IZTOK DIAGNOSES DECLINE OF MAVS OFFENSE

[DallasMaverick]

Fif, I sense that you might be offended on behalf of Nico. 

My uneasiness isn't even really about Nico. Although he has admitted that he has no experience with such areas as the salary cap, putting together a roster from top to bottom, knowledge of guys who aren't in the elite category, determination of what type of player the team needs in a particular situation, etc., there are other people in the organization who presumably do have some understanding of those things, and they are probably being counted on to prop him up as he gets his feet under him. 

My real queasiness has to do with Cuban, but I know you don't like hearing that he might still be the boss. Okay, let's say he isn't.  Then who is? Nico doesn't appear to be, either. Look at the casual committee of governance Cuban has established. Everything isn't being run through Nico, as one might expect in the usual case of an organization's team president. Nico appears to be one of an informal group of people who have an important voice in the enterprise. And that might be appropriate, given the situation. 

I don't think I have slandered Nico. If a person hasn't done something before, then he hasn't done it before, and I don't think it's mean to acknowledge that -- he has said it himself. If Cuban really wants the Mavs to be a professionally run organization, rather than a start-up-like, free-form affair without the usual defined roles and clear lines of authority that attend established enterprises, then that should become evident at some point. I just don't see it, yet. You may be more prescient than I!

Thanks for your detailed response. Much food for thought in your post!

Seems like it all boils down to decisions.  Whom to draft. Whom to trade.  Whom to trade for.  Those decisions are made in the context of several voices, several opinions.  Big Cubes.  The salary cap spreadsheet guy.  Kidd's preferences. Guys in the scouting department.  Analytics guys like Voulgaris.

Whoever's in the decision-making seat (or seats) has to listen to inputs and make a call.  Sometimes it's a home run.  Sometimes it's a strike out.  And anywhere in between.

Over a long enough period of time, we gain a pretty good idea of how those decisions play out.  Sometimes a wonder-child like Danny Ainge seems to win every trade, or R.C. Buford seems to keep hitting home runs on low draft picks.  But sometimes there's regression to the mean, and Boston whiffs on a few, or San Antonio gets kinda bad.  Just because a GM has a couple of brilliant moves doesn't mean he can continue for an entire career.  Or just because he gets taken once or twice doesn't mean he's incompetent or incapable.

And of course, with limited visibility into the process, it's tough for us outsiders to assign blame with any real certainty (although we certainly try!).

...and even if we could pinpoint with 100% accuracy everything in the rear view mirror...what good would it do?  Let's say, for example, that we could diagnose the single greatest failure of the Mav organization over the past 10 years was their missing on Giannis in the draft.  And we could lay the blame squarely at the feet of Mark Cuban, who was solely responsible for the decision.
Does that make him somehow incapable of hitting a home run in the future?  Or, if he's a good student, much more likely to avoid a mistake he's made in the past?

I find these blame-hunting endeavors tiring and simplistic, and mostly unfruitful.

Do the best-structured organizations always yield the best results? No.  Do the smartest people always make the best decisions?  No.  Sometimes, it's pure, blind luck, like in A Random Walk down Wall Street.  Sometimes the complexity of relationships and personalities can't be quantified.  If it could, we'd reduce winning to a simple set of steps, a nice formula that yields repeatable results.  Life isn't like that.