[BGMaverick9]

http://www.dallasbasketball.com/fullColumn.php?id=1244

Diop Dumped, Carroll Coming?
We Make Sense Of A Percolating Mavs-Bobcats Trade
By Mike Fisher -- DB.com

It was at 2:38 p.m. Friday when Mavs GM Donnie Nelson gave me a wink and a fistbump and a “stay tuned’’ when I asked him about percolating rumors about a trade. It was about two hours later when the percolation bubbled over with word that DeSagana Diop was likely moving to Charlotte, as long rumored – but with the return something less than what Dallas had once planned on.

That’s the first (relatively inconsequential) shoe to drop. We believe – amid the winks and the fistbumps and the “stay tuneds’’ – there will be another shoe.

Let’s discuss the dollars and sense of it all:

*Frequent conversations between Mavericks and Bobcats that once might have netted Dallas combo-guard Raymond Felton will instead likely send to the Mavs shooting guard Matt Carroll and project center Ryan Hollins, according to an ESPN report.

What does it all mean?

*There is something else coming. Maybe not today. Maybe not until mid-February, before the NBA trade deadline. Maybe not with the Bobcats. But something. My one-on-one visit with Donnie (more on that in coming days) causes me to feel confident about management’s dissatisfaction with the Mavs as presently constructed.

*What happened to the Felton thing? DJ Augustin’s injury slowed it. Felton’s fine play for Charlotte in the last few days ended it.

*Is OKC still interested in working out a three-way that involves Earl Watson? I believe so. Jerry Stackhouse may be the bait there.

*Can Matt Carroll help? He’s had a couple of years when he was a 40-percent shooter from the arc, and especially with Josh Howard hurt, Dallas has devolved from being a jump-shooting team into being a jump-shooting team that, outside of Nowitzki and Terry, isn’t a very good jump-shooting team. The 6-6, 210-pound 28-year old will get a shot in a rotation that continues to have a need at the 2 spot.

*Will Ryan Hollins help? He’s a 7-footer and he’s only 24. As a backup center in Charlotte, he’s playing 10 minutes per and averaging 3.6 points and 2.0 rebounds. You know what? That’s actually more than ‘Gana’s been producing in Dallas. But no. … a third-year project is not the final answer for the Mavs’ needs in the middle.

All the more reason I believe there is another shoe to drop.

*In essence, this is a ‘Gana Diop salary dump of his Mid-Level-Exception signing. (And heck, it’s kind of a Matt Carroll salary dump, too; didn’t he eat up Charlotte’s MLE a couple of seasons ago?) It’s a dump of Diop to a Charlotte team that had summer designs on signing him before Dallas boomeranged him back here after forfeiting him in the Kidd-Devin deal.

Here’s the way we believe the involved salaried break down:

Carroll
2008/09 5mil
2010 4.7
2011 4.3
2012 3.9
2013 3.5(player option)

Hollins
2009 972,000

Diop
2009 5.6mil
2010 6.0
2011 6.5
2012 6.9
2013 7.4(player option)

I might argue that this trade is, really, an admission of a mistake. The Dallas organization really wanted ‘Gana back here, and that includes coach Rick Carlisle. (It also includes every guy in the Mavs locker room, all of whom consider Diop a lovable pal.) It didn’t work – so a shoe drops.

There are the winks and the fistbumps and the “stay tuneds.’’ There simply must be another dropping shoe.

529pm jan 16 2009