Media Day Blogs 2006: Southwest Division

[HexNBA]

From the official NBA site

Dallas Mavericks

Posted by Jerry Stackhouse on Oct. 2, 2006 at 3:53 p.m. ET

Obviously we were disappointed after the Finals but, after a couple weeks I kind of got back to normalcy. I took a little time off with my family and went back to North Carolina. I messed around with some of the guys that’s coming in this year. They’re going to have an awesome class. It’s going to be fun to watch. I do a lot of trash talking around here about UNC. I took a vacation to Mexico, went down to Cabo St. Lucas. It’s all about enjoying it as much as you can, man. Having a short summer made the season seem like it got back here fast, but we’ll take that every time.

I’ve always been a guy that just loved to play, play, play. Even in the off-season. I had to be a little smarter with that. Still working out and doing things to keep moving, but not just take the pounding of running on the court. Knowing that I’m having long runs on teams like this, you have to kind of save yourself a little bit. I didn’t play as much pick-up as a normally play and I’m hoping that will kind of have my legs and everything feeling good pretty much throughout the course of the year.

We know the makeup of our team. We know we have a championship-caliber team and we’ve added some pieces who have championship experience and have Finals experience that maybe can help us get over that hurdle that we faced after we went up two games. For real, for real, we just feel that that team got what we was supposed to have and we’re looking to get that. We’re trying to get that, and have a little interest added on to it this year. Its been going out and setting the tone throughout the season. You gotta have intermediate goals, and our first goal is to start the season off well and to, at the end of the regular season, be the No. 1 seed because we feel that having that home-court advantage is important when it comes down to, you know, playing in the playoffs.

Devean was hurt a lot last year and I think he’s healthy now, so he has something to prove. It’s always nice to have guys that have something to prove. Ager, going the last pick in the first round, he has something to prove to all the teams that passed him over. And then there’s Anthony Johnson with his experience, I’m glad that I have another guy who is capable. He is a guy who scored 40 points in a playoff game just last postseason. So, you can never have enough weapons. Austin Croshere with his experience, playing in this league 9-to-10 years is going to be huge to be able to not have to play Dirk so many minutes during the regular season.

Dirk looks good. He spent a lot of time after the World Championship was over when he had a good time where he didn’t really do anything. He got to spend some time with his family and now he is here and we’re going to use this next month to kind of get him back to where he wants to be for when the regular season starts. Hopefully that time he has taken off over the last few weeks will give him renewed energy to start training camp.

Posted by Jason Terry on Oct. 2, 2006 at 4:38 p.m. ET

The Finals was a great experience but our goal was not just to get there, it’s to win it all. I think we took strides towards doing so this season. We kept our guys in tact. We had myself as a free agent. I’m locked in now. Dirk’s locked in. We have J-Ho, Devean, Jerry Stackhouse, Ghana, Big Damp – you know, the key guys that were a part of that team are back and in addition we’ve added three solid veterans that have Finals experience. Austin Croshere, Devean George, Anthony Johnson – these are guys that are quality players and we can only get better as a team.

I took some time off, you know, came back and tried something new. I’m doing a little swimming this summer and increased my endurance and my stamina. But other than that I’m a family man, so I spend a lot of time with my girls taking them out golfing, playing soccer. You know, doing the little daddy things. I split time in between Seattle, Dallas and I have a home in Atlanta also that we spend time at. But my focus every night, it was always tough to sleep knowing that we let an opportunity pass us by. But going into this season’s training camp, I’m excited.

I played with Anthony Johnson in Atlanta my first two years and the thing about the guys we brought in, everybody came in early in September and started to work out. We’ve worked out together and we’ve already bonded and that’s going to be a big help.

The championship. That is THE goal. Everyone putting on that Maverick uniform, or, even around the city, the Maverick fans, they’re ready. They know what we got to do to get it done.

[Five-ofan]

Im not really a fan of his game but Jason terry is a tough dude not to like. He just seems like such an awesome guy off the court. You cant really have too many of those guys.

[Flacolaco]

But my focus every night, it was always tough to sleep knowing that we let an opportunity pass us by

Finals hangover anyone?

Hopefully with training camp starting, they can finally put it behind them and play some ball.

[mqywaaah]

And they will put it behind! Everybody is ready. Bring on the Season!

[Underdog]

From what I'm reading here, I don't think chemistry is going to be a problem... There seems to be a mutual respect between our players and a sense of which role each individual will have to live up to if we want to make a trip back to the Finals... Plus, it can't hurt that JET & AJ2 played together in Hotlanta... Good chemistry between Terry/Harris & Terry/Johnson will probably result in Terry spending more time at the 2 [which was the reason we got Johnson & moved Terry to the 2 in the first place]...

This season should be fun, if nothing else...