA before he opted in), has averaged 71 games, and been a steady performer in the 18-19 point range.