Madape's proposal: balance and bastards

[chumdawg]

Sorry, Nellie has said he didn't have any say in personnel decisions after the '03 season.

So please rewrite your post.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Sorry, Nellie has said he didn't have any say in personnel decisions after the '03 season.

I would probably say that too if I were responsbile for that team. Even if what he says is true, my point would be substantially the same --

.....................

Many people view Don Nelson through rose-colored glasses. Their incessant belly-aching about the glory days of Don Nelson is barely contrarian much less objective. It's mostly just stupid and noisy - just loud screeches from homers who haven't even the good sense to live in the present.

Nelson inherited a team with quite a bit of talent;

Nelson traded Jason Kidd, a top-rate perennial all-star who took a team to the finals twice, for Michael Finley and Sam Cassell (later traded for Bradley) -- anybody who can maintain even a small amount of objectivity can see that Kidd for Finley and Bradley was no franchise saving trade...

Lil Whistle wanted the pg from Santa Clara. Since the Suns were loaded at PG (thanks to the Kidd steal) they were happy to deal. The Suns got a ninth overall which became Shawn Marion, and Nelson got damn lucky that he had a quality point guard...

Nelson made one good draft pick and squandered many other draft picks during his tenure. Michael Redd, Rashard Lewis, Manu Ginobilli were guys on the board when Nelson was taking guys like Ansu Sesay, Leon Smith and Thomas/Alexander/Harvey;

The Mavericks suffered from Nelson's legacy well after the '02-'03 season vis a vis the very bad Raef Lafrentz contract plus on-going commitments to Shawn Bradley, Tariq Abduhl Wahid, Evan Eschemeyer...

[MavsX]

i thought this thread was brand new....then i was like....what a minute...

[Some Guy]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

When Don Nelson took the team over in 1997 he had 3 very young, top 5 over-all draft picks on the team. One of those was damn near MVP caliber who carried another team to an NBA finals more often than Steve Nash has carried a team to the finals.

I thought they traded Kidd before Nelson took over. Am I remembering incorrectly, or are you refering to someone else?

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Some Guy

I thought they traded Kidd before Nelson took over. Am I remembering incorrectly, or are you refering to someone else?

Now that you say this I think you may be remembering correctly - the 90's mavs did so many dumb things it gets hard to keep them all straight.....yeah....your recollection is correct. kidd was traded by the equipment manager turned general manager if you remember him.

Nellie gave us the Jim Jackson trade, not the Kidd trade....Nellie traded Jackson and Cassell for Shawn Bradley. Jackson did less in the league then one would have figured him to do at the time, and I've always maintained that Bradley was a giant waste of space....the Mavs are still paying for Bradley.

Nellie also gave us the Jamal Mashburn for a bunch of spares trade....arguably Mashburn's coming injury problems were anticipated at the time, but I dunno...

Anyhoo....the central point remains: The Nelson miracle turnaround came about because of the talent already in Dallas, not because Nellie pulled off a number of stunning trades.

----------------------------
following the traditional alexamenos blather-first, research later approach....

Kidd was traded just before Nellie was hired as GM. Nellie traded away Jamal Mashburn for nothing and Jim Jackson and Sam Cassell for the Great White Waste that was Shawn Bradley....hence Nellie managed to trade away two of the three J's for 7'5" player who couldn't work in the paint.

[chumdawg]

Remember Keith Grant? He's still here!

Put away your pessimism, alexa, and allow yourself to marvel at the greatness of Nellie.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Put away your pessimism, alexa, and allow yourself to marvel at the greatness of Nellie.

that's exactly what I've been doing.......aside from Dirk, Nellie's draft picks, 1997-2002:

Kelvin Cato
Bubba Wells
Ansu Sesay
Bruno Sundov
Greg Buckner
Leon Smith
Wang Zhi Zhi
Gordon Giricek
Etan Thomas
Courtney Alexander
Donnel Harvey
Eddie Najera
Kenny Satterfeld
Kyle Hill
Mladen Sekularac

ahhh...a veritable who's who of guys trying to fill the 12th spot on the roster....the glory that was the nellie years.

[GP]

Originally Posted by alexamenos

When Don Nelson took the team over in 1997 he had 3 very young, top 5 over-all draft picks on the team. One of those was damn near MVP caliber who carried another team to an NBA finals more often than Steve Nash has carried a team to the finals.

The point is, the Mavs weren't a talentless team when Don Nelson took over. They were a team with some young but very high pedigree guys who were being coached by Jim Friggin' Cleamons. The '00 turnaround of the Mavs wasn't simply the result of Nelson miracle working but the result of a decade of the Mavericks getting very very high draft picks.


Cheers

I am just trying to figure out who those 3 top 5 over all draft picks were on that team. I am coming up with Jamaal Mashburn and Jim Jackson both of who had already went into decline due to unfortunate injury circumstances. Jackson was never the same after the ankle injury and Jamaal was already toast but spent a couple of years on the injury list. I am racking my brain for that other guy though cause I am sure Finley was drafted in the low teens. Derek Harper was drafted at 11 but was traded to give him an opportunity to win. Eric Montross was a #9 overall. AC Green was a #23 but was really old at this point. For the life of me I just can't fathom who you are talking about? Jason Kidd? He was long gone before Nellie. In any case that was a bad, bad team with absolutely no talent.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by GP

I am just trying to figure out who those 3 top 5 over all draft picks were on that team. I am coming up with Jamaal Mashburn and Jim Jackson both of who had already went into decline due to unfortunate injury circumstances. Jackson was never the same after the ankle injury and Jamaal was already toast but spent a couple of years on the injury list. I am racking my brain for that other guy though cause I am sure Finley was drafted in the low teens. Derek Harper was drafted at 11 but was traded to give him an opportunity to win. Eric Montross was a #9 overall. AC Green was a #23 but was really old at this point. For the life of me I just can't fathom who you are talking about? Jason Kidd? He was long gone before Nellie. In any case that was a bad, bad team with absolutely no talent.

that was my mistake -- Kidd was traded for Mike Finley and Sam Cassell the month before Nelson took over as GM. Some of those trades have gotten a bit mangled in my mind through the years.

anyhoo....

When Nelson took over as GM (January, 1997), the Mavs had:

1) Jim Jackson, who recorded two triple doubles for the Nets in the season which Nellie traded him away;
2) Chris Gatling, an all-star in '96-97 who had the fifth highest efficiency in the league that season;
3) Sam Cassell, that's Sam I Am coming into the prime of his career;
4) Jamal Mashburn, a guy who had sat out for most the '96 season but still had a lot of promise (and would go on to have a solid, if not spectacular, career);
5) Michael Finley, who we all know and love;
6) A handful of vets that weren't completely worthless.

That was not a team with no talent. I'm not saying it's a perennial 50 win team, but it's not the '92-'93 mavs either. The Mavs had been drafting high in the lottery for several years and they had some lottery picks in their pocket when nellie came on board...Nelson wasn't starting from scratch.

Now within barely a year of Nellies they had given up Jackson, Cassell, Gatling and Mashburn and in return had nothing to show but Sean Bradley -- at that point Dallas looked like a team with absolutely no talent, but it isn't at all the case that the Mavs had no talent when Nelson arrived.

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

edit -- it occurs to me that people may forget that Nellie was GM for about a year before he took over as coach. When he started as coach he had basically Mike Finley and Shawn Bradley - so perhaps it would be fair to say that he didn't have much talent on the team when he became head coach. My point is that the blame for that situation was the GM in the prior year, and that GM was Don Nelson.

[Darth Ape]

The thing you have to take into account about any team Nelson takes over.. he takes out the trash. Anyone who doesn't want to be there or who doesn't fit his style of play gets thrown out the door... quickly. If Nelson gets something good in return, then that's a bonus. For example, Sam Cassell, who was in the last year of his contract had stated vocally that he didn't want to be part of a rebuilding process. Out the door.

It's easy to go back to those early trades and re-evaluate them. They didn't look for the Mavs talent wise at the time and for the most part they don't today. But the point that's unarguable is that Don Nelson's moves quickly turned this franchise around. And now he's done it again in Golden State. Nelson is perhaps the best GM/coach in the history of the NBA in turning shit franchises into perrineal contenders. If he can ever go the distance and take one of those teams to the championship, he'll be considered the very best of all time, period.

One more thing - I have always contended that the 2002 draft was almost singlehandedly run by Mark Cuban. It was just a few months after the guy bought the team. He'd already shown his stripes by the Dennis Rodman signing. He wanted to play with his toys. At the time, I felt as if it was a draft run off the ESPN mocks. Usually Nelson will suprise you, but that year all the picks came exactly where you thought they would. If you remember, Cuban was the one who bought Courtney Alexander for $3M. Nelson has gone on record as saying that he would have been in big trouble if he didn't wind up with Eduardo Narerja at the end of the day (apparently Cuban was a big fan of his in college). And lets face it... Etan Thomas isn't exactly a Nellie guy. I predicted at the time that if Nelson were truly running the draft, he would have picked Jake Tsakalidis. Of course, I have no way of knowing that. I'm just basing it on a quote I read from Nelson saying that he thought big Jake could come into the league and effectively guard Shack on day 1. Anyway, food for thought.

And thanks to whoverver for bumping this thread. Anyone for Ricky Davis?

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by Darth Ape

But the point that's unarguable is that Don Nelson's moves quickly turned this franchise around.

It took 4 years to break 500, despite the fact they had some talent on the team when he arrived. His turnaround was neither quick nor spectacular.

I'm not saying Nelson was terrible, I'm saying that a lot of people in this area view him through rose-colored glasses....like saying that it is unarguable that Nelson quickly turned around the franchise while ignoring that he traded half the franchise for Sean Bradley and then it took 4 years to crack 500.

Or like saying that it's irrelevant that those early trades didn't look good then and they don't now. It's not irrelevant, it's part of the overall package of his performance while he was hear.

Don Nelson was good for the mavs when he was here, but the unadulterated Nelson butt-licking is just a bunch of homerish nonsense.

Cheers

-----
For an example of turning a franchise around --

Jimmy Johnson...the Cowboys had one player when he arrived, Hershel Walker. They weren't a young team with some talent that wasn't winning any games but instead they were a bad old team. 4 years later they had a gaggle of future hall of famers and they'd won a superbowl -- that is a remarkable and quick turnaround.

Nelson took a team that had some talent but wasn't winning many games and made them a team that could get through the first round of the playoffs before getting their heads handed back to them. Nelson's accomplishment, in comparison to the great Jimmy Johnson's feat, was chicken shit.

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by madape

It has been said by many that this maverick team is too "nice" and too "soft" to win a championship. As Nick Van Exel proved last spring, playoff teams need players who don't take shit from nobody, who bring the confidence and swagger of a champion, and who don't mind saying "Fuck You" right some punk's stinking mug. Every team needs some kind of balance between the softies and the thugs. With most NBA teams, a guy like Nick would be enough to take care of the "thug" side of the equation. But with the multitude of daisy-picking boy-scouts the Mavs seem to have aquired over the years, we need to go "bastard" to the EXTREME. There are incredibly talented guys out there who teams won't touch because of their reputation for being a "bad-boy". I say, hell yeah! The badder the better!

So here is mad-ape's three step off-season program for an INFUSION of the talent and attitude we need to take us to the next level.

Step one:


Offer Derrick Coleman the full exception. There should be no argument. He is the most talented member of this big man free-agent class. Forget about Malone, Mourning, Miller, Nesterovic, or the Kandiman. Coleman is the best. He's big. He's athletic. He can score at will. He can defend. He can rebound. He can block shots. He can run the floor. The man is a freak of nature. If you give him 35 minutes a game here and feed him the ball, you are looking at 20 points, 10 rebounds, 2 blocks. It's that simple.

Step two:



Sign Roy Tarpley to whatever it takes - I think the Mavs can sign him without dipping into their exception. For the newbies to Mavs-fan land, The man is a horse. He is easily the best center in franchise history, and he'd be the best big man on the team right now. A physical defensive presense big enough and strong enough to go against the best that the Western conference has to offer (and he doesn't mind dropping 30 points on fools every now and then either). Forget about Don Carter and his Nancy Reagan "Just say No" mission statement of the late 80s. This is the year 2003. If you don't drink a little or smoke a little, people think there's something wrong with you. Tarp was and still is a better talent than Rasheed Wallace, Marcus Camby, and Chris Webber, yet those guys don't care WHO knows they smoke weed. If Tarp started his career in the mid 90s, smoked the same amount of dope and snorted the same amount of coke, he'd go scott-free and be the seven time all-star his talent deems that he would be. He was a man playing out of his era, waiting for the world to catch up to him. Now that it has, it is Tarp's time to shine.

Step three:


Sign J.R. Rider to the veteran minimum. If you look up Rider in the dictionary, here's what you'd read: Offensive EXPLOSION!!!!! Here's a question: What do you do when you are down by 10 points with five minutes left in the game? Simple. Bring in Rider and watch the lead disappear! The man can score on anyone, anywhere, anytime. Plus, he smokes pot. A shit load of pot. So sign him up, and we've got that base covered.

Our new 15-man roster
PG: Nash/Nick/Marquis/Avery
SG: Finley/Rider/Abdul-Wahad
SF: Dirk/Howard
PF: Coleman/Raef/Najera
C: Tarpley/Bradley/Esch

That equals:
6 boys scouts (Nash, Fin, Dirk, Raef, Bradley, Esch)
4 bastards (Nick, Coleman, Tarp, Rider)
2 rookies (Howard, Daniels)
1 washed up veteran (AJ)
2 wierd foreign dudes (Najera, Abdul-Wahad)

Unmatched skillz
Perfect balance

Seems appropriate to bump this sheer genius today, given the Howard thing. Enjoy!!

[Evilmav2]

Great thread, great bump, Chumdawg ...

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by Evilmav2

Great thread, great bump, Chumdawg ...

Fools need to recognize!

[DirkFTW]

Wait, so have we already achieved balance with b******s?

[pkdumas]

This is a ridiculously long post.

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by pkdumas

This is a ridiculously long post.

If so, you have a ridiculously short attention span.

Behold the greatness of this post--for those who have the capacity to read several lines, that is.

[EricaLubarsky]

Balance and bastards.

And this year:

beards, dreads and guns.

[Murphy3]

Madape was good for something like this every month or two... I'm pretty sure I was probably banned when this thread was originally created.

[Bayliss]

Madape and EvilMav. All that's missing is MavsFanFinley, Dooby, and a couple other old timers.

[Murphy3]

hoopsmeister, mffl...sturm_und_drang, OP, docpsycho, mavsfanfinley, bookit... on and on, the crippler

[Folterkammer]

Maybe with finley now being back with the mavs and if nash had signed they might have came back

[Bayliss]

Btw, he's not an "old timer" per se but Dirno hasn't posted in forever.

[Murphy3]

Nope, but he was logged on as recently as... this afternoon.

[jthig32]

I miss Dirno. Wish he'd start posting again.

[sike]

Originally Posted by jthig32

I miss Dirno. Wish he'd start posting again.

This x100. Any clue what pulled his attention elsewhere?

[EricaLubarsky]

bump.

We have balance when it comes to shot selection (inside and outside), but not much offense-defense.

Also, we're reportedly trying to acquire a bastard. Does this team need a lunatic/bastard/bruiser/enforcer?

[EricaLubarsky]

Balance. Bastard.

[EricaLubarsky]

Bump

[bernardos70]

An all time classic, one oh the best threads of any forum I've ever been a part of.

[EricaLubarsky]

Balance ✔️
Bastards ✔️

[Thespiralgoeson]

Originally Posted by jthig32

I miss Dirno. Wish he'd start posting again.

I miss nearly everyone in this thread.