Role Players on Short Leash

[Charlie Brown]

1. He (Don Nelson) ragged on his bench as a "bunch of minimums" who "try hard" but really can't help all that much most of the time.

kg veteran posted this on a separate thread, and realized that this confirms a disturbing trend that i've noticed in mavs games lately. correct me if i'm wrong in this observation, but it seems as if the offense has been increasingly concentrated on the big 4 (including nve) as the season has wore on and even moreso on dirk. on one hand, i think this is a good thing as i believe the offense should be run through your best players, particularly dirk. however, this trend has not produced wins lately and i think a significant factor in this development is that the star-focused offense has come at the expense of isolating all the role players away from the offense. what concerns me is that guys like raja, bradley, najera, and to a lesser extent, raef and griffin, have all seemed scared to shoot the ball. take a close look at the next couple games and you'll notice that they don't even LOOK at the basket when they get the ball (actually, it seems the role players are more involved in the offense when the mavs play against bad teams and are less involved when they play against good teams, so my theory might not play out over the next couple games when they play the grizz, heat, and hawks, but i'd take special notice in games against playoff contenders). their main focus seems to be just on getting the big 3 the ball. they only take shots when the defense is like 10 feet away from them, but even then, you can sense a hesitancy in their shot as if they're doing something despicable by shooting the ball.

what's even more disturbing is that this seems to be occurring because every time a role player misses a couple shots, nelson takes that player out in favor of better offensive players like nve and walt. nelson even seems so desperate to make his offensive plan work, that he continues to give rigadeau minutes despite his continued woes. nelson seems to desperately want another offensive player to take the place of our defense-minded players. it's been quite frustrating to me and has made me a hater of hellie-ball (as opposed to nellie himself. i still need to give nellie his due for taking the mavs this far in the last couple seasons).

what's disturbing about this is that it's like a catch-22. the role players know that if they miss shots, nelson will take them out, so hence, they seem more hesitant to shoot, which irks nelson even more. also, these role players get to shoot the ball only 4-5 times a game at best and if you ever play basketball, you know it's hard to make your shots when you haven't had a chance to get in a rhythm. and add on top of that the above comments by nelson and it seems like these players who "try hard" are playing with absolutely no confidence on the offensive end as their own coach doesn't even trust them.

what's beautiful about the kings and lakers offense is that all 5 players on the court are involved in the offense, although the focus of the offense is primarily on their stars (bibby, peja, and webber for the kings and kobe/shaq for the lakers). in other words, each player on the court is always a threat to shoot the ball. i think nelson wants to do the same thing, which is why he takes guys out like raja and griff in favor of nve and walt, whose offensive skills commands defensive attention. it's all about spacing and keeping every defender honest and to prevent the defense from focusing on the big 3. i agree with this philosophy. i'm sure that in theory, nelson would love to have guys like horry, christie, divac and fisher, all role players who can play both sides of the ball effectively. however, nelson does not think he has those players, which he compensates for by putting in offensive players and employing a zone defense. but as we have seen as the season has wore on, the zone defense has lost its effectiveness, particularly against the championship caliber teams who have been well coached on how to penetrate and break down a zone defense. if the regular season games have not convinced some fans that the zone defense is just a mirage, wait til the playoffs, where a seven game series against the same team will surely expose the zone defense since the offense have time to adjust to it.

regardless, nelson has two choices: 1) put in offensive players and hope that they can play defense or 2) put in defensive players and hope that they can provide enough offense. obviously, nelson has chosen the former and i believe he is wrong to do so. i think he should chose the latter option and place more faith in his role players and not take them out of the game every time they screw up offensively. how the hell are they to develop any kind of confidence in their offensive game if they're scared to shoot? i've always thought nelson is way too harsh on his role players. i honestly think that bradley sucked last year primarily due to nelson, because nelson really did not give him the chance to succeed nor the faith. but it's funny, because the one game when the younger nellie coaches and places confidence in bradley and gives him extended minuets, bradley has his best game up to that point of the season. but the virtue of patience appears to have escaped nellie. he wants to win every single game so he has to go with the only sure thing in his mind which is the offensive abilities of nick and walt, which i guess are a given, although i'd even dispute that. but i think if nelson will take a slight risk, just a small leap of faith and places confidence in his role players, i think he will find that he has underestimated the offensive abilities of guys like raja, griff, and eddie najera and see that they can all play BOTH sides of the ball effectively while guys like nick and walt can only play one side.

[madape]

The merry minimums:

I will refrain from giving their names, but they all play the same positions. Anyone we have not named Dirk or Mike, who plays the positions 2-4 is absolutely worthless.

They give us nothing. We could replace them in a heartbeat with any number of retreads floundering on the waiver wire. I symphasize with Nelson's concerns. We need depth, and these idiots are giving us nothing but a flaming bag of poo. If we could trade any combination of these spares for a legitimate contibutor, it would be the best thing the Mavs could do. A playoff contender needs at least an eight man rotation. We don't have one now. We keep trying out different spares at different positions. Our current crop of crap-ass bench butt-wipes isn't working. Please dear lord, give us at least one swing man off the bench that is worth his weight in crap.

[BrianJ]

ape u just showed an 8 man rotation
Fin
Nash
Dirk
Mantis
Raef
Eddie
NVE(cringe)
Bell(for the pain in the ass pg)

Harpring would have been a nice pick up this offseason for chump change, Jackson too, maybe frenchy has something up his sleeve. If he is only as good as Walt at his best then send him packing to man the Renault De Le Cowarde in his homeland.

[madape]

BrianJ,

I removed the names of Maverick spares for political reasons, but I guess you blew my cover. Anyway, anyone not named in your 8man rotation is a worthless spare in my book, and a couple on your list are borderline.

[BrianJ]

We gave Chuck a six pack of miller lite a keyboard and a screen locked her in a room for 6 months and she delivers us "War and Peace". Good job CB, perhaps this all goes back to Nellies abandonment during his infant stage, anger and distrust for all tools in the lineup. Seriously though I defenitely agree that he has his expensive role players on to short of a leash, while letting go to much on NVE and Walt and to some extent De Le Cowarde. Don't think it is going to change now though

[BrianJ]

I agree 100%, except maybe not pepe its to early for me. They are likeable spares at least.The DMN is kicking up trade rumors, it would mean so much to me in my sorry life to see NVE take the bus out of town. U want a champuionship this year Nellie lay your chips down on the table get us a good big man and a highly regarded old chump pg and let it ride for this year.

[madape]

XB, I gotta say that this is a pretty good post. It's something that hasn't been talked about much on this board. Good job.

NVE is one of the only guys we are getting any production from off the bench. We cannot trade him, or else we will be getting nothing. If there will be a trade, it will be one of the numerous other spares that get traded first. There isn't much salary to trade away, but can the Mavericks really do any worse?

[Murphy3]

the problem is, is that the role players are yanked because they do miss a couple of shots..instead of being allowed to concentrate on doing the little things, nellie insists on yanking them if they do not put points on the board or if they miss a couple of shots.

until they are allowed to do the little things by nellie and do the little things alone, the mavs will continue to be a horrible defensive team

it's fine that the offense runs through 4 players mostly...however, it's not ok that the reserves aren't allowed to primarily become defensive factors

[mavs_afroman]

The "Big 4 oriented" offense has produced enough points to win games. The problem is that Nellie thinks the bench consists of a bunch of minimums because they're not great offensive players. That is all he is ever concerned about. Alot of the guys on the bench can bring something to the team that they're sorely lacking in, defense and rebounding, but since it seems like Nellie could care less about these aspects of the game, as evidenced by his comments on the radio, he never gives them a chance to do what they do best.

[Nellie]

<< The merry minimums:

I will refrain from giving their names, but they all play the same positions. Anyone we have not named Dirk or Mike, who plays the positions 2-4 is absolutely worthless.

They give us nothing. We could replace them in a heartbeat with any number of retreads floundering on the waiver wire. I symphasize with Nelson's concerns. We need depth, and these idiots are giving us nothing but a flaming bag of poo. If we could trade any combination of these spares for a legitimate contibutor, it would be the best thing the Mavs could do. A playoff contender needs at least an eight man rotation. We don't have one now. We keep trying out different spares at different positions. Our current crop of crap-ass bench butt-wipes isn't working. Please dear lord, give us at least one swing man off the bench that is worth his weight in crap. >>



It's funny Madape that I read this when I also heard you complaining just a few days ago that using our exception for one guy such as Keon Clark, Matt Harpring or Donell Marshal was just as ridiculous. You seem to be contradicting yourself.

[Charlie Brown]

<< in a room for 6 months and she delivers us &quot;War and Peace&quot; >>



she??? how can a &quot;SHE&quot; have heidi klum as the source of her perspiration???

. . . well, unless i was a lesbian, i guess . . . damn, i just answered my own question . .

anyways, i'm a guy, a male, an hombre . . . just wanted to set the record straight

[Charlie Brown]

Mavericks Leaders
NAME........... FG% 3P% PPS*
E. Najera...... .593 .000 1.57
R. LaFrentz.. .529 .426 1.29
S. Bradley.... .506 .000 1.40
A. Johnson... .471 .000 1.12
D. Nowitzki... .467 .369 1.32
S. Nash........ .452 .408 1.30
A. Griffin...... .444 .231 1.01
R. Bell......... .437 .346 1.10
M. Finley...... .434 .391 1.13
P. Jones....... .408 .000 0.90
N. Van Exel... .407 .393 1.09
M. Strickland. .400 .000 0.80
W. Williams... .395 .374 1.09
E. Eschmeyer. .333 .000 0.83
A. Harrington. .235 .333 0.65
A. Rigaudeau.. .200 .200 0.44


Looking at the Mavs leaders in FG%, I noticed that our defense-minded role players like Najera, Raef, Bradley, Griffin and Bell all have higher field goal % than NVE and Walt. Now I know that this is a bit skewed since NVE and Walt take more shots than these guys (with the exception of raef) and have to create their shots more, but I'm only trying to make the point that I believe Nelson is underestimating the offensive value of some of our more defense-minded role players while overestimating the offensive value of our supposed offense-minded role players. What I think is a better measure than FG% is the Points Per Shot which measures shot efficiency and all of the defense-minded role players with the exception of Griff have a higher points per shot than NVE and Walt. regardless of the limited shots that Raef, Bradley, and Najera take in the game, those 50+ field goal% are pretty impressive and I think those 3 should definitely be more involved in the offense at the expense of NVE and Walt's minutes as the season wears on. Also, NVE and Walt's field goal % are really piss poor no matter how many shots one has taken.

Just another push to get Bradley, Raef, Najera, Griff, and Bell to play more and limit the minutes of Walt and NVE.

A thought just game to me. There is one role player out there who can shoot the three, play defense, and might be available and that's Shane Battier from Memphis. Just a thought.

[Mavs Rule]

CB, I must say that I enjoy reading your posts. They are always well thought out and very original.

I tend to agree that Nellie is too one sided in his thinking (offense) and it is costing games. The one defensive player that he has had confidence in the past is Najera. Once Eddie gets back up to speed after his injury, I think he will leave him in down the stretch in important fourth quarters.

If only he would do that with Bradley. Bradley was extremely confident earlier this year, but it is gone now, and in my view due to the quick leash.

[madape]

Nellie, no I'm not. Read what I said again. We are getting lots of production from both of our centers. It's the guys that play the 2-4 spots that are giving us nothing. Keon Clark doesn't play those positions, so he would have been worthless. At least we don't have a spare fourth center making $4.5 Million while rotting on our IR. Saving our exception for someone like Rashard Lewis or Michael Redd was the right thing to do... unfortunately none of that worked out. In hindsight, Matt Harpring would have been a good pickup. But he went early, and we were holding out on Lewis. As for Donyell Marshall, he is an overpaid spare.

[Nellie]

<< If only he would do that with Bradley. Bradley was extremely confident earlier this year, but it is gone now, and in my view due to the quick leash. >>



Bradley has had enough chances and is what he is at this point. It's funny, I've never seen so many excuses made for a 13 year veteran before in my life, not just by this statement but with hundreds previous to this one. The NBA is not for the fragile. Bradley is a professional and needs to solve his own confidence issues or find another line of work. To blame this crap on Nellie doesn't make sense. Nellie is his boss and can say what he wants about his performance. It is not Nellie's problem if Bradley crumbles like a cookie because of confidence issues after that. It's Bradley's job to pick himself up and do what the boss asks him to do.

[madape]

No one is making excuses for Bradley. He is playing well. When he gets into the game, he blocks shots and rebounds. He does everything that is asked of him and more. His production hasn't gone down. It's his minutes that have gone down.

Maybe we should stop making excuses for a coach who doesn't play him. The team has immeditely gone from having the best team in the NBA to being a .500 ballclub. It all started when Raef came back and took Shawn's minutes.

[Nellie]

Madape, you still don't make sense. Harpring, Clark, and Marshal could all 3 play either 3 or 4.

[madape]

??? Marshall is an overpaid spare. I'm not going to give him the full exception now matter what. Utah thought so much of him that they send him packing with no compensation. I don't want Utah rejects. Keon Clark is an overpaid worthless spare. I'm not going to give him the full exception either. And no he would be able to help us. And NO, Clark can't play the 2 or 3, and if he can play the four, he wouldn't be able to play it here. We've got too many minutes to give to Dirk, Najera, Bradley, and Raef for him to even get off the bench. I'd even rather give minutes to Evan Eschmeyer over Clark! At least Evan can rebound and put a body on someone. Clark is absolutely worthless... and he makes the full exception! What a joke.


Harpring, I admit would have been nice to have. But at the time it seemed as if we could Sign Lewis, or at least have Redd to fall back on. I'd much rather have either of those players. I said at the time that I thought it was worth the risk to make a play on Lewis. And even though it didn't work out, I still think it was worth is. Imagine how good we would be right now if we had Lewis.

[Nellie]

I don't agree with you Madape. Bradley's minutes have gone down because he is making more mistakes. I know you are in to minute-by-minute stats and all that but it is just not that relevant. Sorry, a 7 footer that misses lay-ups when he could easily dunk it would piss me off if I was the boss too.

[Murphy3]

when it comes to shooting the ball CB, nve has always been a guy of very low returns per attempt

[madape]

The solution: pckage AJ and some spare parts for Croshere. In my opinion, he's a better player than Clark, Marshall and even Harpring. And we can get him cheaply. It's time to pull the trigger.

[Nellie]

Back to the bench issue...

Then based on everything you stated in your last post, the Mavs did the right thing by signing Bell, Walt, and Popeye since every other player on the market was a &quot;spare&quot; so why are you still complaining about it?

[Charlie Brown]

i'm not really making excuses for bradley, either.

do i think he's worth his contract? no. do i think he's the answer to our defensive woes? no. are there better centers in the league than him? yeah, off the top of my head, i can already name about 10. but is he completely useless?? no.

all i'm saying is that with the team that we already have, i'd rather see his minutes go up versus the minutes of guys like nve and walt. i think bradley does what he's capable of doing, but maybe not performing to the high expectations of nelson. i think nelson expects bradley to be a bigger offensive force and to move quicker in transition and on defense. but the way that nelson has set up our offense, it's difficult for any slow big men to flourish in our system. i think that's why popeye has been very ineffective for us, although he was a key cog in washington's system last year. i think bradley would be really effective in a system like utah. but despite these limitations, i still think that he can be an effective player for us if given the minutes, at least relative to nve and walt.

btw, i don't think a guy who produces double-doubles and gets paid only $3 mil a year is an overpaid spare. (referring to donyell marshall here).

i'm still glad we didn't pick up rashard lewis. he doesn't address any of our weaknesses IMO. i've seen him play many times this year and his defense stinks and he's basically just an outside shooter with a slowly developing post game. and he gets his rebounds, because the sonics basically have nothing at the 4 and the 5. but then again, if his addition results in less minutes for nve, then i guess the pickup would have been a plus.

[Charlie Brown]

actually, a robert horry type player would be worth more to us than a guy like rashard.

although horry's game might have declined this season, in the past, he's exactly what we need at the 3. he can play stifling defense, he doesn't take away shots from the stars, but he makes shots when he's open. he can also get rebounds, make the right passes, do all the little dirty work, and doesn't complain about minutes. he's mentally strong and he can also slide and play the 4 if need be.

i said it a couple posts ago, but i really like shane battier. he might be a poor man's robert horry and does exactly what i described above. and he's cheap and young. but that said, i still think we need a big man more than a swing man.

[Murphy3]

good post cb.
defense is a huge issue..let's not try to cover it with duct tape, nve and walt williams

give up a little more offense for a much better defense
will the defense be good? No, but will it be horrible as it is with the small lineup? No, it would be much improved

[madape]

CB - Marshall signed a 3 year deal for $15Mil. That's the maximum allowable under an exception, a pretty steep price to pay for a guy like Marshall. And just like Ben Wallace, his rebounding numbers are inflated by playing in the worthless eastern conference. I read that in 2002, he averaged a full 2 rebounds more against Eastern Conference opponents than he did against Western Conference foes. Throught his career he's been average. Disappointing and average. We had bigger holes to fill this offseason. We didn't need to use our whole exception and lock up long term money on just another average guy.

[Nellie]

The entire Rashard Lewis thing was a mistake. Cuban and Nellie have both made comments reflecting this so I don't know why some people are still saying it was the right thing to do (?).

If Clark and Marshal or overpaid for what they provide, then that makes Rashard Lewis look like an absolute thief. Lewis is more overpaid than those guys will ever be.

[MFFL]

<< the problem is, is that the role players are yanked because they do miss a couple of shots..instead of being allowed to concentrate on doing the little things, nellie insists on yanking them if they do not put points on the board or if they miss a couple of shots. >>



The problem is IMO that none of the &quot;merry mininums&quot; can play defense well enough to compensate for their lack of offense. Our best two non-low post defenders (Griffin and Bell) are VERY average defensively. If any of them could play lock down defense, then Nellie might be willing to live with 5-6 points per game.

That is why IMO (again) that Bradley is not getting minutes. Raef is almost as good defensively and a much bigger offensive threat.

BTW I would love to have Battier here.

[Nellie]

<< CB - Marshall signed a 3 year deal for $15Mil. That's the maximum allowable under an exception, a pretty steep price to pay for a guy like Marshall. And just like Ben Wallace, his rebounding numbers are inflated by playing in the worthless eastern conference. I read that in 2002, he averaged a full 2 rebounds more against Eastern Conference opponents than he did against Western Conference foes. Throught his career he's been average. Disappointing and average. We had bigger holes to fill this offseason. We didn't need to use our whole exception and lock up long term money on just another average guy. >>



This post, like your usual obscure stats that nobody believes are relevant except you, is indeed irrelevant. Marshal is a decent player playing for a sucky team, just like Harpring's stats were last year. If you want to account for Marshal's decline by going from a decent team to a sucky team, then you should account for Harpring going from a sucky team to a good team as well, which would make Harpring not all that great after all.

[Murphy3]

mffl, i would argue that some of the reserves are at least adequate defensively..whereas some of the people picking up extra minutes like NVE are horrible defensively at best

bradley has been a pretty good player when he gets time..sure, he has his ups and downs but there's no reason why raef can't get minutes plus shawn getting around 20.

well, there is one reason, nellie loves small ball

[Nellie]

Nellie loves small ball because he has to. If we had Shaq, chances are we wouldn't be playing small ball.

[Simon2]

New poster here.

I agree mostly with Charlie Brown's comments. There is a double standard on the Mavs and it just magnifies the thinking of this team. If Raja or Griffin misses a few shots, they get pulled. Unacceptable to Nellie. If NVE or Nash step aside and disappear on defense, Nellie still let's them play. Nellie will tolerate defensive lapses but not offensive lapses. This is one of the main issues I have with Nellie.

I believe that the Griffin and Bell are very unhappy since they are getting inconsistent minutes while they provide defense that is sorely lacking on this team.

I agree that it wasn't Bradley's fault that he got into Nellie's doghouse. Its just Nellie going on a power trip. How can you play to your maximum if your coach is always putting you down? You can get back at him by playing harder but you can't do that if your on the bench. I think Bradley is an asset on this team. As for his mistakes, I can live with the blown layups. If he can dunk it, I'm sure he will. As for blown assignments, I think most of the time, he is sliding over to help the guards since the guards on this team are the worst defenders. They step aside and let their men go inside and create havoc. So Raef and Bradley need to decide to either leave their men or let the person driving to the basket get a layup. The problem is that most of the time, they don't make their decision quick enough so they are a late and the result is a three point play.

Let's face it, the Mavs say they need defense but Nellie is not being honest and he cleary believes that offense not defense is the key. I kind of wonder what happened to all that emphasis was on defense at the beginning of the season? Was it dumb luck that the zone was just too baffling for teams that saw it the first time?

[madape]

Raja and Griff get pulled because they suck.

[Murphy3]

i strongly disagree madape..., they get pulled because they don't add much offensively

[Charlie Brown]

yeah, in reference to what simon said . . .

i find it curious that nelson emphasized defense so much, publicly and privately, before the season, but now he's resorted back to making comments about how we're all about trying to outscore the other team . . . it's like he's saying this was his whole game plan all along and the defense thing was just a side issue . . . in other words, if his defense works, he gets credit for it. if it doesn't, it wasn't his game plan anyway. either way, nelson comes out unscathed. maybe i'm overanalyzing, but that's total b.s. in my opinion. i wish he would either admit that he has failed to bring in the necessary defensive players or that he does not know how to coach defense instead of blaming the players all the time. nelson does have a history of making outrageous predictions before the season only to have it blow up in his face later on. as you age, you can either get wiser or more stubborn . . . i think nelson's become the latter. the least he can do is offset prior poor decisions by at least giving the defensive players he has at hand more of a chance to prove themselves. and the last thing i want to see is a lineup of nash-nve-fin-walt-dirk out on the court again. but i know nelson will not change his plans. the only way i see this charade ending is for one of the defensive role players to step up and show that they can become a legitimate offensive threat and play better than walt on the offensive end and about as good as nve. that way, nelson may be forced to play nve less. but the only player the mavs have that has a chance of doing this is eddie najera. raja doesn't shoot enough. griff is already in nelson's doghouse. bradley's in nelson's doghouse. we need eddie to step up.

[Charlie Brown]

<< CB - Marshall signed a 3 year deal for $15Mil. That's the maximum allowable under an exception, a pretty steep price to pay for a guy like Marshall. And just like Ben Wallace, his rebounding numbers are inflated by playing in the worthless eastern conference. I read that in 2002, he averaged a full 2 rebounds more against Eastern Conference opponents than he did against Western Conference foes. Throught his career he's been average. Disappointing and average. We had bigger holes to fill this offseason. We didn't need to use our whole exception and lock up long term money on just another average guy. >>



my bad. i thought he had signed a 3 year $9 million deal. maybe i'm thinking of keon clark. you may think i'm speculating too much, but i would think that if the mavs had shown interest in marshall, he would have signed for less for a chance at a championship just as keon clark did.

btw, i don't consider marshall a rebounding monster, but the reason i like him is that he is an effective player both inside and outside which gives the mavs more versatility as most of the mavs are primarily perimeter players. i'm not looking to add the next superstar to the mavs. i don't think the mavs need another superstar with an ego, which is what rashard could have been. you underestimate the potential risk to team chemistry if you add another player who believes he should be an all-star a la rashard lewis.

[MFFL]

<< Raja and Griff get pulled because they suck. >>



Raja and Griff get pulled because they are average defensively and below average offensively. Nellie is just trying to figure out which one of them might be &quot;on&quot; for any particular game. THAT player gets minutes, other players ride the pine.

[Bayliss]

Griff is debatable because he has had injuries lately. But Raja does not suck. In fact, Raja is by far our best defender on our team. He can guard point guards (Francis), shooting guards(Kobe), and small forwards(Artest).

There is no reason why Raja should not get 30 minutes a game. You can use the excuse that he doesn't provide much offense but then again when has been aable to showcase some offense? Given the opportunity to score, he has done a fine job.

Nellie just refuses to play a solid defender because he's like a giant neon sign that says: ALL OFFENSE ALL THE TIME.

[Murphy3]

griff has always done a stellar job on kobe..definitely a good start

[MFFL]

<< Raja is by far our best defender on our team. >>



Raja is an average defender. He only looks good because everyone else on the Mavs are SOO bad.