MAVS NEWS:

[Scott41theMavs]

I had the sense when the Mavs hired Nellie in 1996 that he was somewhat excited for the challenge of rebuilding a team that had put itself into a bad situation. His hiring, in spite of the hair-raising trades he immediately made, gave me hope for the future.

Yes, Kyrie's injury is pretty directly linked to the Luka trade - they were in a win-now mode and so had to play their only creator too much. From that standpoint, if the ownership has any intelligence whatsoever, they will realize what Perot and company figured out - a car/shoe salesman is not an NBA GM, so we'd better get one.

Go get Lindsay. He may see cleaning up Nico's apocalyptic mess as a fun challenge. If he is made the highest-paid GM in the league, of course.

[cow]

I get it.  It is depressing.  We made a bet on AD's health and that we could win with Kyrie as our only starter level creator.  We crapped out on both.  To make matters worse, the path forward isn't very inspiring:

You can't trade Kyrie this summer.  He's damaged and will be free at the end of 25/26 assuming he takes his PO.  Even by the TDL, he won't be back to full speed if he's playing at all.  Oh, and you have to use some asset to replace his role at some level.  SD and Exum are both free and you aren't in a great position to add anyone except by trade, the NTMLE or through the draft.

You probably can't trade AD this summer.  I assume they will shut him down and maybe even do surgery.  You will get pennies on the dollar if you try to trade him before he shows the world he can stay healthy for more than a day.

Klay has very little value.  Without Luka or Kyrie he's going to look more and more pedestrian.  The same probably applies to Martin, Christie and Naji, but at least they don't cost as much.

Your most exciting young player has a broken bone in his foot (the history of bigs with feet problems isn't great).

This summer is extension time for PJ and Gafford.  Do you do the extensions?  Do you trade them?  Do you keep them without extending?  That just seems like a great way to get "Brunsoned" again.  What makes that even more difficult is you probably can't sort out a plan for Kyrie and AD until the TDL or maybe the summer of 2027.  Dark times.

I think you could easily trade AD this summer, especially if some team like the Thunder fall short this year and are looking for a move that pushes them over the top.  I don't think this will happen though with Nico here, even though I hope it does.  And if it does happen by some fluke, you sell everything that isn't nailed to the floor.  

I feel bad for Klay and him deciding to come here.

[mvossman]

I agree on the fact that other lottery picks get harder to gauge. 

Right now they would be in lottery slot 13, with 20 games to go. That's not much opportunity to change position. They are definitely not going to get to 9th or better, and they trail the teams sitting 10-11-12 (PHX, ATL, POR) right now by ~ 4 games. I'm figuring they land at no better than 11, and probably 12-13.

As for whether that's a place to get a player where you keep the pick, I have no clue. I'd guess yes, pick 13 in a good draft could offer good value, but it's the specific player that is there or not that would determine the answer. Mavs over the years have had limited success with picks outside the top 10 (with Lively being a fortunate exception), so there's that fact regarding value to consider.

One other relevant factor. I have mentioned that landing pick 1 creates issues with their finances (making a KD deal subject to doing things that seem very unlikely, and cost prohibitive), but there is a SIGNIFICANT salary diff between pick 1 and 13, from about $14M to about $5M. When you are dealing with 2nd Apron issues, a diff of $9M is going to change your landscape. Maybe they can just get Flagg at 13?!?!

No worries, Nico can just spend a couple of seconds to dump Caleb.  We have plenty of history of spending seconds to get players and then spending seconds to ditch them.

[HoosierDaddyKid]

I think you could easily trade AD this summer, especially if some team like the Thunder fall short this year and are looking for a move that pushes them over the top.  I don't think this will happen though with Nico here, even though I hope it does.  And if it does happen by some fluke, you sell everything that isn't nailed to the floor.  

I feel bad for Klay and him deciding to come here.

Nico isn't trading AD especially after giving up Luka for him. That would be sacrilege. I expect AD to be here for the foreseeable future to justify the trade, even though it was totally unjustified. Nico may be gone before AD is.

[Jmaciscool]

Nico may be gone before AD is.

Fingers crossed

[cow]

Nico isn't trading AD especially after giving up Luka for him. That would be sacrilege. I expect AD to be here for the foreseeable future to justify the trade, even though it was totally unjustified. Nico may be gone before AD is.

I mean, I did say this in the post you quoted:  I don't think this will happen though with Nico here

[vfromlmf]

I went to the airport to cheer for the Mavs after they lost to the Lakers in the WCF.

It was 1988.

Derek Harper
Ro Blackmon
Mark Aguirre
Sam Perkins
Sam Donaldson

Even the bench was LEGENDARY
Roy freaking Tarpley
Brad Davis
Detlef Schrimph

Sam Perkins wore a full length mink coat.

Those were Mavericks. They lost the series. But they were all legends and a huge part of my childhood and identity as a kid from Dallas. Think about that. That 8 man rotation never won a title but it didn’t matter. I cheered for them. I was 12 years old and they were like comic book hero’s.

Of course there were dark times ahead, before Fin, Nash, Dirk; but nothing like this.

I’m sad for the kids. I’m sad for the Reunion Rowdies too. I’m sad for sports in Dallas.

There’s nothing more to see here.

Vfromlmf out.

[Knutsen]

I went to the airport to cheer for the Mavs after they lost to the Lakers in the WCF.

It was 1988.

Derek Harper
Ro Blackmon
Mark Aguirre
Sam Perkins
Sam Donaldson

Even the bench was LEGENDARY
Roy freaking Tarpley
Brad Davis
Detlef Schrimph

Sam Perkins wore a full length mink coat.

Those were Mavericks. They lost the series. But they were all legends and a huge part of my childhood and identity as a kid from Dallas. Think about that. That 8 man rotation never won a title but it didn’t matter. I cheered for them. I was 12 years old and they were like comic book hero’s.

Of course there were dark times ahead, before Fin, Nash, Dirk; but nothing like this. 

I’m sad for the kids. I’m sad for the Reunion Rowdies too. I’m sad for sports in Dallas.

There’s nothing more to see here.

Vfromlmf out.

I feel you. I‘m almost checked out myself. Had a little bit of hidden interest inside me in anticipation of PJ, AD, Lively and Gafford playing together and building the Great Wall of Dallas on defense, but that’s completely gone after the Kyrie injury. 

We somehow became spoiled because Kyrie stayed healthy for a long time last season - even when the odds resulting of the prior years where against him being able to stay healthy through a long season and the playoffs. 

Strange year, after being very invested in the Cowboys for a decade and being a die hard Mavericks supporter since Dirk was a rookie I kind of lost two of my three sport loves within a couple of months. Only Bayern Munich left - feels like monogamy now… ;-)

[omahen]

We somehow became spoiled because Kyrie stayed healthy for a long time last season - even when the odds resulting of the prior years where against him being able to stay healthy through a long season and the playoffs. 

Minor correction on Kyrie health. Last season he played 58 regular season games, so he wasn't that healthy. It was this season so far that was sort of an outlier.

[omahen]

Only Bayern Munich left - feels like monogamy now… ;-)

Comes with age, when handling one love gets to be a difficult task, yet alone more

[ballsrchr]

The Mavs are between a self induced rock and a hard place. Whatever they do I hope they don't bring back the injured guys too early and keep the injury cycle going.

For the first time in a long time I'm feeling sort of helpless, lost, adrift--and I'm right there with WAB in age. This is even worse than Cuban's "Keep the powder dry" years. Now it's Nico's (and Dumont's?) fiasco year. Hopefully not years.

Fire Nico...and anybody else who had a hand in the Luka trade. Hire a real GM. Take a real hard look at the physical therapy department. Take a hard look at Kidd. Is he the coach we need?

NO...to KD. He's a great player, on the downhill slope, and a cancer on any team he played on...or at least a festering boil. And let's count the championships he has won...

I don't believe in tanking--ever--but I am pragmatic. So...

[bubbler86]

I went to the airport to cheer for the Mavs after they lost to the Lakers in the WCF.

It was 1988.

Derek Harper
Ro Blackmon
Mark Aguirre
Sam Perkins
Sam Donaldson

Even the bench was LEGENDARY
Roy freaking Tarpley
Brad Davis
Detlef Schrimph

Sam Perkins wore a full length mink coat.

Those were Mavericks. They lost the series. But they were all legends and a huge part of my childhood and identity as a kid from Dallas. Think about that. That 8 man rotation never won a title but it didn’t matter. I cheered for them. I was 12 years old and they were like comic book hero’s.

Of course there were dark times ahead, before Fin, Nash, Dirk; but nothing like this. 

I’m sad for the kids. I’m sad for the Reunion Rowdies too. I’m sad for sports in Dallas.

There’s nothing more to see here.

Vfromlmf out.

  
....and Donald Carter standing on the sidelines doing a 'Cowboy' clap and leg stomp with his Cowboy hat.    And Dale Ellis. And Dick Motta.

[michaeltex]

One other relevant factor. I have mentioned that landing pick 1 creates issues with their finances (making a KD deal subject to doing things that seem very unlikely, and cost prohibitive), but there is a SIGNIFICANT salary diff between pick 1 and 13, from about $14M to about $5M. When you are dealing with 2nd Apron issues, a diff of $9M is going to change your landscape. Maybe they can just get Flagg at 13?!?!

Can I get some of what you are smoking? It would surely help me deal with the world these days.

BTW - I realize the comment was sarcasm.

[michaeltex]

I have to say, that with all the crap going on in the non-NBA world, investing in the Mavs was a refuge from the daily new torrent. Despite my private frustrations, it was engaging to see how the team played together while waiting on Luka's calf to heal. Even the shock and anger of THE TRADE was a distraction since there was still a hope that things would get better with health. Then losing Gaff, then AD, then PJ while still waiting on updates for DLive just kept taking more and more effort to just find something to hope for. It had gotten to the point of anticipating a thin slice of the regular season and (hopefully) one or two PO series to see how the new team worked. But now Kyrie's ACL injury has taken even that away.

I don't really expect any pressure for our 3 bigs to return this season and PJ will probably finally sit until fully healed.

I am interested in seeing if any of the team, after whatever the draft and FA brings, tries to get together this summer and work on developing some chemistry to carry in to next season. I think everyone stays in the US over the summer so at least they are on the same continent for a change.

[Chicagojk]

Grimes and Luka combined for 60 last night. The season was probably lost when AD got hurt, but there is at least a possibility that Grimes could have held down the fort a little by providing some offense and creation over this last month. Plus, you would have kept a high second and had some buyout money. You play Grimes 30 minutes a night, he probably isn't going anywhere this offseason. Even if you had to pay him a few million more.

Maybe I am bitter, but it just seems like this is a miss once again. Count the I's. Also WTF mentioning Kobe. It seems even when they are trying to relate, they come across bad. Maybe it is just me though.

https://x.com/ShamsCharania/status/1897114017455636560

[ThisIStheYear]

I didn’t realize until Cow’s column this morning that Kyrie previously had screws in this same knee the he has now reinjured. Yep, that’s the fat lady singing on this franchise. And to think Nico was less worried about that knee (not to mention AD’s long injury history), than a 25 year old elite athlete returning to health. Nico is demented and an idiot.

[Chicagojk]

The worst is yet to come

https://www.dmagazine.com/sports/2025/03...rison-nba/

[khaled1987]

https://x.com/ShamsCharania/status/1897114017455636560

Apologies if it was posted before.


Why he is mentioning himself and Kobe while talking about Kyrie?

[RasheedsBigWhiteSpot]

Sam Perkins wore a full length mink coat.

In 1988, I was part of a cutting edge therapy program called TROT - Therapeutic Riding of Texas. As a kid with an incomplete spinal cord injury,  every Saturday I would go to the TROT farm in Dallas and ride horses. The premise was that the walking gate of a horse is similar to humans, so riding on them would , theoretically, fire the neural-pathways in kids' brains. Plus, when it came to therapy, it was cool as hell!!

Well, TROT was always looking for publicity to help gain donations to fund the program. So they linked up with Channel 5 and asked me to be in a promo.  I was a charismatic kid and, over my childhood,  I can't tell you how many commercials with actors, athletes (Mavs, Cowboys, Rangers, Tatu, Olympians) I did.  Any way, I knew this was a similar gig, I just didn't know who I was shooting it with.

So one evening I'm sitting with my mom at TROT waiting to film.  Now, as most of you can imagine, 99% of the people with TROT -- the volunteers and kids -- wore jeans, t-shirts or cowboy attire. But suddenly 7'0" Sam Perkins walked up wearing so much black leather (which looked like he was going clubbing) that he could have single handedly wiped out an entire barn of cattle. 

Sam sauntered over in that sleepy-eyed sachet that he had and said, "Hey, kid."  Now, as a monster Mavs fan, I knew exactly who he was.  At this point I could've responded, "hi" or "Hey, I'm such a fan!", but just like Ralphie in "The Christmas Story" my brain misfired and I said, "Man, you're really black!:

Sam low key laughed as my mom quickly tried to save me with, "He's talking about your clothes."  In truth, I most definitely was, but that didn't change the moment going from meeting one of my idols to 1,000% awkward. But Sam was as cool as you could imagine. 

That said, when it came time to film him walking next to me while I rode, that dude didn't know the difference between horse's head from its ass.  Either way, though, it was cool as he'll.

In fact, most all of my interactions with celebrities are athletes was great.

But Derek Harper, everytime, was a dick.

[david75090]

If the Mavs were a horse, they would've shot it.