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

Yes I am saying it.

Howard, Terry, Stackhouse, Harris, bench > Gasol, Odom, Fisher, Ariza, bench.

Ariza is an average offense player, Fisher is terrible and the reason why the Rockets had any chance against us. It took him getting suspended in game 3 for you guys to lose on the road.

The Mavs have a deeper team so do the Cavs.

 

yes, the coaching staff made huge errors. they only benched damiper for one game. but they took away all his minutes to match up small. they should have forced golden state to match up to them or else just take the advantage inside they had and use it.

 

Second to Dirk maybe.

 

yep, we should totally ignore the 17 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 assists per game gasol contributed during the playoffs last year because he "choked". he was still better than josh howard and still the 2nd best player on the lakers. and fisher was actually a solid player last year with vujacic and vlad also being decent.

i just don't see why the mavs should have traded for kobe. they got to the finals with dirk. there's nothing close to a guarantee that they get that far with kobe. yes, even knowing they got there and lost it was still the right (non) move.

 

Yeah they were pretty close to the title regardless, they had a good nucleus they didn't want to risk at the time so I understand. No one could have predicted some of the stuff that has happened since then.

 

Vlad and Fish was decent? Do you care about defense or not?

Vlad is absolute trash, he's one of the worst starting SFs in the league.

Those stats you just cited for Pau only prove my case. His efficiency dropped incredibly in the playoffs, those are Josh Howard numbers and don't try to play him off as some defensive stud.

 

dirk had a bad series. absolutely. not as terrible as people would like to pretend as he did still contribute 11 rebounds, almost 2 steals, and over a block a game along with his 20 points on poor shooting.

but avery johnson was still more to blame. when you've won 67 regular season games, how is it a good idea to change your play to fit that of your 8 seed opponent?

 

so now they are josh howard numbers? i thought you said howard was better?

fisher was decent last year. when he's shooting 40+% from 3, he's a solid player. and no, vlad wasn't trash. he was a decent role player. but if you want i can just say everyone outside of howard, terry, stack, and harris was trash.

 

i don't see how it could not make a difference. it would force the warriors to either give up a huge size and rebounding advantage or give up some offensive firepower by putting an extra big on the floor. either one would have been helpful for the mavs.

 

Lol ok, what is your point? He was on par with Howard, worse one could say.


Based on what was Fisher a decent starter? This is the man starting for a team, and Terry crushes him.

Yes Vlad is terrible, he's a terrible defender are you actually saying he isn't? Once again he starts for a team, he shouldn't just be role playing.

Pau in a slump and Odom, yes Kobe just accomplished more than anything Dirk ever did.

 

If you want to ignore the fact that Dirk had a comparable, if not better cast, Kobe is a better player. That alone is enough of a reason.

 

Oh I'm sorry, Stackhouse and Harris are clearly worse than Fisher and Ariza. Our bench is so much better, silly me.

 

They lost game 1 by 12 points, Game 3 by 18, Game 6 by 25.


It didn't even reach 7 games, it has all the indications that it was an insignificant change.

 

Harris was probably better than Fisher and Ariza back in their finals run, but he was never given the chance to show it. Avery Johnson practically handcuffed him on offense. Stackhouse was probably better than Fisher, but not Ariza. Stackhouse couldn't defend, and just took 18 footers the whole time. Also, neither of them are as clutch as Fisher.

The reason the Mavs lost in the Finals was because of poor officiating, and the team also got down on themselves after Miami came back and won a few in a row. Haslem did a great job on Dirk, and the rest of the team didn't step up. Not to mention Dallas had one of the most useless center rotations ever in Dampier and Diop.

The reason they lost to Golden State was because Nellie had coached a large portion of the players on Dallas, and taught Dirk everything he knew. Nellie easily nullified Dirk on offense, putting shorter but quicker players on him. This has been Dirk's weakness all along, having quick athletic players guard him. Then Dirk collapsed and that was the end of the series.

Dallas' bench was better than the Lakers bench, but starter wise, I'd give the nod to the Lakers starting 5. Not to mention Dirk doesn't have Kobe's killer instinct and hunger.

And I don't think trading for Kobe would've helped Dallas. Kobe is a great player, but without Dirk, Dallas' front court (minus SF) is probably one of the worst. They'd have a logjam in the backcourt, and the team would've had to change the way they played, since for so many years they had played through Dirk in the middle.

 

basically, this is what i'm saying. trading for kobe would have been completely blowing up the mavs. they'd have to have traded other guys to try to balance the roster and there's no way of knowing what the team would have ended up looking like. as it was, they got to the finals and were among the best teams in history in the regular season the next year. it's hard for me to believe that trading for kobe and blowing the team up to fit around him would have definitely gotten better results than that. odds are, the mavs would have fallen short of those things.

 

Thank you for your input, I do think there was some tough officiating in the playoffs back in 05-06. I like your thoughts on this matter.

People were upset with Odom and Pau because they were not themselves last year and their efficiency dropped a noticeable degree. Pau was taking anti-inflammatories because he was getting tired at the center position and fell into a spiral after game 1 against the Nuggets. On top of that we had Vlad starting for us which created a black hole on defense, as has been the case wherever he has been (we had Sasha, Vlad and Luke at SF). If you compare Odom and Pau, they were comparable to Howard and Terry. There was no Bynum or Ariza, or bench but we got to the Finals anyway with our role players having a tough year.

If you had Bryant, Terry would be expendable, I think you could have worked with that I don't see any way you keep that logjam in the backcourt in this hypothetical case.

I do want to see Dallas get competitive again, I feel for the fans. For the good of the league hopefully you guys get competitive again.