Change has to come from Cuban

[michaeltex]

And as a final word - losing Brunson was the ultimate sign for me, that Mavs are not capable of building a contender. If you allow yourself to get to a situation where the only option is to pay the guy, you do it. Unless money is more important than winning.

While I agree that it will likely cost Cuban to get the final pieces of a championship contender, equating Brunson's walking to an MBT failure is a red herring.


Brunson had established himself as a good backup, then co-starter to Luka during the regular season, where he was considered trade bait early on. He was basically JAG until the opening playoff series against UTA where he had 3 excellent games against a defense that apparently couldn't stop anyone. Failure to sign a mid-season contract followed by his father getting the Knicks spot combined with the spurt of success in the playoffs and all of a sudden he's a near-max starting-caliber NBA point guard who is now too good to listen to Cuban's offer? He wanted a starting spot away from Luka's spotlight so he ran to the comfort zone of NYK's and protection of his fathers buddies. Good luck to him, but letting JB walk isn't what's wrong with DAL. It may even be positive in the longer run.

[KillerLeft]

Kidd was doing MUCH better as a coach at this time last year.

Idk man, we might just remember this differently. 

What I remember is a TERRIBLE offense, kind of like this one, that completely disregarded spacing, kind of like this one. Then, at some point after Christmas, they went back to the spread pick and roll concepts and slowly but surely, the team started to play well again. 

Now, maybe what he's trying to teach them is something I'll ultimately like BETTER than the spread pick and roll package that got them to the WCF, but with the info I feel like we have now it just seems like he's stubbornly making the same mistakes he did to start the season last year.

[cow]

Change isn't going to happen.  Cuban gambled a generational players future on a GM with zero experience and a head coach with...how do we put it nicely...a rocky coaching history.  He's also turned into a penny pincher.  I think Luka is probably a very loyal person but the MBT don't often give anyone a reason to be loyal.

[KillerLeft]

While I agree that it will likely cost Cuban to get the final pieces of a championship contender, equating Brunson's walking to an MBT failure is a red herring.


Brunson had established himself as a good backup, then co-starter to Luka during the regular season, where he was considered trade bait early on. He was basically JAG until the opening playoff series against UTA where he had 3 excellent games against a defense that apparently couldn't stop anyone. Failure to sign a mid-season contract followed by his father getting the Knicks spot combined with the spurt of success in the playoffs and all of a sudden he's a near-max starting-caliber NBA point guard who is now too good to listen to Cuban's offer? He wanted a starting spot away from Luka's spotlight so he ran to the comfort zone of NYK's and protection of his fathers buddies. Good luck to him, but letting JB walk isn't what's wrong with DAL. It may even be positive in the longer run.

With respect, I believe the above to be a fair summation of the group think perception in this community, but not of the reality of Brunson's tenure here. 

I think it's pretty obvious that he was the team's second best player and very probable that he was THE leader of the team.

It's not "positive in the long run" when your second best player, someone YOU drafted (a great pick, btw) and groomed, is dying to get away from your team. It's an eye-brow raising thing that sends a pretty poor signal about what's to come, imho.

[RoyTarpleysGhost]

I agree with the thread title, not necessarily the premise. 

Omahen nailed it. We had a chance to do a reset and function like a real franchise. Hire a president of basketball ops and let him hire everyone else. The change that has to come from Cuban in that he needs to remove himself from basketball operations. Until that happens, it’s pointless arguing about if it’s Kidd or Nico or Finley that’s the problem.

[BoredAssistant]

Not disagreeing with much of the thoughts/comments here but people started noticing Brunson was becoming an offensive force around late February/early March.  At least on mavsboard.

[cow]

It's not "positive in the long run" when your second best player, someone YOU drafted (a great pick, btw) and groomed, is dying to get away from your team. It's an eye-brow raising thing that sends a pretty poor signal about what's to come, imho.

After drafting Jalen, the Mavs did everything possible to botch his outlook long term but that has to do with Mark Cuban being the smartest guy in the room.  Luka might make a similar decision but the road to that decision will be completely different from Jalen's.

[KillerLeft]

After drafting Jalen, the Mavs did everything possible to botch his outlook long term but that has to do with Mark Cuban being the smartest guy in the room.  Luka might make a similar decision but the road to that decision will be completely different from Jalen's.

Oh, I wasn't paralleling to Luka, necessarily. 

I'm just talking about the general perception of the Mavs within the league. I feel like it's not very good these days and hasn't been for a long, long time.

I don't think many players want to come here, and I don't think it has anything to do with the city of Dallas, whatsoever.

[omahen]

Brunson had established himself as a good backup, then co-starter to Luka during the regular season, where he was considered trade bait early on. He was basically JAG until the opening playoff series against UTA where he had 3 excellent games against a defense that apparently couldn't stop anyone. Failure to sign a mid-season contract followed by his father getting the Knicks spot combined with the spurt of success in the playoffs and all of a sudden he's a near-max starting-caliber NBA point guard who is now too good to listen to Cuban's offer? He wanted a starting spot away from Luka's spotlight so he ran to the comfort zone of NYK's and protection of his fathers buddies. Good luck to him, but letting JB walk isn't what's wrong with DAL. It may even be positive in the longer run.

If you think Brunson is overpaid, than we will just never get on a same page. I think Mavs have at least five contracts that are less valuable than Brunson one. Four of them are long term and most of them bad fits next to Luka. Yet Mavs somehow draw a line with Brunson, their second best player.

I think it is very naive to think that Brunson didn't listen to Mavs offer. Mavs offer was reported and it was considerably lower than NY one. Which was also reported. I am sure agents in their effort to get their guy paid make sure the teams know what they are competing against. Mavs, as a couple of times beforehand in Brunson case, miscalculated the situation (they didn't think NY can make room). As was reported.

[KillerLeft]

Not disagreeing with much of the thoughts/comments here but people started noticing Brunson was becoming an offensive force around late February/early March.  At least on mavsboard.

I'll go you one better. He had an amazing season the year before last. Amazing. He didn't have a great playoff series that year, but that happens, and it was his first time in the playoffs (injured the season before). That was taken, in full knee-jerk-fan style, as an indication that he wasn't good enough (lol) and the group think somehow forgot about how great he was all season. 

Then, last season, he basically maintained the level of the previous season, but at a higher rate of minutes. That's IMPROVEMENT, sure, but not from scratch or from "out of nowhere" like people want to pretend now to help themselves sleep at night. 

This was/is a very, very good (possibly great) player who was central to the team's plans. Part of the core. The team did not want him to leave.

[hakeemfaan]

I agree with the thread title, not necessarily the premise. 

Omahen nailed it. We had a chance to do a reset and function like a real franchise. Hire a president of basketball ops and let him hire everyone else. The change that has to come from Cuban in that he needs to remove himself from basketball operations. Until that happens, it’s pointless arguing about if it’s Kidd or Nico or Finley that’s the problem.

I get verbose a lot but that’s the same thing I was trying to say. Hire someone who will force Cuban to get out of the way. Cuban doesn’t want that though. He wants the attention. The two lingering images I will always have of Cuban is not him hoisting the trophy. The first one is that of being on a step master exercising while simultaneously giving an interview on personnel moves. The second is him taking a leak with the trophy.

[Chicagojk]

For me, I will base a lot on how quickly and forceful we make a decision on the starting lineup.   I am not as forceful as my last several year push that Jalen should be a starter next to Luka, but something needs to be done.  

As much as I like Dwight, he got the role because he actually had a pulse out there and cared.  But as a starter, we know the end game.   So why not look at different options now?   Plus, you can also say he was a probably a better option with Luka and Jalen than the current setup.

I think multiple changes have to happen.   The longer no changes are made, I will consider it going down the wrong path.   

It is a tough situation though.  Mavs have Luka and a bunch of guys (some better than others), but with the current starting lineup, I am just hoping not to be down by 10 at the start.   That is not good when you have Luka as one of the 5.

[hakeemfaan]

I never complained once about RC. Not once. I wish he was STILL the coach here. 

Kidd, on the other hand...I don't want to overreact, because I didn't like the job he was doing at this time last season and that turned out great, but let's just say I'm not a huge fan of how he's approaching the job.

I was not a fan of the Kidd hire and would not be upset if he were to be let go today, but I don’t think it changes anything with this team. 

RC was stubborn at times but once I read the full details of what was going on behind the scenes with Luka mocking RC, the Gambler, Donnie pouting, and Cuban playing the fiddle pretendimg to be oblivious to everything, I did put an apology to RC here. 

The Kidd hire, my main fear was that he was hired to be a players coach which is basically a joke. The thing I grew to like about Kidd is that in many ways he is just like RC. He is stubborn and has a plan whether you like it or not. When it comes to plays, Kidd has always been called a savant. RC himself has said he had learned things from Kidd and vice versa. Given his bball intelligence, the coaches he has been around and leanrned from, his own past missteps, I am sure Kidd has a lot of plays and counters in his playbook. That’s why until the roster gets a little better and a clear chain of hierarchy in roles is defined, I would be willing to give him a slightly longer leash.

[KillerLeft]

That’s why until the roster gets a little better and a clear chain of hierarchy in roles is defined, I would be willing to give him a slightly longer leash.

And that's totally reasonable. 

For me, I guess it's not so much about coaching quality (though I have questions about Kidd in this general area) and more about personal preference. What Kidd is trying to do with the team, ultimately successful or not, seems to be something I don't care for as much as what Carlisle tries to do with his teams. 

I like spacing. I like the spread pick and roll. I miss those things. For me, it's that simple.

[Mavs2021]

Don´t worry Pat Riley and Spoelstra will teach him how to be a winner. 

I can´t decide between Cuban being a devious bastard that has gone full-blow Sterling or being the dumbest owner in all four major leagues. 

We pay THJ/McGee/Bertans $38M for the next three years.

Is that really any better than paying Porzingis the same until 2024?

We could have just signed Markkanen. Retained Brunson.

Yeah we made the WCFs, but realistically we are in worse shape now than if we had just kept Porzingis. Markkanen was the perfect Porzingis insurance.

[Scott41theMavs]

While I agree that it will likely cost Cuban to get the final pieces of a championship contender, equating Brunson's walking to an MBT failure is a red herring.


Brunson had established himself as a good backup, then co-starter to Luka during the regular season, where he was considered trade bait early on. He was basically JAG until the opening playoff series against UTA where he had 3 excellent games against a defense that apparently couldn't stop anyone. Failure to sign a mid-season contract followed by his father getting the Knicks spot combined with the spurt of success in the playoffs and all of a sudden he's a near-max starting-caliber NBA point guard who is now too good to listen to Cuban's offer? He wanted a starting spot away from Luka's spotlight so he ran to the comfort zone of NYK's and protection of his fathers buddies. Good luck to him, but letting JB walk isn't what's wrong with DAL. It may even be positive in the longer run.

Setting aside the terrible rookie contract that didn't allow the Mavs to make Brunson an RFA, their biggest mistake in the entire process (depending on the reality of the facts - more on that in a second) was not doing the extension he was eligible for. Knowing who he was, and seeing how he played, over his first three and a half years here, the MBT would have had to have been the worst basketball ability evaluators on the planet to not believe that that extension would have been worth it even without his February-through-playoffs explosion. Now, Brunson's camp claims he would have signed that deal. Are they saying that to throw shade on the MBT, and it's untrue? If so, then obviously there's nothing the Mavs could have done differently following the bad Donnie contract. If it's true, then that move is many times worse and damnable than choosing not to pay Brunson Knicks money last summer (if they really did have the chance). 

Of course, the inverse of that is that if Brunson signs that deal, he perhaps isn't nearly as motivated in his play the rest of the way. Perhaps we did as well as we did afterwards because he was playing for that Knicks contract.

[F Gump]

Now, Brunson's camp claims he would have signed that deal. Are they saying that to throw shade on the MBT, and it's untrue? If so, then obviously there's nothing the Mavs could have done differently following the bad Donnie contract. If it's true, then that move is many times worse and damnable than choosing not to pay Brunson Knicks money last summer (if they really did have the chance). 

I don't think it's true at all. It's always felt like one of those shade-throwing tales to me that McMahon comes up with, where he says "I knew this long ago" but then he's only telling it at a time much later where it can't be verified (or contradicted) by real time questions.

I do know that a year ago, early in the season (and long before Brunson's supposed "window" was there), the consensus here was that Brunson already could NOT be signed for what an extension could offer. Perhaps in early 2022 the Brunson camp was hoping for an offer to decline, perhaps, but not one to sign since they had to be aware a bigger payday was looming in just a few more months.

[ballsrchr]

 He's (Cuban) also turned into a penny pincher.  

I'm not going to be precise in my speaking here...but I read "somewhere" that Cuban sold his IT company for 5 billion dollars.  He's now down to 4 billion dollars--which sort of belies the statement that he is the "smartest" man in the room.  AND...is also a damn good reason to pinch pennies.  Anybody would start pinching pennies when they drop down to 4 billion.  I know I would...

[mvossman]

It's not "positive in the long run" when your second best player, someone YOU drafted (a great pick, btw) and groomed, is dying to get away from your team. It's an eye-brow raising thing that sends a pretty poor signal about what's to come, imho.

I feel like there is some hyperbole here.  Brunson wanted to run his own team and was never going to do that on a team with Luka.  You also had the added dimension of his daddy being part of another organization.  It's not that "eye-brow raising" that he wanted to go to New York.

[omahen]

I feel like there is some hyperbole here.  Brunson wanted to run his own team and was never going to do that on a team with Luka.  You also had the added dimension of his daddy being part of another organization.  It's not that "eye-brow raising" that he wanted to go to New York.

There was a time he wanted to stay in Dallas and would stay in Dallas, if they treated him right.