Mavs seeking payoff on big investments

[dirt_dobber]

Mavs seeking payoff on big investments
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...e.3652561.html

Team is banking on key players living up to lucrative contracts
By EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News

CHICAGO – Mark Cuban has a theory that most employees respond better when there's a little pressure to perform, particularly when they're NBA players in the last year of their contracts.

Often, they have some of their best seasons when they know they are playing for their next contract.
This season, the Mavericks have almost nobody in that situation. Virtually all of their key players – with the notable exception of DeSagana Diop – have recently signed long-term contracts that give them long-term security.

"It's one less thing to worry about," Devin Harris said.

But the great unknown with all those financial safety nets is that the Mavericks now are banking on those players playing up to those high-dollar expectations. The NBA landscape is littered with players who knocked out one good season, cashed in, and never lived up to that season again, or never made much of a leap beyond it.

Avery Johnson has a gut feeling that the Mavericks have hitched their Brinks truck to the right set of players, ones that will treat their windfall with the proper respect.

"I prefer if a guy has earned it, give it to him," Johnson said. "And I prefer a guy who has earned it and he's a guy with strong character, and you can trust him that he's not going to all of a sudden talk back to the coach, be late for practice, not be hungry. That's a different deal.

"But the guys that we've invested in, we feel they have the qualifications and they deserve it."

Investing. That's an appropriate term for a team's relationship with its players. They are commodities. And the Mavericks hope they pay big dividends.

Within the last two seasons, the Mavericks have locked up Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Josh Howard, Jerry Stackhouse and Devin Harris for years to come.

The Mavericks want those players to stay hungry, but not because they're playing for their next contract. None of them has to worry about finances, so if they have to sacrifice for the good of the team, it's a lot easier to swallow.

When anything less than a return to the NBA Finals is considered disappointing, that sort of selflessness is crucial.

"They don't have that part to worry about," Johnson said. "Not only that, they feel, more than retreating or surrendering, [they] owe it to the organization, owe it to the coaching staff, owe it to Mark, owe it to our fans. They've invested in us. So we owe it to them to come through."

One player in whom everybody has noticed a change is Harris, the starter at point guard. Terry said the difference in Harris has been easy to see. And he traces it to the five-year contract extension Harris got last month.

"When your role is well-defined, it allows you to go out and be confident," Terry said. "And he's been a lot more confident and more vocal as a point guard, directing guys. That's the biggest difference.

"If he makes a mistake, he's not holding his head down, not looking over to Coach. When you as an organization make a commitment to a player and tell him, 'You're our guy,' you get confident. And that's what they did this summer with that contract."

Stackhouse believes the Mavericks have enough proven veterans that they aren't going to fall into the trap of slacking off just because they are blessed with long-term, lucrative contracts.

In fact, he feels the situation will help the Mavericks.

"Everybody got taken care of," he said. "So everybody can relax and play with the urgency of winning a championship, not the urgency of whether I'm going to be here next year."

[Underdog]

Terry is such a stand-up guy... He doesn't seem to be rattled that Devin took his job as a starter, and he even seems to be proud of Harris' achievement... That kind of camaraderie can only help this season...

[alby]

True, if he can accept a bench role--this team will win it all.