Depth or too much talent?

[rakesh.s]

Coming into this season, the mavs picked up stack and terry...and they traded for Van Horn...This was supposed to add "depth"

Right now, the mavs seem to have a collection of talent as opposed to players that know their roles. There are a couple of guys on the team that need to shoot the ball or they can't/won't contribute - stackhouse, finley, dampier, van horn and terry to some extent.

Dirk is going to be THE GUY on this team - 20+ shots and Dampier, when healthy must get at least 10 shots..You cannot expect a big man to rebound and block shots for you if you don't reward him on the other end.

Prior to the all star break, Stackhouse and Daniels were both out...Josh Howard and Dampier were both in a groove and the team was playing very well.

It seems to me that the mavs need to do away with a few of these players..yes, it means getting rid of "talent" but it's going to improve the team...The mavs need to replace finley and stackhouse(only because of age and being injury prone) with 3-pt shooters ala kyle korver and slashers/rebounders like josh howard that don't demand 20 shots a game, but play well within an offensive scheme.

The '02 team had a nice set of players - big 3 and van exel were the shooters and you had role players like walt williams, griffin(defensive stopper) etc etc..They didn't do too bad iirc..

The problem right now is that Van Horn's contract expires next year and surely the mavs are going to trade him for another player whose contract expires in '07 or '08...The cycle never seems to be broken..[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-frown.gif[/img]

[DNNF]

Same shit as last year. too many players that want minutes. Not enough role players. this team might not even beat the webber less Kings in the first round.

KVH contract is the same crap as Walker. If we want to win, get Phil Jackson in the coaching seat or let Avery run the show.

[dude1394]

Stack-- role player, josh -- role player, hendu--role player, kvh--role player, shawn--role player, devin--role player, armstrong--role player....

I could make the argumen that jet, fin are also role players. I don't see anyone whining about minutes.

[FilthyFinMavs]

Isn't the defintion of a role player a player who knows his role? No one on this team with the exception of Dirk knows their role.

[Drbio]

Originally posted by: FilthyFinMavs
Isn't the defintion of a role player a player who knows his role? No one on this team with the exception of Dirk knows their role.

ignorance abounds tonight. How unfortunate.

[FilthyFinMavs]

Originally posted by: Drbio

ignorance abounds tonight. How unfortunate.

[img]i/expressions/anim_laugh.gif[/img]. Crying as usual. Man up. Things are going to be okay.

[Drbio]

Do you have to train to be a professional dumbass FFM or does it just occur naturally...you know...because of genetics?

[Azn_Baller101]

Originally posted by: Drbio
Do you have to train to be a professional dumbass FFM

quite a career. keep up the good work.

[dirno2000]

The problem right now is that Van Horn's contract expires next year and surely the mavs are going to trade him for another player whose contract expires in '07 or '08...The cycle never seems to be broken..

Excellent point.

I don't quite understand how the general consensus on this board after the Damp trade was that after years trading, we've finally assembled a team capable of competing for a championship on a yearly basis. Maybe not this year because the new parts need to mesh and the young players probably needed another year of maturity, but definitely by next year. Everything seemed to be moving towards that end, then we make a major trade, yet 70% of the board is in favor of it.

[Drbio]

dirno - You always try to get a core group of guys and then put into place the supporting staff. Our cores are now Finley (by contract), Dirk or course, Dampier, Quis, Howard. Some may argue for other players as well. The others are usually tinkered with. I'm not sure that any championship team has ever not tinkered with the end of the bench. Certainly there are types of players who occupy the end of the bench on good teams and champion teams. Your core isn't as likely to change as those guys though.

Sadly, KVH will likely be traded again because of his contract. Personally, I hope Cuban swallows the contract and the Mavs resign him for multi-years at reasonable dollars. The guy can flat out play and has done nothing but hustle since he got here. But, the sad nature of the NBA today is that it is a business first and guys are going to move every year.

[dude1394]

I don't see how booth versus KVH is anything but a good. I guess the folks not liking it think that it's messed with the psyche of the team to lose booth and bring on KVH. I guess the players themselves could be saying that "here we go again" with nellie ball, but they competed pretty hard last night against the lakers, clippers was another story....there was a bunch of give-up there.

I didn't see a lot of give-up there but there wasn't much of an answer for kobe at the end. They are the 8th place play-off team in a pretty tough western conference after all.

[The Miles]

Problem with Van Horn is that you have to actually play him. WIth Booth, you could use him when you needed him (like the Suns game where he was magnificent) and sit him when he is not needed because he didn't expect minutes. If Keith just played Dirks bench minutes, ie 6-12 per game ONLY when Dirk was out, then I could see how good of a move this was. But with Nellie this means that Van Horn is going to get 20+ mpg while guys like Henderson, Benga, and Bradley, role players that defend inside, sit.

It doesn't help our team at all having Keith playing 25 minutes.

[grndmstr_c]

I wouldn't be put out in the slightest to see the Mavs hang on to Van Horn and re-sign him for a more reasonable amount when his contract's up. I mean, if some no-brainer of a trade for a legit all-star who can play both ways comes up that changes things, but barring that I'd be very happy to have Van Horn stay on as the backup forward.

[rakesh.s]

Originally posted by: grndmstr_c
I wouldn't be put out in the slightest to see the Mavs hang on to Van Horn and re-sign him for a more reasonable amount when his contract's up. I mean, if some no-brainer of a trade for a legit all-star who can play both ways comes up that changes things, but barring that I'd be very happy to have Van Horn stay on as the backup forward.

the question is whether or not van horn can accept being a backup

jamison tried it for a year and it didn't work..Sure, he says that he can be the backup now but that's because of his injury..What happens when that heals?

[grndmstr_c]

Where Van Horn's at in his career is very different from where AJ was in his career, and Keith isn't as good as AJ either, so I'm not too worried about it from that perspective. Of course, when I say I'd like to see him stay I'm assuming he'd want to stay. If he doesn't then obviously the Mavs would have to go in a different direction.

[Drbio]

Someone show me where he has done anything but accept his role. The knock on him in other cities has been that he was reluctant to be "the man". Everything you read, hear and see about KHV demonstrates that he is a team guy and would accept whatever role he is assigned...especially if he were to resign for a multi-year deal. In that case it would be clear up front and if not desired he wouldn't sign. Simply...the guy is a great addition and has done nothing but bust his ass here and basically everywhere else too for that matter.

[dirno2000]

dirno - You always try to get a core group of guys and then put into place the supporting staff. Our cores are now Finley (by contract), Dirk or course, Dampier, Quis, Howard. Some may argue for other players as well. The others are usually tinkered with. I'm not sure that any championship team has ever not tinkered with the end of the bench.

I agree with this, but he's already playing 23 minutes per game so he's a long way from the end of the bench. Now you can look at it two ways. You can assume that he's playing so many minutes so soon because we're short two frontline players in Booth and Damp. On the other hand, Nellie is playing him decent minutes and he hasn't found his shot yet. The percentages say that eventually he's going to shot the ball better and if Nellie ups his minutes then he'd be infringing on somebody that we felt was a part of our core.

[Drbio]

I odn't think he takes away any "core" minutes. When the team is healthy, the minutes will settle out. I classify KVH as a intermediate or core fringe type player. He warrants solid minutes, but not Dirk minutes. I jsut wish everyone would face up to the fact that (1) The team is not healthy and things will change when they are, and (2) the trade was obviously a huge plus.

[dude1394]

I think he'll definintely get minutes that hendu "would" have gotten but that's obvious as he's supposed to be dirks' backup. The one guy who loses minutes in this deal will be hendu, not shawn/damp. Shawn will lose minutes if he's not effective, but that's always been the case. Hendu is getting 15 minutes or so a game, I expect that will drop to about 4 if any.

[dirno2000]

I odn't think he takes away any "core" minutes.

His natural position is the 4, which also happens to be Dirk’s natural position. Come playoff time, Dirk will be playing around 42 minutes per game. So that only leaves 6 minutes behind Dirk…Nelson wants to get him 20 more minutes so unless he’s going to get all the back up center minutes (I for one don’t advocate that), he’s going to have to take minutes from a core player…either directly or by pushing Dirk to the 5 or the 3.

the trade was obviously a huge plus.

Your repeatedly saying this doesn’t make it any more true…right now it’s just speculation and quite frankly hope on your part. This team has only played one decent game since the trade, they lost it and he played a key role in that loss down the stretch. He hasn’t been terrible, but he’s had a number off opportunities to help us gain or maintain momentum by knocking down and open shot and he hasn’t been able to do it. Now, maybe due to the finger injury, his lay-ups are becoming hit and miss.

The jury is still out and I’m reserving final judgment until the playoffs.

[4cwebb]

It all depends on how Nelson uses these guys. Can meld Stack, Daniels, Finley and JHo into an effective rotation at the SG/SF spot and let the guys that are playing well on each night receive more of the minutes? Can he keep Daniels out of the PG rotation? Can he keep from playing KVH and Dirk at the PF/C spot when Dampier is back? Will he play Dampier 30+ minutes per game?

There's no question in my mind that 1-8 (and may be 9 if Harris can play consistently), there isn't a more talented team in basketball than the Mavs at this point, and they have a guy who is growing into a legitimate superstar in Dirk. Just don't know if they are going to put it together this year, but they certainly have as good a shot as any team other than the Spurs (and even with the Spurs on paper, if you ask me).

Below is the Sports Guy's take on the Mavs team after watching the Clippers game. He talks a bit about this very subject. Let me go on record up front as saying I strongly disagree with his analysis that Dirk and Jamison would have been a good starting frontcourt for the Mavs. No way Dirk needs to log that many minutes at C. But he does give Dirk props for his play this year, likes the KVH trade, and hates the Mavs' PG rotation.

[Edit: my apologies if this article has been posted elsewhere]

"It's tough to judge the Mavs from one bad game, especially because Erick Dampier didn't play. But I could see them sliding down the stretch. They've juggled the point guards all season; now they have three guys splitting time there, which never works. With Nash gone, their offense is a complete mess -- they try to play the slash-and-kick game, only nobody slashes. They have four quality guys (Finley, Howard, Daniels and Stackhouse) for two positions, with none of them getting enough playing time to ever get into a groove. And the players aren't comfortable together because, in classic Cuban-Nelson fashion, they changed 75 percent of the roster from last season, which would be a great idea if this was a fantasy league.

Dallas' big mistake happened last summer: First, they traded Jamison to Washington for Stackhouse and the No. 5 pick, which they used to take Devin Harris. Then, because it had Harris and Jason Terry in the fold, they thought Nash was expendable, so they let him go to Phoenix. If you ever saw Harris play in college, you knew that he was too out of control to play right away -- it will be 3-4 years before he could play point guard for a contender, if ever -- but the Dallas braintrust didn't understand this for whatever reason. And Terry has always been one of those hybrid guards like Chauncey Billups, someone who was never totally invested in getting his teammates the ball. These are the guys you want running your offense in May and June? Really? More importantly, why trade Jamison, a good soldier who was fantastic coming off the bench last season? How many inside-outside scoring forwards are in the league right now? Maybe 10? It was a terrible trade at the time, and with the way Jamison and Harris have played since, it's roughly 15 times worse now.

Mistake No. 2: They used Nash's money to acquire Erick Dampier, the center they always needed to battle Shaq in the West ... only Shaq wasn't in the West anymore.

To recap ...

Team they could have had: Nowitzki, Jamison, Nash, Howard and Finley with Daniels, Najera, Terry and Bradley coming off the bench (and they still could have made the Van Horn move in February, which was an excellent move).

Team they have: Dampier, Nowitzki, Howard, Finley and Terry, with Harris, Daniels, Stackhouse, Alan Henderson, Bradley (and Van Horn).

Would you rather have the first group or the second group? Exactly.

(By the way, did I mention that they never made a serious run at Shaq? Or that they traded Jamison before the draft without saving him for July, when everyone knew L.A. was trading Shaq, and they could have made a Jamison-Finley-Bradley offer for him? Whatever.)

This would barely be a .500 team without Nowitzki, who's been putting up MVP numbers playing with three subpar point guards and a rotating supporting cast. Watching him, I was struck by how far he's come as a franchise guy -- he was barking at referees, pushing people around in the low post, whipping his mouthpiece in disgust, demanding the ball from his coaches and so on, a virtuoso performance (as opposed to the one from Michael Finley, who was wearing a 37-cent stamp on his head). Nowitzki even shaved his head this week, a superb idea because the old haircut made him look like someone who would be the third guy in with Rocco Siffredi and Anita Blond. He's all business this season. If only his front office and coach were as good."

[dirno2000]

From the same article

-----------------------------

Couple of other notes and questions and we'll call it a night:

- Keith Van Horn had a mustache going. I'll let those words sink in for a second.

- Move over Andre the Giant and Gheorge Muresan ... make room for Pavel Podkolzin. I stared at him during every timeout. Intently. Is it too late to work him into "Dream Job 3"?

- I do like Mark Cuban -- not only because he's good for the league, but because he's singlehandedly trying to bring back the baseball shirt. With that said, I would love to be in his roto league.

- Can they have the Don Nelson retirement press conference, since he apparently retired two years ago? He could lead the league in "These five guys just pulled us back into this game, I think I'll take a couple of them out" decisions. I'm absolutely convinced that I could out-coach him in a seven-game series. I'm not even kidding.

- The referee situation is so brutal in the NBA right now, I'm not even sure that Violet Palmer is one of the five worst officials in the league anymore. It's like they're coming off an assembly line -- they're all in phenomenal shape, they all look like running backs, and they're all incompetent. Every last one of them. There was a guy named Tony Brown Wednesday night who was on a TiVo 2-second delay -- every whistle happened two seconds after the fact. Truly terrible. There were six or seven laugh-out-loud calls, all by him. He was like a poor man's Rodney Lott.

- My personal highlight: Nowitzki was doing an insane amount of complaining last night, even for him, so I was waiting for the perfect time to call him out. It ended up being the fourth quarter, when someone called a foul on him, and he reacted like someone was putting a boot on his car. With the big guy standing in front of the Dallas bench, I waited until the stadium fell silent, then shouted out, "Hey Dirk, STOP BEING A BABY!!!!!" I know, I know, not the funniest line, but trust me -- it was perfect for the exact moment. That was followed by everyone cracking up and Dirk whirling around with a ticked-off look on his face, as everyone in our section made the "Ooooooooooooohhhh!" sound.

(The lesson, as always: It's always fun to heckle someone from Germany.)

[dirno2000]

Can he keep Daniels out of the PG rotation? Can he keep from playing KVH and Dirk at the PF/C spot when Dampier is back?

I'm guessing no and no.

[mavs_own]

There is one logical reason for why this trade took place. It was to get a scorer in here to rest Dirk more during the season so he would be fresh when the playoffs rolled around. The amount of talent on this team is pretty high. This trade also means we will probably see less of Benga and Henderson. When Dampier returns a lot of times we will see KVH going in for him instead of Bradley or Henderson. I think KVH still has butterflies about being here and he will calm down soon.

[birdsanctuary]

As much as I'd like to see Fin move to the second squad, the KVH acquisition changes everything. KVH and Daniels need to become part of the second squad. Honestly I'd almost like to see Harris be a starter too, to give the Mavs a bit more perimeter defense with Fin in at the 2. I'd like to see us play Alabama Crimson Tide late 80's-early 90s' ball and use the two squad system. Keeping Dirk out of the 5 spot and keeping KVH and Dirk in two separate linups to me is preferable.

Squad 1
Harris
Fin
Damp/Bradley
Howard
Dirk

Squad 2
Terry
Daniels
Bradley/Benga
Stackhouse
Van Horn/Hendu