Miscellaneous Mavs News and Postings

[badfish22]

Dirk- http://espn.go.com/espnra...r/?id=5099909&autoplay=1
Rick-http://espn.go.com/espnra...lay=1&callsign=ESPNRADIO

[fluid.forty.one]

I think it's interesting that Kidd and Dirk have been to the finals 3 times combined and both of them have come out and said this is the deepest team either one has been a part of.

[badfish22]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_p7c...gI&feature=sub

[monty55555]

Mavericks' Butler overcomes troubled past

Blinking back tears, Caron Butler peered out the prison van's back window at the devastation he had caused – the panic-stricken face of his mother, Mattie.

Frantic, but helpless, she followed the van and her shackled 14-year-old son in her blue Mercury station wagon, steam spewing from its radiator.

It's the most indelible of the graphic mental snapshots Butler has carried through eight NBA seasons and, now, into his first postseason as a Dallas Maverick.

Many NBA fans know that Butler was a teenage drug dealer in his native Racine, Wis. As a wealthy, accomplished 30-year-old, he could classify his sordid past as youthful stupidity and move on.

Yet through four NBA stops, including two All-Star seasons, Butler willingly remains known as the guy who got arrested 15 times by age 15 and was imprisoned for cocaine and firearm possession. The story line practically precedes his name, like "Hall of Famer" or "Nobel Prize winner."

"I look at what could have been," Butler says. "It really would have been a waste. Now I look at myself, being in a great situation.

"I get paid millions of dollars doing something that I love. Whenever I get the opportunity to share my story and influence others, be a pillar in the community, I embrace it."

When the Mavericks acquired Butler from Washington on Feb. 13, some Dallas fans probably recalled seeing him on The Oprah Winfrey Show in September 2005, or in Sports Illustrated in February 2007.

When Butler and fellow trade acquisitions Brendan Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson instantly helped spark a 13-game Dallas winning streak, it wasn't hard to guess why former Washington coach Eddie Jordan nicknamed Butler "Tuff Juice."

The 6-foot-7, 228-pound swingman impressed new Mavericks teammates and fans with his rim-attacking and defensive ruggedness. But while Butler regards the trade as a career godsend, the timing was difficult personally.

His wife, Andrea, and 6-year-old daughter, Mia, had to remain in Virginia. Andrea is expecting another girl in June and is getting her second degree, in social work, at George Mason University.

As Butler hurriedly packed for Dallas on Feb. 13, he and Andrea realized this would be their first extended time apart since they met 10 years ago as University of Connecticut students.

"Oh my God, that was a depressing weekend," Andrea Butler says by phone from Virginia. "I think I cried all of Valentine's Day."

Missing Mia

But when she watches Mavericks games on TV, Andrea is gratified that Butler "looks so happy. I haven't seen him smile so much in a long time."

She and Mia came to Dallas for Butler's birthday, March 13. They returned two weeks later for Mia's birthday and house hunting for their planned move this summer. After this season, Butler has one year left on his current contract.

For now, he's renting former Mavericks coach Don Nelson's apartment at the W Dallas Victory Hotel and Residences, across the street from American Airlines Center.

It's convenient, sure, but when he was at Washington, Wizards security would escort Mia to him while he stretched on the court during pregame warm-ups.

"I miss my pregame hug and kiss," Butler says. "I miss that tremendously."

Skype time

Now, the Butlers mostly stay in touch by phone, or via Skype video. Sometimes, Andrea places her computer in Mia's room, so Butler can watch Mia play or sleep.

After attending Dallas' March 10 home game against New Jersey, Mia tried to wait patiently with Andrea in the Mavericks' family and friends room, between urgent calls to Butler's cellphone to ask when he was coming out of the locker room.

Mia was on the phone with Butler's mother, Mattie Claybrook, when her dad entered the family room. "Bye, Nanna! Got to go!" she hollered, running to her father.

"When he comes around, she blocks quite a few people out," Andrea laughs. "Including me."

In Racine, a southeastern Wisconsin city of 80,000 bordering Lake Michigan, Claybrook and her husband, Melvin, help watch over Butler's two children from previous relationships.

For Caron Jr.'s 10th birthday a week ago, Butler arranged for his son and friends to attend the Bucks-Celtics game in Milwaukee. Through Boston guard Ray Allen, Butler got Caron Jr. into the locker room to meet the Celtics players.

Daughter Camary, at 15 a standout soccer and basketball player, was born less than a month into Butler's incarceration. When he was released at age 16, one of the first things Butler did was establish a relationship with her.

At the time, it seemed doubtful Butler would finish high school, much less earn a college basketball scholarship and have a lucrative NBA career.

He had no relationship with his biological father, who had left Racine and joined the Marines around the time Caron was born. Mattie, then 15, lived with her mother, Margaret Butler, until Caron was 4.

"The reason I think my relationship with my children is so good is I think about everything I didn't have with my father," Butler says. "I imagine being at the park and having my father rebound for me. Or throwing a football to me. Or telling me not to cross the street. And about girls.

"Any manly thing, I had to learn from my mother and grandmother. It's true that a woman can raise a man."

Dealing drugs at age 11

But while raising Caron and his younger half-brother, Melvin III, Mattie often had to work two jobs. She says Caron made good grades, raked leaves and shoveled snow without prompting and got a newspaper route at age 11.

That also was the year he made his first drug deal. Butler says two of his uncles were dealers.

"Once my mom went to work or sleep, I would hit the streets and start hustling," he says. "I was turned on by the material stuff. The gold chains. The fancy cars. Seeing garbage bags of money. It was mesmerizing."

Jameel Ghuari has been the executive director of Racine's George Bray Neighborhood Center since 1993. He met Caron after giving a "Say No to Drugs" speech at his junior high.

Ghuari started an inner-city basketball league and formed a youth travel team. He was aware that Butler had talent, but the next thing Ghuari heard, he was in the Racine Correctional Institution.

Butler, then a freshman at Racine Case High, says he gave his locker combination to a friend. That day, police found drugs and an unloaded pistol in the locker.

Butler says that to protect his friend, he told police that the drugs and pistol were his. Butler, who received an 18-month sentence, still won't divulge the friend's name.

After two months at the adult correctional facility, Butler was transferred to the Ethan Allen School for Boys, where for more than a year he lived with murderers, burglars and fellow drug dealers.

On the day of his transfer, he watched his mother follow the van until her station wagon overheated. He watched her pull over, lift the hood and gradually shrink to a speck on the horizon.

Each week, she made the hourlong drive to Ethan Allen, her hair thinning and body temperature out of whack from the stress.

"It's the worst feeling in the world, having your child taken out of your home," Mattie says. "It's like my head was spinning every day, until Caron came home."

The Bray Center's Ghuari talked Butler into joining his travel team, for which he eventually starred in national tournaments.

"At first, he was still fighting, having a foot in both worlds, associating with some of the people that got him into trouble in the first place," Ghuari says.

As Butler blossomed into one of the country's top talents, Ghuari realized the player had to get out of Racine. Ghuari got him into Maine Central Institute, a college preparatory school in Pittsfield, Maine.

'So much wisdom'

The school gave Butler a partial scholarship. But Butler says that to cover the rest of his tuition, he got nearly $5,000 from a Racine drug dealer. Ghuari says the Bray Center pitched in $2,000. The latter contribution led the NCAA to briefly suspend Butler while he was at the University of Connecticut, but Ghuari says the drug dealer's portion couldn't be traced.

Butler met 4-foot-11 Andrea during freshman orientation at Connecticut. Initially, they were just friends; it took him more than a semester to persuade her to date him.

Over pizza at Uno's in Storrs, Conn., he spilled forth his life story, sparing no details.

"I honestly felt on that day that I'd found my soul mate," Butler says.

"I always say Caron has an old soul," Andrea says. "He has so much wisdom in him. I'm still shocked to hear him give speeches. People stereotype athletes. I do it and I'm married to one. But he amazes me."

Over time, the Mavericks and their fans will get to know Tuff Juice's non-basketball side, the Butler who has conducted free youth clinics and bicycle, coat and school supply drives in Racine, as well as at each stop of his NBA career.

He cried on Oprah. He wept upon signing a five-year, $50 million contract on Halloween 2005, the anniversary of his drug and weapon sentencing.

He shed more tears during both of his proclaimed "Caron Butler Days" – in Connecticut last July and in Racine in 2007. During a parade that weekend in Racine, someone whispered to Butler that his biological father was there and wanted to speak to him.

"Too late," Butler says, recalling the moment.

"I think the best for Caron Butler, basketball-wise and as a human being, is yet to come," Ghuari says. "I've watched him come from nothing, a guy with a dope-dealer mentality, to a family man who is conscious of his community – and is still growing spiritually.

"When you've got all the money you can imagine, drive a Bentley and live in a mansion, it's hard to look at the world in a balanced way. But he does."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...r.4080529.html

[sefant77]

German interview with Cuban. Too lazy to translate now :P

http://www.welt.de/die-welt/sport/ar...ovozieren.html

[quietsavant]

Nowitzki, Mavericks look loaded for bear
Johnny Ludden

By Johnny Ludden, Yahoo! Sports 6 hours, 54 minutes ago

DALLAS – Dirk Nowitzki(notes) snarled and flung his arms up, pushing himself from Matt Bonner(notes), a show of toughness that sent the American Airlines Center into a delirious roar. Nowitzki bared his teeth and barked some more, and, no, this was not an act born of frustration. This looked like contempt.

This is who you send to stop me, Nowitzki seemed to be demanding. Is this all you have? All these years, all these battles, and, still, you haven’t learned?
Dirk Nowitzki made all but two of his 14 shots while scoring 36 points against the Spurs.


Never does Nowitzki look so ferocious as while he’s chewing through the San Antonio Spurs. He has done it for much of the past decade, and he did so again Sunday, scoring 36 points and leading his Dallas Mavericks to a 100-94 victory in the opening game of the teams’ first-round playoff series. Nowitzki missed just two shots and none of his 12 free throws, a stunningly efficient performance that should remind everyone that even now, two months from his 32nd birthday and a dozen seasons into his NBA career, he remains at the top of his game.


Nowitzki powers Mavs


This, too, should also serve as a reminder of not only how far Nowitzki has come, but also where he’s headed. In a little more than two months, the grandest free-agent market in NBA history opens, and Nowitzki could take his place alongside LeBron James(notes), Dwyane Wade(notes) and Chris Bosh(notes) as one of the biggest prizes. Yet, unlike James, Wade and Bosh, Nowitzki hasn’t publicly flirted with the idea of moving to another team, and that’s because, deep down, he knows something else.

Never has he had it this good.

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and general manager Donnie Nelson have forever labored to build a title contender around Nowitzki. Sometimes they’ve tinkered too much – letting Steve Nash(notes) jet off into a pair of MVP awards in Phoenix qualifies as such – but they’ve always continued to work, and their latest efforts show promise. Nowitzki now looks at the depth of talent around him, at all the different working parts, and sees what most of the NBA sees: This is a roster built for the grind of the playoffs.

“We have enough weapons,” Nowitzki said.

Caron Butler(notes) ranks high among them. He came over two months ago from Washington in a deadline-week deal along with Brendan Haywood(notes) and DeShawn Stevenson(notes), all of them bringing an aggressiveness the Mavericks were lacking. Haywood left his imprint on the Spurs by helping Dallas’ other 7-foot center, Erick Dampier(notes), control the boards. Butler delivered 22 points.

“Everything I’ve been working on with Coach and watching film for the last month and a half, two months, has been preparation for the playoffs,” Butler said. “I’ve been waiting for this opportunity.”

Nowitzki could say the same. Two years before Butler arrived, Nowitzki received his greatest gift yet. The Mavericks acquired Jason Kidd(notes) in a trade with Devin Harris(notes), an unpopular deal given Harris’ enormous potential and Kidd’s advancing age. The criticism only grew – here and elsewhere – after Kidd’s first season in Dallas ended with a first-round exit and Harris grew into an All-Star the following season. Instead, Kidd has now done exactly what Cuban thought he would: He has made the game easier for Nowitzki.

The bond between Nowitzki and Kidd continues to grow, as has Kidd’s impact. He has become a deadly 3-point threat at an age when most expect to see only slippage. And if the Mavs wanted any more evidence of the magic Kidd can work, all they need to do is look across the court.

Richard Jefferson(notes) once played alongside Kidd, and the New Jersey Nets thought he looked so good doing so, they gave him a $76 million contract.

The Spurs have a hard time swallowing those numbers now that they’re responsible for $29 million of the contract. They traded for Jefferson in the offseason, and so far he has delivered only a luxury-tax bill. More than anyone, Jefferson represents the Spurs’ ongoing struggle to surround their stars with enough productive role players. On Sunday, Tim Duncan(notes), Manu Ginobili(notes) and Tony Parker(notes) combined for 71 points, yet received only a single satisfactory performance from their supporting cast: Antonio McDyess(notes).

“I thought we had a lot of guys who played like dogs,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said, and it’s no secret who he thought was woofing the loudest.

Jefferson made one shot in 32 minutes and now looks just as indecisive on the court as he did at the altar eight months ago. Losing George Hill(notes) also robbed the Spurs of one of their best perimeter defenders. If Hill’s injured right foot keeps him sidelined as it did for much of the second half, then Parker could reclaim his starting job, even though he insists Popovich wants to continue using him as “Manu Jr.” off the bench.

The Spurs will need to locate a spark somewhere, and they don’t have many options. From Jaren Jackson to Stephen Jackson(notes) to Steve Kerr to Bruce Bowen(notes) and Robert Horry(notes), they won championships by finding role players who could contribute under pressure. They thought they had another before last season’s playoffs exposed Roger Mason’s(notes) limitations. Mason now has a new role: designated fouler.

On three consecutive possessions, Popovich had Mason wrap up Dampier. In doing so, the Spurs conceded their inability to guard Nowitzki. “We hoped [Dampier] would miss free throws,” Popovich said, “rather than Dirk killing us the way he was.”

Nowitzki didn’t have as many weapons at his disposal in last season’s playoffs, and the Spurs doubled him aggressively, limiting him to an average of 16.3 points through the series’ first four games. San Antonio still lost three of those games, and Josh Howard(notes) was a big reason why. Even now Howard continues to haunt the Spurs: It was his contract that allowed the Mavericks to acquire Butler and Haywood.

The Spurs rarely double-teamed Nowitzki on Sunday, perhaps fearful of allowing too many Mavericks to find their rhythm. Popovich instead rotated defenders at him, from McDyess to Bonner to Jefferson to Keith Bogans(notes). None of them had any lasting success.

“I’m going to take whatever they give me,” Nowitzki said.

Nowitzki has already taken a lot from these Spurs. He won last year’s series with 31 points in Game 5, he won the teams’ epic 2006 series with 37 points in Game 7 and he very well could have won the 2003 series had he not missed the final three games with an injured left knee. The Spurs have never had an answer for him, and they don’t look much closer to finding one now.

“We tried a lot of different things,” Popovich said, “and he beat them all.”

Afterward, Nowitzki said all the right stuff. A couple of his shots were lucky to fall in. He still expects the series to become a grind. The Spurs are too good, too proud, to go down easy.

Maybe he’s right. But Nowitzki also knows he has never had this much help. He looks down his bench and sees all these pieces fitting together. He sees opportunity. He watches Butler bury a 3-pointer. He watches Kidd bury another.

From across the court, the Spurs see the same, and they, too, wonder: Has Nowitzki ever looked more dangerous?

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_yl...avericks041910

[CadBane]

I still laugh when people say how "deep" we are. I like this team a lot. But deep? We only played 3 guys off the bench last night. Terry, JJB and Haywood. That's not deep.

[Kidd Karma]

Originally Posted by CadBane

I still laugh when people say how "deep" we are. I like this team a lot. But deep? We only played 3 guys off the bench last night. Terry, JJB and Haywood. That's not deep.

Well it's not quantity, it's the quality of players we have. I mean you can run Marion, Dirk, Kidd and Butler for 40 a night. Damp and Haywood can probably roll 30-32 each. Terry can run around for 32 a night, then you have JJB, Boobs and Eddie that can do change of pace for 5-10.

Who else in the playoffs is able to run their top 4 for a quality 40 minutes? Lakers, Artest, Odom, Pau, Kobe? Cavs, James....Mo? Magic, Howard, Nelson, VC. Boston, Rondo, Pierce, Allen, KG?

[sefant77]

Originally Posted by CadBane

I still laugh when people say how "deep" we are. I like this team a lot. But deep? We only played 3 guys off the bench last night. Terry, JJB and Haywood. That's not deep.

We are deep because Butler can move up, Marion can move up, we have 2 good sized center and Kidd/Terry. Except Barea we dont have to give any minutes to scrubs like the Spurs have to do with 3 guys like Bonner, Mason or Bogans.

Kidd/Terry
Butler/Terry
Marion/Butler
Dirk/Marion
Dampwood

That is deep because you filled every backup spot nicely with 7 guys...

[Dirkadirkastan]

Originally Posted by sefant77

We are deep because Butler can move up, Marion can move up, we have 2 good sized center and Kidd/Terry. Except Barea we dont have to give any minutes to scrubs like the Spurs have to do with 3 guys like Bonner, Mason or Bogans.

Kidd/Terry
Butler/Terry
Marion/Butler
Dirk/Marion
Dampwood

That is deep because you filled every backup spot nicely with 7 guys...

Actually, the term for that would be "versatile".

[sefant77]

Ok Hans :P

[aurelino9]

Originally Posted by CadBane

I still laugh when people say how "deep" we are. I like this team a lot. But deep? We only played 3 guys off the bench last night. Terry, JJB and Haywood. That's not deep.

Stevenson was there for a couple of possessions too.
If everyone is healthy, roster depth is only a factor in the regular season. The Mavs had 10 players play meaningful minutes in the season. The pre-trade team was definitely deeper.

[quietsavant]

The Real Juice Blog
Here I am in the playoffs. I'm two years removed from my last postseason appearance and it feels great to be making another appearance. When the season started out I thought I would be here in a Wizards uniform. But the move was made and I'm obviously better off because of it. I'm here in Dallas with an actual title contender.
The First Round

Anybody in this Western Conference is a legit threat. They clawed and fought all the way. So I know that we are meeting San Anotnio in the first round and they mean business. It was no easy task for them to make it in the postseason in this conference or to hold on to the seventh seed.

Teams like the Cavs and Lakers got the chance to rest key players who are huge difference makers. This also gives them a chance to give their bench guys some run. We didn't have the liberty of doing things like that and I even played with a sore hip the last game of the season. We were still fighting and clawing our way into the postseason.

Since we didn't get to rest we have to keep this energy up straight into the postseason. The best way to do that is to just keep a clear mind and stay focused on your one goal, winning a championship.

When we were in the race for the playoffs we had to watch out for the lowly, non-winning teams. They were the most dangerous towards the end of the season. At times they have an out of body experience and want to prove something by knocking you down. But that's all over and done with, and we are on the road to a championship. First victim....San Antonio.

Baby Caron on the way

My wife is in her last trimester right now and the baby is due in June. It'd be a good look if we could have a Larry O'Brien trophy baby. :-)



See you guys in the postseason!



--Tough Juice

http://my.nba.com/cms/nba_player_blo...115741/focused

[Kidd Karma]

Originally Posted by quietsavant

http://my.nba.com/cms/nba_player_blo...115741/focused

Lawrence O'Brien Butler

[Dnowit41]

Eternal Youth for the Kidd
For Jason, age is just a number.

by Colin Powers

Jason Kidd? Forreal? The same Kidd who knocked Duke out of the Tournament in ’93? The same dude who teamed with Rex Chapman in Phoenix? Same guy who stole the city from the Knicks? That guy is still pushing the break, and now playing at perhaps the most efficient level of his entire career?

There has never been anything all that orthodox about Kidd’s career, so we really shouldn’t have thought we had any right to project how it would finish up. He was one of the most dominant players of the last two decades but without ever caring or having a proficiency for shooting, a true outlier in this epoch of the scoring PG. He never had the big cross-over or the lightning quick first-step of some of his contemporaries at the position but he still outplayed them. From day one, Kidd truly created his own path, and it looks like he ain’t gonna let conventional wisdom decide where it ends.

After all, marks of erosion were clearly visible as early as 2007, or so we thought; when the Mavs swung their young, jet-quick attacking PG Devin Harris for one of the elder statesmen of the League in the middle of that season, a lot of people were contemplating the peyote Mark Cuban must have been dabbling in. Kidd had a big contract, was on the decline, and couldn’t keep up with these youthful game-changers joining the League’s ranks at every draft. This sport rarely allows a graceful exit.

And yet, in 2010, at 37 years-old, Jason Kidd is fresh off a vintage performance last night in the first round of the Playoffs for his 2nd seeded Mavericks, dictating the pace, controlling and calming his teammates, and burying big shots time after time while just barely falling short of a triple double. 13 points, 11 dimes, 8 boards, 4 steals. He buried three of five from beyond the arch, including a dagger with under three minutes left that just about iced it. In this tense Game 1, we found a fitting tribute to and a perfect moment to symbolize Kidd’s continued evolution and tremendous ability to keep himself relevant in this young man’s game.

As a sure thing hall-of-famer, internationally undefeated, and bearing a legacy firmly established as one of the greatest ever at the position, Jason had little reason to do anything but ride off into the sunset. Nonetheless, Kidd arrived on the scene this year with that same need to win and a new tool from his summer work-outs: a sharper, more consistent jump-shot. He’s improved his balance and footwork, avoiding the historical pitfalls that plagued him of fading left and right when releasing his shot. Committed to staying disciplined in his mechanics, both in jumping straight up and down and in extending his follow-through, Kidd reemerged as a 42 percent 3-point shooter in 2010. That’s right. Jason Kidd is shooting 42 percent from 3. In doing so, he has transformed what were meant to be twilight years into an extended era resembling his prime, and in doing so, also helped transform the Mavs into genuine contenders. For both Kidd and the team as a whole, the window of being amongst the elite very much looked closed prior this October. To say the least, a lot can change in six months.

So not to fall into hyperbolae, it should be said that Kidd’s vision and understanding of the game on both ends of the court was always going to allow him to persist in effectiveness once his physical tools began to erode. He wasn’t a guy like Isiah or Kevin Johnson who built their game around dribble penetration, guys that developed an entire outlook on the game through their ability to take their man 1-on-1 in close quartered situations. Kidd was a bigger PG with strength and girth to offset any loss in wheels. He still loves the open court and attacking in those advantageous situations, but he always had a diversified game that did not solely rely on breaking the D down, especially in the half-court. He is one of the smartest PGs of all time, and his mind was going to allow him to age well no matter what. But this well?

No, this new-found precision from distance has profoundly changed the way teams must defend him and Dallas as a team, and along with the acquisition of Haywood and Tough Juice, has played the biggest role in returning Dallas to contention. When the Mavs spread the court, there is no longer anyone to slink off of, providing Nowitzki, Butler, and Terry with the room and time to attack the defense. Kidd continues to make plays on the break, getting Shawn Marion and Haywood and the like easy buckets, and also keeps Dallas emotionally poised in moments when they might suffer from some ’06 flashbacks. But more importantly, this fresh incarnation of J. Kidd makes the Mavs far more difficult to handle in their half-court sets, which is where the majority of Playoff basketball is found anyway. Their spacing is so much improved, and the opposition is consistently forced into a catch-22 of sorts: The Mavs enter the ball to Dirk at the foul-line extended, isolating him in what is indiscriminately a tough match-up for any defender in the League. Surrounding the big German are three able-bodied 3-point shooters and a big man to clean up any ensuing garbage. If you throw a second defender at Dirk, you either open up lanes for a Maverick player from the weak side to cut through, piercing the heart of the defense for an easy two, or you leave an open shooter somewhere on the perimeter. If you let Dirk go one-on-one, he might just hit you for 36 points on 12/14 shooting. Poison either way.

In past years, a defending team might be able to send whoever was playing Kidd to double Nowitzki, scrambling to recover to the remaining shooters and taking Dallas out of their rhythm. This year, that strategy is not a real option. In the 4th quarter last night, we saw a Spurs team hopeless to combat such a Mavericks offense, with the subtle improvement to Jason Kidd’s shooting deserving much of the credit.

A good deal has been written about the influx of dynamic Point Guards beginning with the preeminent Class of 2005, and rightfully so. We have witnessed a striking number of special young playmakers populating the professional ranks in the past five years. Their masterful abilities along with the crackdown on physical defense have genuinely changed the nature of the game, and these guys are the vanguard. But all the while, a number of the old boys have quietly continued to go about their business, redefining the typical career trajectory of the point guard position. Through out history, the 30th birthday was an indelible mark of the coming end of days; 35 was an almost universal signal for a time to switch careers. Whether through nutrition, preparation, good luck, or just statistical anomaly, this post-season alone features three such players defying their age and ballin’ on: Mr. Kidd, Steve Nash, and Andre Miller. Let’s enjoy it while we can.

[Rick41]

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/g...7494874&ref=nf

Real sad.

[quietsavant]

Originally Posted by Rick41

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/g...7494874&ref=nf

Real sad.

wow, can you say "living in the past"? we've whupped they behind lots more times for them to still hold on to that one ass kick

[Dirkadirkastan]

That's a really old group that no one cares about anymore. What's the point?

[Rick41]

I hadn't seen it before.

[quietsavant]

http://i.cdn.turner.com/nba/nba/.ele...910m4v-1295412

poor roddy, CB schooled the rook

[Dirkadirkastan]

Originally Posted by quietsavant

http://i.cdn.turner.com/nba/nba/.ele...910m4v-1295412

I want that guy on my team.

[mavErika]

Good stuff from Dirk and Haywood (audio)

[badfish22]

Originally Posted by Brendan Haywood

We all know Manus gonna "sell" more calls than anyone out there

You must spread some reputation around before giving it to Brendan Haywood again.

[quietsavant]

April 21, 2010 – 6:00 am by Paul Bessire

When Dirk Nowitzki burst onto the scene around the turn of the century as a seven-footer from Europe who was a fluid athlete with unlimited range, many thought he had revolutionized the game. Blame Darko or just awe in the impressive gap between Dirk and everyone else, but the league is not too rich with players like him. Dirk should get far more credit for that than being a revolutionary. He’s much closer to LeBron and Kobe than he is to Hedo or Bargnani.

Dirk is a perennial MVP candidate from a team that consistently competes in the hotly contested Western Conference despite a roster that turns over often and numerous head coaches – one of which Dirk claims below is a “circus” – with drastically differing styles. He’s never complained and always shot lights out and remained among the league’s elite. At 31 years-old, Dirk is still clearly one of the top ten players in the League. No other seven-foot Europeans with unlimited range come close to that list.

Dirk Nowitzki joined The Ben and Skin Show on ESPN Radio Dallas to discuss this year’s Mavericks, Game One of the Playoffs, Don Nelson and his dog, Rick Carlisle’s personality, and his future in Dallas.

On how this team is better than the team that made the NBA Finals:

“We got more scorers. We are deeper off the bench. We are longer. We are more physical defensively. We have two legit centers now. I really like what this team has. The only problem is, like I said the last couple of weeks, the West is so good. Eight teams won fifty games-plus. That’s very rare in the history of the NBA. It shows how deep this league is, especially in the West… but I definitely like our chances if we defend, if we play well together offensively, move the ball, play off each other. I like our team a lot.”

On Game One against San Antonio:

“We did what we had to do – find a way to win, but we in spurts it wasn’t pretty. The game wasn’t great there. It was a little sloppy with a lot of turnovers on our side too. But we hung in there. We made some timely shots. The pick and roll we did mess up a bunch of times, but we made up for it with effort and hustle. We definitely have some stuff to look at it. And really, what I said, I mean it. This win didn’t mean nothing if we don’t win Wednesday, so we need more of the same effort. The intensity was great. The building was on fire so we need more of the same on Wednesday.”

On if he would ever consider leaving Dallas:

“Not really. I don’t think it would feel right. For some reason, ever since I came here in 1998-99, the fans embraced me. I kind of almost felt like they were waiting on me or something. We have had a great relationship – me and the city – for the last 12 years.”

On wackiest thing Don Nelson ever did:

“It was probably when I got here late at night to shoot. I think he had back problems at the time. He was in the hot tub with his dog. Nelly was an absolute circus. He was so much fun to be around on a daily basis, but he was definitely different.”

On why he doesn’t shoot as many threes as he used to:

“That trend really started when Avery came. He wanted me more down on the block, getting more points in the paint. I went away from shooting some of my threes. Sometimes if I get a good look and I’m open, I still think I got that weapon and I’ll still shoot it, but most of the nights, I like the mid-range game a little better now. I still got that in my game, don’t get me wrong.”

And on something that would surprise people about Rick Carlisle:

“He does have a little sense of humor.”

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