Author: katadmin

Mike Monroe: Mavs taking circuitous route to success

DALLAS — The Spurs this season will suit up four players from their 2003 NBA title team, and that’s one more than the Mavericks retained from the outfit that overachieved its way to the 2011 championship.

Even allowing that Stephen Jackson played for five teams before Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford brought him back in March, the Spurs’ commitment to continuity stands in contrast to what the Mavericks have done in 16-plus months since winning their first title.

The only Mavericks who remain from the 2011 title run: Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Marion and Roddy Beaubois.

This doesn’t mean the Mavericks are any less committed to winning another title, just maybe not this year.

“Winning the championship that year, it was kind of tough to bring the boys back,” Nowitzki said at Mavs media day Friday. “We had a bunch of guys who were free agents. We decided to keep our salary cap open for the first time in my career.

“Unfortunately, last year we had some big fish available, and we didn’t get them. So you can do one of two things: Blow the whole thing up and start over, or keep signing guys to short contracts to stay a player in the free-agent market the following year. That’s the route we took.”

It’s the smart course but doesn’t sit well with all those Mavs Fans For Life. As he greeted eight new players with guaranteed contracts, Mavs coach Rick Carlisle cited the high expectations they were about to discover.

“My feeling is people know what we’re about as an organization and what our city is about,” he said on media day. “You show up, and you’re playing for a title, regardless of what people may or may not think about your roster or how many new guys you have. We don’t care about that.”

As jarring as the dismantling of the Mavericks’ roster has been, it makes sense long-term. Clearly, Mark Cuban and GM Donnie Nelson knew their team had overachieved in 2011, catching fire at just the right moment. Didn’t Nowitzki and Jason Terry hit every clutch shot in the playoffs?

It’s tempting to say that J.J. Barea had a once-in-a-lifetime performance when he averaged 16 points in the last two games of the Finals. Then again, he was also dating Miss Universe at the time. Safe to say, he was at the very top of his game. But could the Mavericks depend on that type of performance with a multi-year contract?

Letting Tyson Chandler leave in free agency also made sense, especially with the expectation that Dwight Howard would be available in the summer of 2012.

The Mavericks looked at the rosters of the Heat, Bulls, Spurs, Lakers, Thunder and Celtics and realized they would again have to overachieve to keep up with those elites. Was that realistic long-term?

Freeing up enough salary-cap space for Howard and Deron Williams in the summer of 2012 was a gamble worth taking. It was a gamble that lost but for the right reasons. Now they have Chris Kaman, Elton Brand and Darren Collison and cap flexibility aplenty next summer.

With a team built on the fly, the Mavericks will likely compete for nothing more than first-round home-court advantage this season.

But it is understandable that they dare to dream. They overachieved once; why not again?

mikemonroe@express-news.net

Twitter: @Monroe_SA

Stephen Jackson’s radio interview is actually…pretty good

You know that saying about what happens when you assume? Being a certain part of the anatomy and all of that?

Such was the case earlier today, after glossing over the link to Stephen Jackson interview’s with Power 105.1 on Twitter. My reasoning: Do I really need to waste 12 minutes of my life listening to Stak 5 elaborate on his burgeoning rap career? No, I absolutely, positively do not.

So imagine my surprise to see an item from ESPN’s Henry Abbott later in the day raving about how great it was. And he’s right. Even the hip-hop stuff was good, during which he talked about his offseason habits (“I ain’t worked out my whole career”) and slammed Tony Parker’s skillsbehind the mic (“Wack. Terrible. Horrible. And it was in French.”)

Other interesting tidbits:

* Ron Artest, er, Metta World Peace, never thanked Jackson for getting his back during the Malice in the Palace.

* How Jackson stuck to his guns in regards to a prenuptial agreement.

* He was defending teammates (again) when he fired shots outside the Club Rio strip club in Indy.

All in all, a good listen. Say anything you want about Jackson, but the man is brutally — and refreshingly — honest.

Original posting: .

Popovich prods Spurs with memories










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By Jeff McDonald

For teams across the NBA, the first day of training camp is a day of rebirth, a time for new beginnings and new hope, a prelude to 82 games of untapped promise.

It is a time when every team is undefeated, and every team — except maybe for the one in Charlotte — can consider itself a contender.

Yet before coach Gregg Popovich would allow his Spurs to talk about where they hope this nascent season is headed, he first wanted them to reflect on how the last one ended.

So before players were released to fulfill media day obligations Monday, Popovich convened the season’s first team meeting, then cued up footage from last June’s collapse against Oklahoma City in the Western Conference finals.

“He wanted us to be fired up,” guard Manu Ginobili said, “knowing we were very close, and we let it go.”

For a Spurs team that had won 20 games in a row before losing its final four last season, the film session made for painful viewing.

For All-Star point guard Tony Parker, who came perilously close to suffering a career-altering injury to his left eye not long after the playoff ouster, it was a relief to be able to watch anything at all.

After three hours of exams, Parker has been medically cleared for full participation when training camp opens this morning. He will not require the protective goggles doctors prescribed for his stint at the London Olympics in August.

Parker suffered a scratched cornea in a June 15 bar fight in New York between hip-hop stars Drake and Chris Brown and their entourages.

According to reports, Parker was an innocent bystander in the melee. Still, he said the incident helped him “put life in perspective.”

“You just think of stuff different,” Parker said. “In life, stuff happens, and you just learn from it, and you try to be more careful.”

Popovich says he naturally frets about the health of his players when they break for the summer, especially those who participate in international competition.

“Tony’s situation was scarier,” Popovich admitted.

The Spurs return 13 players from last year’s team that tied for the NBA’s best record at 50-16 and came within two wins of returning to the Finals for the first time since 2007.

Few are as important as Parker, who was the team’s leading scorer and assist man in what was an All-NBA campaign.

Parker’s positive medical evaluation has allowed Popovich to breathe easier — and has allowed Parker’s teammates to declare open season on the 30-year-old point guard.

Leading the needling has been puckish captain Tim Duncan, who has gigged Parker about everything from his “chic” choice of eyewear to the June incident’s effect on the Spurs’ goody-goody reputation.

“We’re trying to get street cred,” said Duncan, who in July signed a new three-year, $30 million deal to resume his role as team provocateur. “That’s what this team’s all about.”

Once Parker is done dodging the slings and arrows coming from the Spurs’ Hall of Fame-bound power forward, the mission will be for him to repeat what Popovich often has called his best professional season.

“That’s what he’s getting paid to do,” Popovich said. “He’s got to be committed and disciplined enough to repeat what he did last year. He knows what we expect out of him.”

After finishing a career-best fifth in the league MVP voting last season, Parker believes himself up to the task.

“I think it’s a great challenge to do the same thing,” he said. “I feel like the next three or four years are going to be the best basketball of my career.”

Before Parker and the Spurs could get too far ahead of themselves, Popovich pulled them back as only he can.

The scars of what slipped away against Oklahoma City remain fresh with his players. He hopes they never fully get over it.

“I think we all still feel (disappointed), and that’s good,” Popovich said. “We’ve got to use that.”

jmcdonald?@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN