[jthig32]

Agree with most of this.

• What happens to the Mavericks now?

In a loaded Western Conference, they would appear headed to the lottery. Jason Terry, by far the Mavs’ second-best offensive player last season, is headed to Boston. Jason Kidd is a free agent, and in fast decline even if the Mavs do bring him back. Dirk Nowitzki is a genius, but he’s only getting older. Roddy Beaubois’ career has consisted mostly of waiting, with an occasional explosion.

With Terry gone, the Mavs need an infusion of scoring and/or passing talent to prop up an offense that fell off the rails last season. That was to be Williams’ job, and now Dallas could have something (via a few housecleaning moves) like $12 million in cap space to chase someone else — perhaps old friend Steve Nash, still a fantastic offense player, and the kind who could right this flailing offense. Dallas could acquire more space by using the amnesty provision on Brendan Haywood, a move that appears inevitable at some point, but that would leave Brandan Wright (on a non-guaranteed deal) as the only non-Dirk big man on the roster. The Mavs could re-sign Ian Mahinmi to beef up the front line, too.

This is a brutally thin team right now. It’s heartening that Dallas maintained a top-10 defense last season even without Tyson Chandler, but Shawn Marion, a linchpin of that defense, is 34 and will show his age at some point.

Mark Cuban gambled by letting Chandler leave in free agency, breaking up a champion in order to chase cap space. It was a risk, but one that few criticized at the time without any qualifiers. Chandler was 29 then, with a slightly scary injury history admittedly receding further into the past, and the Mavs’ core was aging fast even then. It was hard to watch the impact of last season’s compressed schedule on everyone from Kidd to Nowitzki and envision this team with Chandler toppling Oklahoma City and Miami in the playoffs, even if they gave the Thunder an honest run in the first round. And it was impossible to predict how badly Lamar Odom would flame out as Cuban’s solid-on-paper attempt to find a one-season stop-gap.

It didn’t work, but the great thing about flexibility is that it doesn’t have to go away. Dallas could sign players to cheap contracts or one-year deals this summer, maintain cap space for next summer and be right back in the thick of every rumor. Players generally like Cuban, and Dallas has a well-earned reputation for being on the cutting edge of luxury, training methods and analytics–stuff that appeals to all sorts of players.