[XERXES]

Sam Smith
Chicago Tribune
1/19/04

Portland's Rasheed Wallace will be the biggest name in trade talks as the NBA's Feb. 19 deadline approaches.

Wallace came up in discussions between Mavericks basketball operations director Donn Nelson and Blazers general manager John Nash on Saturday when Dallas played at Portland.

Nelson said nothing was imminent, but Mavs owner Mark Cuban reportedly nixed a deal of Wallace for Antawn Jamison, Tony Delk and Eduardo Najera.

The Mavs are a good team that should be better. The effort doesn't seem to be there with so many Cuban-inspired personnel changes in the last year. Hard-working role players and locker-room leaders such as Nick Van Exel, Raef LaFrentz, Raja Bell and Adrian Griffin were exchanged for scorers such as Jamison and Antoine Walker. Dallas chemistry has suffered with only five players back from last season's 60-win team and conference finals loser. Not only that, but the team's primary weapons of Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki have been diminished with more offensive options and a mediocre defense has gotten worse.

As a result, rumors flew that veteran coach Don Nelson was on the way out. Nelson did little to spike the talk. "Change can be good, and if that happens, they'll be no stones cast by this side," Nelson said.

Cuban, engaging Nelson in a long clear-the-air session, was having none of it and told Dallas reporters: "Nobody's getting fired. I'm not going to let Nellie sit in Hawaii and play golf and get a suntan if I can't get one. He's got to stay here and work this thing out and get it to the next level. I wasn't going to do the old vote-of-confidence thing, because that's a kiss of death. I wanted to tell him that, with all the [expletive] going on, you ain't going anywhere."

Cuban reportedly hadn't talked much with Nelson this season before last week's meeting, has questioned the coaching in front of the team and called Nelson "a drama queen" for his behavior. Nelson threw the roster makeup responsibility onto Cuban. "Everybody is cranky right now," Cuban said after the meeting. "There's nothing different there."

Let's make a deal: Dallas plays the Bulls here on Friday. Maybe the Mavs would be willing to talk about trading for Antonio Davis. They need a role-playing, front-line defensive player, and the Bulls need to get rid of Davis as quickly as possible.

Davis is all wrong for the Bulls. He made some sense when there was some chance to support Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler in a playoff run, but that's over. Every minute Davis plays puts the Bulls that much further away from truly finding out about Curry and being able to move on with him and Chandler or to begin making trade plans for them.

The deal to make now is Davis for Jamison. Not only is Jamison an extra part for the Mavs, but he's also under contract through 2007-08. Davis' deal ends after 2005-06. The trade would save the Mavs more than $30 million and give them the kind of team defender they need. Jamison is a legitimate offensive force who could make up for the scoring loss of Jalen Rose and Donyell Marshall. He can play small forward, the Bulls' thinnest position, and even some power forward in the East. But, more important, the deal would open up more playing time for Curry. Because even if the Bulls were to make the playoffs with Davis, Jerome Williams and Scottie Pippen, what would that accomplish?