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Allen Iverson, Devin Harris, and the Nuggets - Saturday Stuff

By Wes Cox

I suppose I'll start off with the most obvious bit of news this weekend. Allen Iverson has demanded a trade and according to this the Mavericks and Celtics are the front-runners to land him. I don't buy it.

Let me first just assume the Mavs are interested, a big assumption, a trade with Philly would be nearly impossible. Philadelphia isn't going to trade the face of their franchise for just expiring contracts like Croshere - they'll want talent, they'll want youth, and they'll want a nice draft pick or two as well. The Mavs don't have the draft picks so that pretty much leaves you with Josh Howard and Devin Harris as the only trade bait.

Josh and his new contract extension are off limits and Mark Cuban emailed Yahoo! to tell them "We wouldn't trade Devin."

Say the Mavs were willing to trade Harris for AI. They would need to add over 11 million in contracts for it to be allowed by the league office. A trade of Devin Harris, Jerry Stackhouse, and DeSagana Diop would be allowed and is about the best Dallas could put together. Never mind the fact that offer could be beat by about 10 teams in the NBA; that leaves the Mavs without their sixth man and with DJ Mbenga as the backup center. All for what -- to gamble adding a superstar to a team already good enough to win it all. What's the point of that?

Adding Allen Iverson may or may not make the team better, but there is no point in finding out. Don't you remember the Antoine Walker experiment?

I like Allen Iverson, but I have no desire to see him in Dallas and I'm not worried about it happening.

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Dallas tries to recover from the Detroit game tonight against Denver. The Nuggets played in Colorado last night and that's good for the Mavs. Bad for the Mavs is that Jerry Stackhouse will probably miss the game with a groin strain. It shouldn't matter though - Dallas has no reason to lose at home to Denver.

Sefko points out a stat that I had missed. Josh Howard has outshot Dirk the last two games. It doesn't sound like Avery wants to see that continue.

"I don't think it's OK in the sense that we have to find the right formula," Johnson said. "It's going to vary from game to game, but we do have different goals we want to achieve offensively in terms of shots every game, and that's something we're taking a look at."
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Dwain Price has an article on Carmelo Anthony. In case you haven't noticed, Anthony leads the league in points per game with 31.7 and has a field goal percentage over 50.

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short Nuggets game preview by Sefko

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Art Garcia points out some really ugly statistics from the last three games.
They've been outrebounded in the past three games, including the win at New Jersey, after winning the battle on the boards in 11 of their previous 12 contests.

The offense has also been ragged. The Mavs averaged 90.3 points the past three games -- they topped 100 seven times during the 12-game winning streak -- and failed to shoot at least 42 percent against the Wizards and Pistons.
Denver allows 105 points per game but does outrebound their opponents. Dallas will need to work hard on the offensive glass to prevent Denver from getting out in transition. That's where they're dangerous.

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Jerry Stackhouse is apparently an amateur movie director.
Stackhouse premiered a behind-the-scenes documentary of the Mavs' 2005-06 season at the team's annual holiday party. The piece, shot by Stackhouse and his video crew, is about an hour long and follows the team from training camp to the NBA Finals.

It's not available for public viewing yet, though Stackhouse hopes to have the project ready for release soon.
It's supposedly really good and will be out on DVD or on NBATV at some point. Can't wait.

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Sefko has a pretty good article on the Mavs record against the better teams in the league - it's not good.
That the Mavericks own a 5-5 record against teams that would have been in the playoffs when they woke up Friday morning is not a glowing endorsement of their play. And while it's not time to invoke the "slump" word yet, they have lost two of their last three.
While they have padded their record with wins over teams that have little or no hope of playoff success this season, the Mavericks know those are not the teams against whom they ultimately will be judged.
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And finally JJT writes about the Mavs inconsistent defense.

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