George had a long way to go

[StackAttack]

George had a long way to go

10:33 PM CST on Friday, December 22, 2006

By EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News

Devean George might be the only player to make the NBA out of Division III Augsburg College in Minnesota.

Either way, he's certainly one of the few who came into the league without the benefit of a scholarship in college.

"I'm probably one of the only guys with student loans I had to pay back when I got drafted," George said Friday evening.

The Mavericks forward had $62,000 in loans he had to pay back once he made it to the NBA. That's because he was a 5-11 guard who was not recruited as a senior in high school in Minneapolis.

He then grew seven inches before he started his freshman season at Augsburg. He added a couple of more inches during his college career, and before he knew it, he was a high-scoring junior who could have transferred to several schools but decided to stay put. There's a good reason why he decided not to move on.

"I was going to lose too many credits," George said. "At the time, my mind was on school. I'd just rather stay there, showcase my talent and get an education."

The NBA was a distant dream at that point.

But sometimes, dreams come true.

Ball talk: The Mavericks received their first shipment of leather basketballs about a week ago. There were 14 of them sent by the league to each team.

That's far less than the 50 or so that most teams had in the past for practices.

The reason is that the league was short on leather balls, which will go back into use on Jan. 1. The Mavericks are going to start practicing with the leather balls after Christmas, also using the synthetic ball that has been in play for the first two months this season.

A little ice time? Don't be surprised if you hear Mark Cuban's name pop up again in connection with the proposed sale of the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins.

Cuban was working with a group that included Dan Marino earlier this year as talks about a sale of the team heated up. That group dropped out of discussions, but a pending sale of the team from Cuban's hometown fell through when the buyer withdrew.

Cuban said Friday that he could not comment on the situation.

Stack outage is temporary: Jerry Stackhouse missed Friday's game with a sprained left ankle, but the injury is not believed to be serious.

"Right now, he's just going to miss [the Clippers] game," coach Avery Johnson said. "With our next game not being until the 26th, we're hoping that he'll be ready to go right after Christmas."

Cassell acting old: When Clippers guard Sam Cassell came out of the visiting locker room for shootaround Friday morning, he was moving like a 70-year-old man.

"But I can still do it out there on the floor," he said.

Avery Johnson agreed.

"He always looks it in shootaround," Johnson said of the age factor for the 37-year-old Cassell. "But once he gets out there on the floor, he doesn't look that age pulling up for those jumpers. And Sam loves playing in Texas."

[foglemann]

its been a while since I posted boys and girls, but I'm still around. Anyway, George could be the best signing this team has had in, maybe forever? The guy can play great D and I love his ability at the 4 spot. Thank goodness for him because the Indiana crew sucks butt and George has pushed Croshere out of the picture and Avery has seen how crappy AJ is. If George didn't come, our offseason would be looking rough.

[StackAttack]

Agreed. No question he's looked more comfortable on the floor the last two games. AJ has him mixing up his game up more rather than just sitting at the three point line and I think George is beginning to realize the benefits of Avery's philosophy. IMO over the next couple of weeks, this guy's going to establish himself as our sixth man.

[FINtastic]

He then grew seven inches before he started his freshman season at Augsburg.

Wow, that is an impressive little growth spurt there.

[G-Man]

So he was a guard in high school? I was surprized to see how well he can drive the basket, and that he can hit the mid-range jumper as well. I guess playing with LA, the only thing he was asked to do was stand in the corner and wait to see if Kobe had to dump it to somebody.

As far as the off season... many teams, including Motta's Mavs only play an 8 man rotation. That would be the starting 5 plus Stack, Diop and George. The Mavs are a rare team that depends on production from the 9th (Buckner) 10th (AJ2) and 11th (Cro) players on the bench. As it appears George will be a great 3rd forward who takes up all the extra minutes at the 3 and the 4, maybe the Indiana crew should just be bench guys who get just a few minutes a night to keep the rust off. In those roles, they are highly qualified, and likely to keep us winning in case of injuries.

I didn't expect this much from George, but he keeps surprizing me. He's a much better outside threat than KVH was. He's also a more useful defender than Griffin because he can go against bigger guys. And we have Buck for the smaller ones.

[kriD]

George's stock on the rise for Mavs

Former Laker getting a better handle on Dallas' style of play

05:19 AM CST on Sunday, December 24, 2006
By EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News

Devean George probably never thought of himself as a creature of habit.

All it took, however, was a change of uniform to show just how set in his ways he had become after seven seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers.

For more than two months, George struggled to pick up the nuances of Avery Johnson's system. That he fought some nagging health problems didn't help. They further slowed the learning process as he tried to get a handle on Mavericks basketball.

So the 6-8 forward decided he needed a crash course, which started on the last road trip at Sacramento.

"I decided I needed to put in extra, extra time," George said. "So Sam [Vincent, an assistant coach] and I would get together before shootarounds and after practices to go over plays, just to drill it into my head and really get comfortable.

"It wasn't sticking. Practice was fine. But once we got to the game and called a play, it was still shaky."

The timing of the tutorials could not have been better. Fate lent a hand when Dirk Nowitzki went down in the Seattle game. George responded with his best game of the season: 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting and two blocked shots.

Friday against the Los Angeles Clippers, he turned in an even better showing. With Nowitzki also on the court, George had 21 points and five rebounds in 21 minutes.

George isn't convinced that he's forgotten the way things were done in Laker land. Phil Jackson's style was drilled into him. And Johnson won't let him forget when George slips back into a bad habit.

"He'll dedicate some plays in practice," George said. "We'll go over a play and he'll say, 'This is for you, George.' So I want to get out of the remedial class."

Johnson expects nothing less from George. He knew the kind of player he was getting when the Mavericks signed him as a free agent this summer.

"The work they [George and Vincent] have been doing has been paying off," Johnson said. "We brought George in because he was a champion and a professional. Not just a guy who's been on championship teams, but a championship attitude. This is a tremendous example he's setting for everybody."

The biggest part of George's recent up-tick is that he feels like he's playing without having to think as much. Plays and defensive rotations are getting closer to second nature for him.

If you can't play carefree, then you can't expect to play at all.

"You want to carry out things the best you can," he said. "That's how you get your playing time – if you're doing things the coach believes in. If he wants you to help [defensively] from this angle and you're programmed to help from that angle, you got to get it together, because that's what he believes in. If he can't call the plays [and you follow them], then he can't have you out there."

Another adjustment for George has been the fact that he has switched between small forward and power forward. He has had to learn two positions. Considering he came into the league as a shooting guard/small forward, it's been a change.

"On defense, I'm helping from the wrong positions, and that's just old habits," he said. "It's easy to create new habits. It's hard to break old ones after seven years."

But he's making progress.

■ The balls are back: The Mavericks practiced with the new leather basketballs Saturday before taking a couple days off.

On Jan. 1, the leather balls will replace the synthetic ones that were adopted before the season.

"We'll integrate it in a little bit," Johnson said. "When we come back and practice on game day, we'll get back to the old [synthetic] ball. But we got to start breaking some of them in. We'll mix them in."

■ Briefly: Nowitzki came out of Friday's game with no complications to his sprained left ankle. He went through about half of practice Saturday, then sat out to rest the injury. ... The Mavericks will get a rare two-day break for Christmas. "We thought we would be playing on Christmas, but we aren't, so that's good," Johnson said. ... The Mavs had a robust practice session before scattering for the holiday.

[kriD]

A quick study Mavericks

By ART GARCIA
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Devean George didn't go to college dreaming of NBA riches. A self-described "decent" player coming out of high school, George shuffled off to a non-scholarship Division III university only five minutes from home.

His No. 1 goal at Augsburg College, a private Lutheran school in downtown Minneapolis, was earning a degree. When it became evident he could play at the Division I level, thanks partly to a growth spurt that pushed him from 5-11 to 6-5, George resisted the temptation to transfer for reasons unfamiliar to many pro athletes.

He feared he would lose too many credits in the move.

George would become a two-time conference Player of the Year and, unexpectedly, first-round draft material. The Los Angeles Lakers selected him with the 23rd pick in 1998.

"I'm probably one of the only guys with student loans I had to pay back when I got drafted," he said.

George has since paid back the $62,000 in undergraduate obligations. The homework hasn't ended.

George has begun intense review sessions on Mavs 101 in the last week, with assistant coach Sam Vincent serving as his tutor. The classes typically take place an hour before practice and shootaround and 30 minutes after practice. The lesson plan centers on the team's terminology, playbook and responsibilities for the two forward positions.

"We're putting a lot of focus on it," said Vincent, a first-year assistant on Avery Johnson's staff. "Even though [George is] a seasoned veteran, he's open to putting in the time. He'll come in early in the morning and late at night."

George has been honest about the difficulty in breaking the habits forged by spending the first seven years of his career with the Lakers. Not that they were bad habits -- the Lakers did win titles his first three seasons -- but the system is vastly different than Johnson's.

George is also playing small and power forward, backing up Josh Howard and Dirk Nowitzki. The duties at both spots, offensively and defensively, are vastly different.

Basketball might be basketball at the elementary level. The NBA is hardly elementary.

"It's easy to create new habits, but it's hard to break old ones," George said.

He decided on his new mental workout routine after the Mavs won a week ago at Sacramento. One of four veteran additions to the team this off-season, George felt he just wasn't picking up the system fast enough.

He had possibly his best all-around performance to date in the next game, filling in for an injured Nowitzki. George had 13 points, two rebounds and two steals in Wednesday's 103-95 win at Seattle.

"I felt like I passed," he said of his performance against the Sonics. "I didn't do as good as I should have, but it gave me confidence because I saw results of me putting in work for a few days.

"I felt more comfortable out there. I'm not there yet, but I felt 100 percent better."

Then came Friday. In only 21 minutes, George lit up the Los Angeles Clippers for 21 points by tying a career-high 5-of-6 3-pointers. He also added five boards, and his defense helped neutralize the Clippers' frontline.

Any other year, George would be back on the court today. The Lakers are a Christmas staple and face Miami again this afternoon. (The Mavs were rumored to be a Christmas candidate before the season, with LeBron James and Cleveland as the possible opponent.)

Though he's got a day off, the work is hardly done for George. It's not unusual for Johnson, after calling out a play in practice, to add, "This is for you, George." The 29-year-old pupil appreciates the attention... up to a point.

"I want to get out of remedial class," George joked, "and I want to be just like the other guys on the team."

And that means knowing exactly what to do at all times without hesitation. Thinking instead of reacting usually spells trouble on the court.

If Johnson wants help for the defense from a certain angle, it better come from that angle.

"You want to carry out the things he's trying to run, the sets he wants to run, his philosophy, what he believes in," George said. "That's how you get your playing time if you're doing things the coaches believe in."

It's obvious the coach believes in George. Johnson personally recruited the free agent this summer for reasons academic to most.

"We brought George in because we knew he was a champion and a professional," Johnson said. "Not just a guy that's been on championship teams, but a championship attitude. That's why we brought him in. It's a tremendous example he's setting for everybody."

George is back on track to graduate.

[chumdawg]

Great story. George is probably my second-favorite Maverick. Have to pull for a hard-knocking guy like that.

[rabbitproof]

George, along with Diop, are postcard examples of players buying, understanding and then executing the system.