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Originally Posted by grndmstr_c
Glad to be back, dirno
Just to play a bit of devil's advocate, there's at least two assumptions here that I think are debatable:
1) That the Mavs would have used the MLE (or at least a significant enough portion of it to land a player of consequence) after spending the money it cost to sign Diop. Time may tell the tale on this one. If they make a trade that entails significant LT costs in the short term, I'd take that as a strong indication that your assumption is correct and they probably would have gone hard after Posey with their MLE. Of course, it they do make such a trade, hopefully it'll bring a considerable talent upgrade that'll compensate for whatever the lack of spending flexibility over the summer might have cost them.
2) That the extra trade chips Dallas would have had available had they not made the Kidd trade would have been sufficient to beat the Rockets' best offer for Artest (which I'm assuming they didn't have to make in order to acquire him). Of course, even if those pieces hadn't been enough, it still would have been nice to have more to offer even if the net result was simply to drive up the price that the Rockets had to pay, not to mention to have a couple extra assets available to help in some other bidding war.
Also, since I'm not on record on the Kidd trade yet, I'll just throw out there that while I didn't really ever buy the "had to do it" line and was very sorry to lose Harris, a player I loved rooting for, reacquiring Kidd still got me pretty excited. I first started following the Mavs in his rookie year, and I've held his basketball talents in extremely high regard ever since. I thought (with perhaps a smidge of sentimental bias) that he deserved an MVP back when NJ was going to the finals, and I've long felt that he'd be an outstanding choice to play alongside Dirk. As for right now, I think the jury's still very much out on the trade. The team was in total disarray at the end of last season, and while I recognize that their post-season performance constitutes a strong argument for doubting their prospects this year, I really do think the break-down between Avery and the players was a huge reason for what I'd characterize as a rather dramatic underachievement. For that reason, I suspect I'm more optimistic than most about the impact Carlisle will have, and consequently I remain hopeful - pending a few questions about the supporting cast - that we'll at the very least get to see the Dirk and Kidd led Mavs put up the kind of fight next year that makes being a fan worthwhile.
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Look at that. Second post back and he's already in the swing of things.
Great post C. I've been pretty down about this offseason because I expected more of a shakeup, but I do share your belief that Carlisle alone is going to make a huge difference for this team.
I just wish they'd made a significant change to go along with Carlisle.