Dameris and Followill on the Presser

[KillerLeft]

He stated he still has final say, but admitted a lack of organizational structure that Nico will hopefully improve.  That could be a significant difference from business as usual.

Yes, and any number of other things might be different, too. And, this group will have Luka for (hopefully) the first decade they're here (though I doubt Kidd lasts that long). 

The combo of Cuban, Donnie and Carlisle wasn't good enough. Dirk's era was a shame. We ALL agree on that. 

I think it's borderline INSANE to look at those three people, take in the info we know - what we can hear with our ears and see with our eyes - and conclude that Rick Carlisle was the part of that trinity that held this thing back. But, it's whatever, at this point. He's no longer the coach here. 

What we will learn in the near future is whether the trinity of Cuban, Harrison and Kidd will be successful. We can compare the entirety of these groups' success or failure a little, and pretty easily. We can't, imo, compare individual qualifications based on whether either trio does. 

Donnie vs. Nico, for example: I personally think that in time, Harrison will look like a great fit for this job, possibly better than Donnie ever was. But, what percentage of that will be due to his ability to work with Cuban? If you put either of them in a different situation, with a different team, would the same person still end up looking better? And, for that matter, IF Harrison comes in and smokes Donnie's track record right away, that's great, but doesn't it say more about how dumb it was for Cuban to keep Donnie through Dirk's entire career than anything? Isn't the truly intelligent way to evaluate either coach imagining how either would do with the SAME owner and GM? I could ask 50 more questions off the top of my head just like this that no (honest) person here can truly answer in a binary, fact-based way. 

The point is that nothing that happens over the next five years can really tell us all that much (definitively) about the last 5 years. This is year 1, and we'll learn some things that can help us predict FUTURE strengths and weaknesses, but these conclusions being drawn about the past are ridiculous, because everything has changed. 

I'm sure we STILL have disagreements here about whether going from Don Nelson to Avery Johnson was a good move, but the difference is that we've moved on. At the end of this bizarre, circular discussion, Donnie and (the great) Rick Carlisle are no longer employed by the Mavs. I'd think that those who were happy about that would be excited to talk about the NEW, rather than continue to argue about the OLD.

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Might I respectfully suggest that a search for the truth is unlikely to reveal that either (1) Cuban was 100% perfect and Donnie/RC were 100% trash, or (2) vice versa.