Has Carlisle run out of ideas/does he need a mental/physical break?

[cow]

Agree that Nelson has been largely disappointing, when his tenure is viewed from a bird's eye view. Agree the 5 spot has been a recurring issue. 

But, I feel like I see adjustment from Nelson and the Mavs. I feel like what they've been attempting has been adjusted this time around, maybe not in every way that matters, but in enough ways to give me some hope. 

I HOPE that they're not 100% results oriented with their self-analysis, and that they don't overreact in one direction or another. I think the PROCESS they've employed over the past few years is a good one, and sometimes even surprisingly good, even if some of the individual moves weren't successful. I think the best chance they have is to continue to make conservative, calculated decisions and not reach for too much too quickly. They made a big swing on the KP thing, and that might've been a mistake, but I can't say I wouldn't have done the same at the time. 

I hate watching this team right now, and I'm as depressed about it as anyone, but I refuse to knee-jerk about all the things that had me feeling excited and hopeful just months ago. Those things were true at that time, not some elaborate mirage.

I'm not sure how they've improved and I'm not sure I'd call it knee jerk.  It seems like the overarching goal from a team building standpoint is their stubborn view on cap flexibility and hoping their stars (first Dirk, now Luka) are enough to convince other big names to join the team.  Free agency is still a nightmare.  How are you ever going to get another star to come here when you can't even get a conversation with a Kemba Walker level player and you let players like Danny Green jerk you around while other free agents go off the board.  They also miss out on quality MLE targets because they only want to give out minimal length contracts.  The draft also feels like a complete mystery to them.  

The only real improvement we've seen from them is that they've moved off the idea of thinking the 4th or 5th best guy on a good team could be elevated to a primary option (Parsons/Barnes).