Game starts pretty early today, hopefully most can watch it online at work on nba.com.  Tipoff will be at 1pm CST.

Artest and Smith links, Fisher questioning my thoughts on Cuban's sleeping patterns right now, Q&A with Kidd and more below.

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Want Him: He can still go off for big scoring nights every now and then.  Perceived as the main 'veteran leader' on the team.

Don't Want Him: Aging fast -- his ppg dropped for the fourth year in a row.  In the postseason he averaged 20 min and  6 points per game on  31.6% shooting (of course he wasn't healthy so I don't know why he was playing that much...).  Is he just a relic of the Avery era?

The one Mavs opinion I was interested in hearing of Rick Carlisle as coach of the Mavericks was Jerry Stackhouse, and David Moore printed that today in the Dallas Morning News.

What's so interesting about Stackhouse's opinion? Well, you hear it from every sportswriter in Dallas: Jerry Stackhouse is the one Maverick player who never talks in soundbites. He doesn't hesitate to tell you how he feels, even if he sometimes steps on some toes. It is also important to note that Stackhouse thinks Avery Johnson is a fantastic coach. Finally, Stackhouse also played for Rick Carlisle in Detroit before he was traded to Washington. Put all the above together, and you have a recipe for some dynamic Stackhouse honesty.

So what did Stack have to say?

He's the best guy available and the best coach for our team with our personalities. He's the best fit without question. There are not enough positive things I can say about him.

Stack also addressed some specifics. A few of which are eye-opening in their illustation of Carlisle's strengths:

The knowledge to devise a play that results in a wide-open shot at the end of a close game? Stackhouse said Carlisle does it consistently.

The insights to give a player a tip that will help improve his game? Two staples of the Stackhouse repertoire, the post-up move at the free throw line and the jab step that creates space for a jump shot, were taught to him by Carlisle.

In short, we have a player who has lost one of his favorite coaches of all time and is excited about the new coach who is replacing him. As players go, it's an important Carlisle endorsement.

The Bucks blog Brew Hoop has a post up today saying the Milwaukee should be making a play for the seemingly available Josh Howard.

He proposes a Stackhouse and Howard for Redd trade and thinks it could make sense for both teams.  The Bucks save some money and Dallas gets a serious offensive threat to to play next to Dirk.

Overall, the chance to add a player of Howard's abilities while also helping mitigate future luxury tax concerns would seem hard to beat at this point, unless Hammond and Skiles think they can get more out of Redd by keeping him. Unfortunately, Redd's legacy in Milwaukee might make that difficult. While there's no doubt that Redd's scoring would be missed, at $17 million per season he simply isn't good enough to carry a franchise, a burden he wouldn't have in Dallas.

Anyway, it's a good read and nice to see that while Mavs fans may be down on Howard right now, he's still valued around the league -- at least by fans.

When I was in the locker room after the season-ending victory over the Hornets, one of the reporters asked Jerry Stackhouse about playoff experience. He stated that one of the biggest advantages of being a veteran is that you know not to get too high from a big win or a too down from big loss.

He pointed to his own experiences in his first playoff series against Atlanta, where Atlanta went out to a 2-0 lead in the best of five series with a banged up young team, and then immediately rode that amazing momentum to... two straight losses. Stackhouse didn't mention it but it is worth nothing that one of the turning points in that series was certainly the veteran presence of Atlanta's Dikembe Mutombo, who after losing twice (including a blowout loss in game four) confidently stated that Atlanta was going to win game five. I dare say that Mutombo is the kind of veteran that is important to have: Two straight big losses, and he's smiling and talking about the next round before the deciding game.

The upstart is that a young Jerry Stackhouse was part of the losing team in that series, while Mutombo moved on to the next round. I rather think that this is what Stack was talking about in the locker room the other night.

The truth is that you never know what is going to happen, and feeling too good about a big win can lead to catastrophic losses. That's a very important lesson, and, you know, there's a team that learned that lesson first hand. Yes--the one that had a 2-0 lead over the Heat in the NBA finals. It remains to be seen if the Hornets are going to learn that lesson at the hands of the Mavs.

Here's how we got to this point:

January 29th:

• Jason Kidd asks the Nets for a trade.
  "It used to be if I got a triple-double, that was an automatic win," he said. "That's just not the case now. We tried to make this work. We've found out it doesn't. It's time for us all to move on."
  Nets President Rod Thorn says they will only trade Kidd if it makes sense for them.
• 
  
• Jeff Caplan quotes Mark Cuban as saying the Mavs are not interested in finding a replacement for Harris.
  
  He also cites a New Jersey paper who is reporting that Dallas has offered Diop, Stackhouse, and George (but not Harris) for Kidd.
• 
  
• Stan McNeal of The Sporting News asks Mark Cuban if a Harris, Diop, Stackhouse, Juwan Howard, George for Kidd trade is possible. Mark Cuban tell him to "Step away from your crack dealer."

January 30th:

• ESPN starts reporting that Dallas, Portland, and New Jersey are working on a three team trade.
  According to league sources and sources close to the team, the Nets would get point guard Jarrett Jack, forwards Travis Outlaw and Channing Frye, a first-round pick and cash from Portland and Devean George, DeSagana Diop, Jerry Stackhouse, a No. 1 and cash from the Mavericks.
  
  Kidd would return to Dallas, where he started his career. The Mavericks also would get Malik Allen and Darrell Armstrong, the sources said. Portland would be getting at least point guard Devin Harris from Dallas.
  This is the first time Devin Harris is mentioned as being a possibility.
• 
  
• Eddie Sefko mentions the possibility of the Nets buying out Stackhouse after any trade.
  Several aspects of that proposal, including a possible buyout of the remainder of Stackhouse's three-year $21 million contract he signed in the summer, would make that deal problematic, to say the least.

January 31st:

• Marc Stein quotes sources as saying the the Nets/Mavs/Blazers trade is pretty much dead.

February 1st:

• Avery Johnson denies all rumors that the Mavs are trying to acquire Kidd.
  "We're not involved," Johnson told reporters. "Anybody has the right to throw out names and speculate, but we're not involved. That's all I can tell (the players). We're not involved. We like our team, we're moving forward with our team."
• 
  
• John Hollinger is so confused as to why the Mavs would trade Harris for Kidd that he wonders if it was all a New Jersey invention.
  In other words, when news of a deal gets leaked out to several New Jersey-based press members involving the Nets getting back several good young ones, two first-round picks, and significant cap relief, one has to wonder about the genesis of such reports.
  
  In particular, one has to wonder if the Nets aren't trying to drive up the price for Kidd by circulating information about a trade that seems preposterous from the vantage point of the other two teams.

February 7th:

• Donnie Nelson says a major trade isn't the way to go.
  "If you start doing that [tearing up the team] and reacting to what other people are doing or their way of thinking, I just think you're setting yourself up for failure. We're interested in the Mavs and what we do here, not the 29 other teams."

It looked like it was all over at this point. Then Dallas played the Nets in New Jersey.

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