Interesting article from Fish about the Mavs possibly trying to trade way up in the draft. It's a real longshot, I think, but I would LOVE to get Joe Alexander in here.

We’ll frame this for now as "educated gossip’’ rather than as "sourced information,’’ but DallasBasketball.com has been offered multiple hints that the Mavs are in conversations that could give the team a top-10 pick in Thursday’s NBA Draft. And we can state with certainty that there are talent gurus within the organization who covet Eric Gordon and Joe Alexander as mid-top-10 values.

http://www.dallasbasketball.com/fullColumn.php?id=491

Now, I think this quite shaky, considering the source, but Peter Vescey is reporting that the Mavs have hired Carlisle.

One newspaper has already picked up on the report.

Link

New York, NY (Sports Network) - Rick Carlisle is reportedly headed back to the NBA as a head coach.

Analyst Peter Vecsey, speaking on NBA TV, reported Carlisle would take over for the recently fired Avery Johnson.

 

In six seasons as a coach, two with Detroit and four with Indiana, Carlisle has compiled a 281-211 record. He was the league's coach of the year in 2002 when he guided the Pistons to a 50-win season.

Per ESPN.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3375306

The Dallas Mavericks parted company with coach Avery Johnson on Wednesday, a day following the team's first-round exit from the NBA playoffs, ESPN.com has learned.

Speculation about Johnson's future with the franchise had been mounting for weeks, ever since Dallas struggled to reach the playoffs as the seventh seed following its midseason acquisition of point guard Jason Kidd from New Jersey.

Johnson became Mavs coach during the 2004-05 season and walks away with a 194-70 record (.735) but only a 23-24 mark in the playoffs. Host New Orleans wrapped up a 4-1 series rout of Dallas with Tuesday night's 99-94 victory.

"This is tough for me," Johnson said after the game, not specifically responding to a question about his job security but struggling to contain his disappointment after the Mavs' second straight flameout in the first round.

NBA front-office offices sources told ESPN.com that both the Mavs and Johnson, feeling that a coaching change was inevitable, wanted to come to a resolution quickly so Dallas could begin interviewing candidates and Johnson could pursue another job.

Sources close to the situation have said that Mavericks owner Mark Cuban actually considered firing Johnson before the playoffs, specifically after Cuban and Johnson engaged in an emotional argument after a March 18 home loss to the Lakers.

Cuban refused to speak with reporters after Tuesday's loss -- Dallas' ninth playoff defeat in a row on the road since taking a 2-0 lead in the 2006 NBA Finals.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/basketball/mavs/stories/032808dnspomavsblog.3623e01. html

So there you guy, Wes and Jake. You can now get credentialed.

One-line diaries are prohibited on Mavs Moneyball. Give your diary a bit more thought, then give it another shot. If you have nothing to add to your proposed diary, then it probably belongs as a comment under another appropriate thread.
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Does anyone need ANY more proof that he's a ridiculous control freak?

Anyone?

This was posted on dallas-mavs.com. Bullet 2 seems to contain some nice info:

Didn't see this anywhere in the last few threads. Avery was on GAC yesterday (wed. 10/24) and had the following observations:

1. No comment about Kobe, which was prompted by Galloway preceeding his question with a "I know you can't talk about another player under contract with a different team but.."
2. Lack of size is something they need to address at the 2. He knows the starting lineup and says we'll see it once the team is back full and healthy (presumably, once Josh returns). He says Jason Terry has a really good shot at being this year's 6th man of the year. Jerry Stackhouse will probably be the best 7th man in the league.
3. Talked about him having to stretch out the team last year because of how weak the bench was, and that made them fatigued down the stretch. Said he hopes to be able to avoid that this year, but will not take anything in the regular season for granted.
4. Pointed out that the team faces less uncertainty this time than it did last year when they lost DA's leadership, Griffin's consistency, and Van Horn who "made a shot or two once in a while."

Buried at the bottom of this article:

http://www.star-telegram.com/287/story/92905.html

Is the note that George is exercising his player option and will become a free agent.

Any thoughts on this? I'd say the Mavs are probably not bothered by this.

Per ESPN, Cowboys and Davis are finishing up a contract:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2787446

This probably isn't diary worthy, but I wanted to see if anyone else noticed this and found it as strange as I did.

In yesterday's game, someone hit a comebacker to Robertson, and he made an amazing stab at the ball behind his back, stopped it and threw to first to end the inning.

This was a phenomenal play, one that was made the top play on Sportscenter last night.

Well, what was weird was the fill in announcer for the Rangers didn't so much as raise his voice when calling the play. He didn't remark at all on it being a nice play. In fact had you been listening to the tv broadcast with no video, you would have though it was a generic comebacker.

Not only that, but from what I saw of the rest of the game, they never replayed it, never talked about it one bit.

I just found this really strange. Anyone else?

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060816

Made for an interesting read I thought.

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