Offseason Movement: The Mavs’ big move was to jettison Avery Johnson and hire Rick Carlisle as head coach. They also acquired Shawne Williams from the Pacers. Of course, last February the team traded Devin Harris and two first round picks for Jason Kidd. Kidd’s return to Dallas didn’t get off to a very good start.
Keep Your Eye On: Jason Kidd, PG
Kidd is in the final year of his contract (worth $21 million) so if things don’t go well to start the season, it’s not inconceivable that the Mavs could cut bait and trade him before the February deadline. The team is attempting to build around Dirk Nowitzki, Josh Howard and Jason Terry, but all three players have topped out and it doesn’t look like they’ll be enough to get the Mavs over the hump. What’s worse – the Mavs gave up their best young prospect (Harris) to acquire Kidd, so if that experiment fails, the Mavs will not only have screwed themselves in the present, but they’ll have screwed themselves in the future, too.
The Big Question: Is this group good enough?
Nowitzki is still an All-Star caliber player and Howard and Kidd make up a more than adequate supporting cast. But there’s something missing with this group. Call it toughness, moxy, swagger, heart, whatever. I just don’t get the sense from this team that they have what it takes to make it to the Finals again. It’s sad, really, considering that, if not for the officials’ decision to send Dwyane Wade to the line for every ticky-tack foul, the Mavs would have beat the Heat in the Finals three years ago. Dirk should go down as one of the league’s all-time greatest players, but his team’s failure to close the deal in the 2006 Finals has seemingly sent the franchise into a tailspin. And no one, not Mark Cuban, not Avery Johnson, and not Jason Kidd, has been (or will be) able to pull them out of it.
Outlook: Desperate. Cuban is pulling out all the stops (i.e. mortgaging the franchise’s future) to win now. The Kidd trade was bold but ill-advised, as it undermined the long-term competitiveness of the club. Devin Harris is a good young point guard with loads of potential, and that kind of player is tough to come by. Now Cuban has hitched his wagon to a 35 year-old point guard whose best years are (far) behind him. This has the makings for a slow, steady decline.
Tag: Mark Cuban (Page 7 of 7)
It died down for a while, but the Mark-Cuban-wants-to-own-the-Chicago-Cubs chatter has resurfaced. But once again, the talk has mostly centered on whether or not MLB wants to let Cuban into their owners’ fraternity.
Cuban is loud, passionate and opinionated. He’s a media creature comfortable on multiple platforms, and he turned the once-comatose Mavericks into a perennial winner (though they have not won it all, just like the Cubbies, at least not since 1908). He has amassed nearly $1.7 million in fines, mostly for criticizing N.B.A. referees. As penance for insulting the chief of referees as incapable of managing a Dairy Queen, he spent a day at the chain serving up a promotional bonanza.
Colangelo, who also owned the Arizona Diamondbacks, said baseball and basketball owners were different breeds. “Basketball is a little more cutting edge, and baseball has been stodgier,” he said. “Some people say it’s difficult to see him as a baseball owner, but times change, circumstances change and he’s done an incredible job in basketball.”
The Cubs have always been owned by a company that cares more about putting fans in the seats than a winning team on the field. And the only reason they’ve won of late is because the Tribune Company wants to sell the club, so they’ve been willing to spend more to dress up their product.
Cuban would be great for both the Cubs and baseball because he’s a passionate owner who wants to win. If baseball were lucky enough to have 30 owners who are as passionate about winning as they are turning a profit, than MLB would be a league to be admired. (Instead of being viewed as a “how to” on how not to run a league into the ground.)
FOLLOW US!
CATEGORIES
© 2026 The Scores Report – The National Sports Blog
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑