Mark Cuban 80% Convinced He Could Have Traded Dirk For Kobe

Link

 

Hah what a terrible call.

 

oops Cuban

 

i think he made a good decision. the mavs wouldn't have been any better with kobe than they were with dirk. he says it was after the year the lakers didn't make the playoffs, so that would be 04-05 season. the next year the mavs made the finals and followed it up by winning 67 games. they would have done better than that with kobe? i don't think so. the mavs already had howard, terry, daniels, harris, and stackhouse on the perimeter and only had keith van horn and josh powell backing up dirk.

the mavs definitely made the correct decision in keeping dirk.

 

They had good perimeter players, it made sense at the time. But long term it was a terrible call.

His team clearly failed, hindsight is 20/20 so it is easy for me to say this now.

 

I never heard of such a deal either, Shaq for Dirk was one though.

 

his team made the finals and the next season had the best record in the league. they didn't win a title, but that team didn't exactly fail. the failure was more of the coaching staff and front office. the coaching staff for changing what won them 67 games to try to play golden state's style and the front office for breaking up the team at a terrible time(there was absolutely no reason for the harris/kidd trade). that mavs team was good enough to win a title(and with better officiating maybe should have).

if you google kobe for dirk trade rumors several things will come up talking about rumors of a deal. all of them i saw were from 2007 through so that doesn't fit the time line cuban is talking about. i do recall a kobe/dirk trade being talked about though i could just be remembering the later rumors.

 

05-06 is excusable, yes I saw the entire Finals that year and it looked like Game 4 against the Magic sometimes where they tried to steal the game from us. Oh well, they had a nice run I won't fault them for that.

06-07 though, they had a huge weakness to Golden State that year, that wasn't just on the front office they just didn't mesh together.

 

golden state i blame on the coaching. they gave away game one by starting devin george and playing a center for only something like 20 minutes that game trying to match up with golden state. when you've won 67 games, you don't change your starting lineup to "match up" with the 8 seed when in reality you're just playing right into their hands. the rest of the games, they reverted back to a normal starting lineup, but still played much of the game with no big man other than dirk.

the front office is blamed for everything after golden state. if they wanted to blow the team up, they had to do it then. instead they waited until dallas had an understandably slow start(did they expect a team that won 67 games and lost in the first round to be putting much importance on the regular season?) and then traded harris and picks for jason kidd. there was no reason for that. you either blow that team up before the season or you let them coast to the playoffs and see if they can pick their intensity back up there and be a contending team. if they can't, you blow them up; if they can, you've got a contender.

now that was kinda off topic, but i still don't see how the mavs would have been any better short or long term with kobe instead of dirk. that dallas team had a lot of success(even if it always was followed by disappointment) that i don't think you can just say kobe would step in and have led them to titles. and anything less than actually winning a title would have only been at best equal to what they accomplished with dirk.

 

If I could remember. They didn't want to give us Dirk for Shaq. They were willing to give us Steve Nash though. Imagine a back court of Nash and Kobe. wow

 

Devean George played less minutes in the playoffs, than the regular season.

Is Dirk a good defender? He's had all the talent around him necessary to earn a title and he's the only guy to lose in the first round on a 65+ win team. Terry and Howard are already much better than whatever Kobe had in 04-05 even up to now.

How did the minute distribution look in 06-07? It looked pretty normal enough for me, I wouldn't blame the coaching.

Dirk: 40 minutes, Howard: 41 minutes, Terry: 38 minutes, Stack and Devin had more minutes than the regular season.

I really don't see major differences. Oh Diop played 23 minutes a game, instead of 18. Is that it?

The Mavericks are the biggest failures in the history of the league (edit: not that I ever want to wish that kind of failure on anyone, I feel for them), they would have been better off trying anything else. I don't put it all on one player but knowing what I know now, they would have done much better with Kobe. They had excellent depth too, which the Lakers don't have. LA starts D-Fish and has no bench if you count Bynum as a backup and Lamar the starter. Ariza is simply a role player up to now, I would say the same about Lamar. LA is already more successful with a worse supporting cast.

 

Not bad. :O

 

you missed dampier going from 25 minutes a game down to just 7. in the regular season damp/diop combined for 43.5 minutes per game. in the playoffs that dropped down to 30.9. and if you take out the one game they combined for 41 minutes(a dallas win), the minutes per game is even worse.

dallas tried to match up small with golden state and played directly into their hands.

for them to do much better with kobe, they'd have to win the championship.

and gasol is better than any player the mavs had on that team(other than dirk of course).

 

Eric never averaged that many minutes against GS.

Wow Eric Dampier cost them the first round? That sounds absolutely pathetic, Kobe has done more with Lamar Odom and filler.

Or get out of the first round with a 67 win team? or not choke a 2-0 lead in the Finals? Sounds very doable because these are extremely rare occurrences that only a handful of teams have Done. If you're going by percentages, the odds are stacked against the Mavericks choking that terribly again.

Howard or Pau: Pau by a bit, he's not a superstar though.

Terry or Fish: Terry is much better, Fish might be the worst starting PG in the league. That already makes up the difference right there.

Howard or Ariza: Howard is almost all-star level, he's like a better version of Lamar. Howard is better. Ariza is a role player.

Stackhouse or Lamar: Close here

Harris or Farmar: Haha not funny.

Sasha or... Lol.

LA has a worse supporting cast, and Dallas' superstar is not an elite defender.

 

no, eric dampier didn't cost them the first round. getting away from what won them 67 games cost them the first round. trying to match up small when the team is used to playing with bigs cost them the first round.

the only way to top a finals appearance that many people still feel the mavs should have won with better officiating would be to actually win the finals.

this comparison of supporting casts is not very good or really relevant. we could go through man by man and arrange the matchups in a way that either one of us could consider ourselves right, but what's the point of that?

i'll assume we're talking about the 67 win year. you're telling me that howard, terry, stack, harris(3rd season nothing close to the player he is now), dampier, george, buckner, and diop is better than gasol, odom, bynum, ariza, fisher, farmar, sasha, luke? because i just don't see it.

like i said, gasol is better than anyone dirk had. i feel like odom is certainly on the level of jason terry and then ariza in the playoffs certainly was on the level of guys like stackhouse and harris. and i don't think any of the lakers getting minutes were as bad as devean george and greg buckner. so if the lakers supporting cast is better at the top and better at the bottom, does it matter that dallas is one solid player deeper? i'd say no.

 

Woops did we forget last year?

Kobe already got to the Finals last year, with Pau in a major slump in the playoffs.

Howard > Pau that year. He also had Odom and no one else. Ariza? Nope. Bynum? Injured.

You saying they shouldn't have traded for Kobe, knowing how badly they choked in 05-06, then 06-07, makes little sense to me. Of course they should have, they're a league-wide joke these days (edit: Dirk is still a great player and good luck on bouncing back Dallas, nothing personal).

 

Dirk cost them the first round, you said the coaching staff made all these errors, but they just benched Eric more. Wow is that all?

 

Oh you mean the team that choked in the first round? That one?

Howard > Ariza?

Terry > Fish?

They don't have a better bench?

What a joke. Bynum averaged 6 points and 3.7 boards in the playoffs, don't even mention his name. Luke was awful except for a few spare minutes in Denver and Orlando (where he was solid and lovable lol, but overall at his average level).