Daily Links: Part Deux

By Wes Cox Oct 31, 2006, 4:16pm CST

First off, Marcel Mutoni had me answer a few questions as part of a Mavs preview for SLAM Magazine. You can see that online here.

There's a question in there about Mark Cuban's 'antics', and the timing is appropriate since he's been in the new lately. Not just because of the Don Nelson battle, but because of the "Cuban Rule" which the board of governors passed yesterday. The goal of the rule - to control the courtside behavior of NBA owners. The punishment connected to the rule and the rules themselves haven't yet been disclosed, but Mark Cuban isn't happy about it.

"The owners who speak out the most against me have been the first organizations to ask me to support their marketing or sales efforts," Cuban said. "The league execs who chastise me or fine me have never hesitated to leverage me when it was to their advantage or to have their personnel tell me that they love what I'm doing, but could never contradict the league publicly or privately. So I'm a needed voice for them."

"The 'code of conduct' has no description or definition, so it's hard to respond to," Cuban said. "But the intent was to suggest that some owners don't like the way I do business, something they remind me of collectively every year but forget individually when they ask for something for the league or their teams."

Cuban is clearly pretty pissed off about all of this and has backed out of planned Sirius Radio show which he says he only agreed to do as a favor to the NBA. I'll have more to say about it when the details of the rule are released later this week, but my first reaction was that it's a pretty weak use of time by the board.

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There is an explosion of articles at the Star-Telegram today, here's a quick rundown.

Daily 'Training Camp' article - interview with Popeye Jones and Avery jokes that Barea made the team so he wouldn't be the shortest.

Art Garcia takes a look at the schedule.

Dwain Price takes a brief look at the most recent championship teams.

Garcia has another article with tons of quotes from Mavs players about how they believe they can get back to the NBA Finals again this season.

And Garcia again has a very good and lengthy Q&A with Dirk.

Q: As the team's most important piece, how do you expand your role?

A: "My role is going to be more getting guys open shots, getting everybody involved. Hopefully be tough defensively and be effective there and help the team wherever I can. Rebounding is always a key for me. Be involved in the rebound game. It's a little bit of everything. Help my teammates get open. Set some picks if the opponents are hugging me. More than anything, try to make something happen for my teammates and for me, but still be aggressive offensively. We'll see how it works."

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The NBA preview blog has wrapped up. Lowpost.net did a great job summarizing the preview and discovered that only only three bloggers predicted their team to have a losing record. Click that link for even more breakdowns on the predictions.

For a list of all the previews click "read more".

Pacific Division: