THE CRUCIFIX: Cato: Wood isn't thrilled w/ his role...Will depart in the summer

[Mavs2021]

Like I said from the beginning, when they traded for Wood, the only option was to try and make it work. That means giving him the starting spot, from the beginning. That means not pulling him for every single mistake. That means giving him time and space to learn defense, and doing what you can to both make him happy and improve the team.

Would it have worked? Maybe, maybe not. But the point is they HAD to try and do that, because of the absolute dearth of big man talent on this roster. Instead they committed malpractice against both themselves and Wood by first gifting the starting spot to an absolute spare, and then falling back on the old comfortable coach's pet who we already know can't hack it in the playoffs. The team repeatedly made it clear with their actions how little they valued Wood, and then they wanna act shocked other teams aren't falling over themselves to trade for him? Why would anyone pay any kind of price for someone who will be freely available and HAPPY to leave at the first opportunity?

I distinctly remember some posters saying at the beginning "Oh, it doesn't matter they're starting McGee, we'll see what happens." I said right then they were setting themselves up for failure with Wood, and I was right. It's a perfect example of how full of themselves Cuban, Kidd and the rest are that they think they just have so much talent here that they could afford to alienate Wood. They fucked around and now we're all finding out.

Well to be fair you can´t blame all of this on Kidd and Nico. They did the exact same thing with Noel and Dalembert, when Rick and Donnie were in charge. It´s actually crazy how similar the situations are. I think one needs to look for a common denominator that was overseeing both situations.

But maybe there is no such person with knowledge what goes on on the basketball operations side of the Mavericks. I heard similar stories about the business operations side being like the jungle.