[TheKid]

I want to touch on two things:

1. I see where all of you are going with Ascrobic and how Nellie loves him and he's his type of player, he's athletic, etc. etc. However regardless of how good he is, it's going to take him a year or two to adjust. I really don't have a problem with that, but the way you guys are talking like he will come in and really help us out next year and to be honest he probably won't. Look how high they were on Wang and he's going into his 3rd year and he's still adjusting and developing.

Also, I don't doubt the guy is talented enough to warrant the minutes, but realistically, can he just come here and the first year get 15-20 minutes a game? Would Nellie really do that? Think about it, it's not the same Mavericks when Dirk came here and they were winning 20 games, this is a championship caliber team and to get as many minutes on this team you HAVE to be productive in some aspect, and I think it would be asking alot of him to come in next year and be a good defender and produce scoring for the Mavs. NOW, I'm not saying the guy isn't worth our time because as it's been stated he shot 70% from the field, that's impressive and I say you take a guy who shoots like that, but I hear people putting alot of faith in a guy that we really only have hear say about.

<<What I am saying is that if we sure up our perimeter defense, and actually put pressure on the ballhandlers, whether it be shooting or passing into the post AND cut off penetration, then our interior defense won't be a problem.>>

I think we've been round and round on this one. I've said before, we need to improve our perimeter defense but I watched CLOSELY the Sacramento series. I watched Bibby and Jackson at times go by Fisher and the rest and watched them only convert a LOW percentage of shots around the basket when Shaq was there. That made them become jumpshooters. With the exception of one game, Jackson wasn't hitting his shots, but Bibby was on fire so it didn't matter. Although it completely changed the dynamics of Christie's game. When Shaq wasn't there, it was a layup line. So my point is even with excellent perimeter defense, when you have that interior defense, it allows your perimeter to be more aggressive and the opposition isn't as aggressive.

Look at game seven of the Lakers game or even game six and five for that matter. When the Kings needed a basket it ended up being a jump shot. NOW Bibby and Jackson showed they could go by Kobe and Fisher without a problem, but they knew they would be unable to finish with Shaq in there, so they settled for the jumpshot. Against the Mavs the ONE game that went to the wire, what did Bibby do, go to the basket. He made a nice move on Fin (which he would have went by anyone with that move) and went to the basket. NOW if we have an inside presence, I'd be willing to bet Bibby stops and takes a jumpshot. Now I'm not saying he misses it but you prefer him to take the tougher shot than the layup. Also, I'm NOT saying our perimeter defense was good because it sucked also, but I'm saying if we had better perimeter defense and we didn't improve our interior, I'd be willing to bet, we would still look bad defensively.