HANG TIME NEW JERSEY – Back in December, Mark Cuban chose to break up his championship roster, in part to chase a big free agent this summer, and in part because the new collective bargaining agreement — with its more punitive luxury tax coming in 2013 — called for “a different methodology for building a team.”
The biggest change the Mavs made was sending Tyson Chandler to New York via sign-and-trade. Chandler was the heart of the Mavs’ improved defense last season and arguably their second-most important player.
Four months later, the Mavs look like a long shot to make it back to The Finals. And with eight games remaining in the season, they’ve still got some work to do just to make it to the postseason.
But interestingly, the Chandler-less defense hasn’t been the problem for Dallas. After ranking seventh in defensive efficiency last season, they’re right back in the same spot this year, allowing less than a point per possession.
Instead, it’s been the Mavs’ offense that has held them back.
Each week, we’ll ask our stable of scribes to weigh in on the three most important NBA topics of the day — and then give you a chance to step on the scale, too, in the comments below.
Well, that Lamar Odom in Dallas thing didn’t work out, did it? Do you blame Odom? Why or why not?
Steve Aschburner: Don’t want to pile on a troubled soul, if that’s what Odom is. But of course it’s his fault. This is a big-boy league. You don’t get paid extravagant sums of money only to play for the team and in the city of your choice. And it wasn’t as if he got banished to a D-League outpost or never had switched teams. None of it might have happened if the mere suggestion of a trade hadn’t knocked Odom sideways – sorry, Lamar, trade rumors also are part of what professionals gets paid to endure. Just because he had a country-club existence in L.A., dumb TV show included, doesn’t mean he was untouchable by some of pro sports’ harsh, er, realities. The choice still is there, and always has been, to go play in a rec league if you don’t like or can’t handle the pressures.
Fran Blinebury:Should I blame Khloe or Kim or any of the other Kardashians? Should I blame it Rio or on the bossa nova or on the rain? Of course, I’ll blame Lamar Odom. He’s the only one you can blame. He pouted. He under-performed. He let his teammates down. He took a paycheck and took a hike. Come on now, who else is there to blame?
Scott Howard-Cooper: I don’t know if “blame” if the right word, but yes. Clearly something was going on beyond the court, whether a lengthy fog over splitting with the Lakers or a personal matter. He never seemed engaged, and that’s not a hard locker room to crack. Rick Carlisle was responsible for finding a way to make this work, but at some point, it’s not about his effectiveness. It’s about Odom’s. (more…)
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – That standing ovation Lamar Odom received when he made his return to Staples Center with the Mavericks is the last one he’ll receive in the league this season.
Odom and the Mavericks have parted ways just weeks before the start of the playoffs, ending a season-long odyssey for both the reigning world champions and Odom, whose last meaningful NBA minutes were played in a Lakers uniform last season when the Mavericks swept them out of the playoffs.
Odom is done for the season with the Mavericks or anyone else. He is ineligible to participate in the playoffs with another team, since he wasn’t waived before the March 23 deadline, per ESPN.com’sMarc Stein:
The Mavericks and Odom spent Easter Sunday working out a parting, according to sources close to the situation, that frees the struggling Odom to leave the team immediately without actually being released.
“The Mavericks and I have mutually agreed that it’s in the best interest of both parties for me to step away from the team,” Odom said in a statement to ESPN.com. “I’m sorry that things didn’t work out better for both of us, but I wish the Mavs’ organization, my teammates and Dallas fans nothing but continued success in the defense of their championship.”
Sources said Monday that Odom’s departure will be immediate and that the Mavericks intend to simply list him as inactive for the rest of the season instead of outright releasing him, leaving open the possibility that they could still trade him after the season in conjunction with the draft. Any team that has Odom on its roster as of June 29 must buy him out by that date for $2.4 million or otherwise accept responsibility for the full $8.2 million that Odom is scheduled to earn in 2012-13.
Even if either side had pushed for a formal release, there is little upside to taking that step now with Odom ineligible to play in the playoffs with another team because he wasn’t waived before the March 23 deadline. One source close to the 32-year-old told ESPN.com that the decision sets Odom up to “clear his head and start getting ready for next season” after his career-low numbers and minutes continued to dip as the season wore on.
You had to know this season wouldn’t end well for Odom when he demanded the Lakers trade him, an irrational reaction to the reality that he wasn’t going to be a Laker for the rest of his career after learning that they were trying to move him during training camp so they could acquire Chris Paul.
The Mavericks (owner Mark Cuban and coach Rick Carlisle, specifically) deserve credit for doing any and everything in their power to make Odom feel welcome. But the fact is, he never wanted to leave Los Angeles and was never going to be fully committed to the change.
It’s better to end it this way than to keep on going in the same dysfunctional manner they had been for weeks.
HANG TIME NEW JERSEY – The term “foul to give” means that a team, in the final seconds of a quarter or overtime, has yet to foul in the last two minutes or commit more than three fouls in the period. Therefore, it can foul its opponent without sending them to the free-throw line (as long as the foul wasn’t on a shot attempt).
Teams like to use this “foul to give” as a way to disrupt a possession and force the opponent to start over with just a few seconds left on the clock. Often, you’ll see a defender grab a ball-handler as he begins his move to the basket.
In the closing seconds of overtime on Friday, with the score tied, the Dallas Mavericks had a foul to give as the Portland Trail Blazers brought the ball up the floor. And if a Blazers ball-handler got an advantage on his defender, it would have been a perfect time to foul and make the Blazers restart the possession.
But not only did Raymond Felton never gain an advantage on his defender, he lost his dribble and was fumbling the ball as the clock wound down. So this was not an opportune time for Jason Terry to use the foul to give…
Let us count the ways why this was a bad foul…
1. Felton didn’t have control of the ball.
2. Felton was 40 feet from the basket.
3. Felton was moving in the direction of the other basket.
4. There were less than four seconds left on the clock.
So in this case, the Blazers were happy to start their possession over, even though there were only 3.7 seconds left. Terry did them a huge favor, as his foul allowed them to call a timeout and inbound the ball to a player in much better position than Felton was at the time of the foul.
And that player was LaMarcus Aldridge…
That folks, is a perfect example of when not to use the foul to give.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Normally, we’d spend this time before tonight’s Mavericks-Heat game reflecting on the hand-to-hand combat the teams waged in The Finals last year and all of the tactical drama that could go on in this much-anticipated rematch.
But instead of reflecting, we’re left to examine the drama surrounding the slumping Heat and particularly wounded star LeBron James. A team loses two straight games by a combined 31 points and its catalyst is struggling with a busted finger, aching elbow and that soreness in his neck.
As crazy as it sounds, the Heat are in a position where they have to prove to their legions of doubters (haters or whatever else you want to call them) that they are tougher than it appears. They have to prove they can bounce back from adversity and from this mini-tailspin that has folks wondering if this is a momentary slip or something more significant.
Miami and Dallas are each 6-4 in its last 10 games, but the Mavericks come into tonight’s showdown in Miami (8 p.m. ET, TNT) having won two straight games and free from the over-the-top scrutiny that accompanies the Heat’s every move.
Despite the dismantling of their championship squad, the Mavs still nurture hopes of defending their title. For now, they are languishing in the lower-seeded playoff bracket but are only one game away from earning the third seed in the West. They also anticipate that their corps of veterans will have their respective A-games honed when the money season commences.
For the Suns, competing in the playoffs is both a distant memory and an unimaginable future. While Phoenix is still a moderately competitive team, two of their stalwarts — Grant Hill and Steve Nash — are learning that the older they get the faster they get old. Is it time, then, for management to utter the “R” word — Rebuilding?
HOW THE MAVERICKS CAN WIN
Unless he’s double-teamed, Dirk Nowitzki’s dreadnaught arsenal of off-balance, step-back, wrong-footed shot-releases can seldom be deterred. Plus, he’s a dead-eye shooter with 3-point range, is virtually unstoppable when driving left, and has the most convincing shot-fakes in the NBA. Nowitzki has certainly recovered from his early-season slump, yet he remains somewhat erratic — especially before the halftime intermission. However, Nowitzki usually has long arms whenever a game is up for grabs. Even though Jared Dudley is Phoenix’s best defender, Nowitzki will still have to be two-timed — which will create opportunities for Nowitzki’s timely passes to generate open shots for his teammates.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – We’re raising the question because no one else wants to, because no one else wants to say what needs to be said.
And let’s be real, it’s the two-ton elephant in the room with nearly every other star’s name on the trade rumor radar these days. But is it time for the Phoenix Suns to swallow hard and do what’s right by Steve Nash and trade the All-Star point guard?
We’ve read over and over again about Nash refusing to ask for a trade, refusing to play the game that so many others have late in their careers when it becomes clear that their championship-chasing window is closing and they are stuck in a now-or-never predicament.
Nash is a class act and no one can take that away from the two-time MVP whose play this season belies his 38 years on the planet.
“It’s up to the team,” Nash told The Arizona Republic during last Friday’s media availability session in Orlando for All-Star weekend. “I’m happy where I am. I’m not happy with our record. I feel like I made a commitment to the fans and my teammates. But at the same time, I’d understand if the team wanted to make a move, so I’m completely open. To be honest, I just occupy myself with trying to prepare to play and play as well as I can.”
I don’t know what it looks like from where you are, but from here it seems like a felony crime against basketball for Nash to go another season without sniffing the playoffs, without a chance to at least see what he could do at this stage of his career with a championship in his sights.
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – We don’t have to wait until the March 15 trade deadline for the fur to fly. Things are already plenty interesting.
Dwight Howard‘s name is hot in the streets of Orlando, Newark, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Dallas and beyond. Deron Williams should know the feeling. His name is all over the place as well.
Where they go, no one knows for sure. Not yet at least.
But in the absence of substantial facts, let the games begin …
If you walk into the Dallas Mavericks’ locker room anytime soon and hear that old Montell Jordan song playing in the background, it’s with good reason.
Because once again the Mavericks, despite all the critics and naysayers (yours truly included) that assumed they were sacrificing this season by allowing a championship team to break apart, are right in the thick of the race as the Western Conference standings start to take shape.
Things looked shaky early on. Tyson Chandler, J.J. Barea, DeShawn Stevenson, Caron Butler — all guys that played a role in the Mavericks’ championship season a year ago — all hit the door when free agency cranked up. It takes bold leadership to buck conventional wisdom to go in a different direction so soon after snagging basketball’s Holy Grail.
But the Mavericks under owner Mark Cuban have always been run by anything but conventional wisdom. With Rick Carlisle steering them through their early season struggles, they lost both of their preseason games, their first three regular season games and five of their first eight which cranked up the chatter about a championship hangover.
Dirk Nowitzki wasn’t himself, wasn’t in championship shape and the Mavericks championship luster was lost in the shadow of bigger stories in Los Angeles (Clippers and Lakers) and Denver, to start the season.
I fired off an email to my main man and Mavs.com’s writer Earl K. Sneed asking him if he had any idea what the plan was this season. He responded instantly, making it clear to me that were was indeed a plan and that he was more than willing to place his faith in Cuban and Carlisle in the days and weeks ahead, especially after what we witnessed covering the Mavericks’ title run last season.
He was right. They’ve gotten back to normal here lately, though, winning four straight games and 18 of their last 24. And now that Nowitzki is back to normal, the champs can entertain thoughts of mounting a serious defense of their title in a season that was supposed to be about rebuilding.
