Nov 7, 2012; Dallas, TX, USA; Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban reacts to a call during the fourth quarter against the Toronto Raptors at the American Airlines Center. The Mavericks defeated the Raptors 109-104. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-US PRESSWIRE

Since that time, the Mavericks broke things up, which allowed Chandler to come to the Big Apple. The story of how Kidd made his way to New York was much more dramatic as all signs pointed towards the future Hall of Famer  re-signing with the Mavericks as many outlets reported that deal was done.

But at the last minute Kidd had a change of heart and signed a three-year deal with the Knicks, a move that really upset Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban.

“I was more than upset. I thought he was coming. I was pissed,” Cuban said in late August. “J-Kidd is a big boy; he can do whatever he wants. But you don’t change your mind like that. That was … yeah. I’m sure I’ll get over it at some point, but as of now, I wouldn’t put J-Kidd’s number in the rafters.”

Kidd however took all of that in stride and responded to that comment this week, telling ESPN’s Ian Begley:

“I don’t play for the jersey. I play for my teammates,” he said earlier this week. “Cuban owns the team so he has every right to his opinion, but the one thing he can’t take away is a championship ring.”

Cuban broke up the 2011 championship team with the thought of clearing enough cap space to lure Deron Williams, Dwight Howard or possibly both to Dallas. That obviously didn’t work out the way Cuban had planned and left a bad taste in both players’ mouths as many people felt that the Mavericks may have had a chance to repeat last season had they kept their core intact.

“I’m very happy with this situation, but to speak past tense I definitely think that we had an opportunity to go back-to-back and unfortunately things were blown up,” Chandler said on Thursday. “But that’s the business side of it; that’s something the players can’t control.”

We know how things panned out for the Knicks as they rebuilt their team with Chandler and Kidd being a big reason of why the Knicks are the only unbeaten team in the NBA.

But the Mavericks have also rebuilt and are off to an impressive 4-1 start to the season, even without the injured Dirk Nowitzki in the lineup.

The Mavericks are averaging over 108 points per game, led by a reborn O.J. Mayo, who is averaging 21.6 points per game to start the season.

But that will be tested by a Knicks defense who has allowed an NBA-low 85.3 points per game.

As far as Chandler and Kidd are concerned, they are happy wearing a Knicks’ uniform, but even so you would think they would be a bit emotional as tonight’s game nears tip-off.

Kidd more so than Chandler.

The reigning Defensive Player of the Year got a taste of playing against his former team last year, but this will be Kidd’s first opportunity to do so. However many of the same faces they won a championship with are no longer in Dallas as this is a brand new Mavericks team.

But while Kidd may have some emotion before the game, once the ball is thrown up, it will be all about winning.

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Jason Kidd is one of the best point guards to play the game. He is Mr. Triple-Double. He is third on the all time 3 pointers made list. More important than any of his other accolades is that he led the 2011 Dallas Mavericks to a championship. And Mark Cuban refuses to retire his jersey, because he didn’t want to spend the end of his career on a team that looks to be headed towards rebuilding?

According to ESPN, Cuban said, “I’m sure I’ll get over it at some point, but as of now, I wouldn’t put J-Kidd’s number in the rafters,” he continues, “It hurt my feelings, period.” 

If anyone should know that this game is not a game, and that it is a bussiness, it should be Cuban. As an owner you make ruthless decisions regularly from deciding not to resign a player due to salary restraints to ordering the trade of a hometown hero.

We all heard the reports that Jason Kidd had made a verbal commitment to the Mavs before signing with The Knicks. It is not like he used The Mavs to earn a bigger paycheck as we are paying him the most we can afford. He simply changed his mind. Is that not the right of the player? It is not personal towards the owner, because these teams seem to be headed in different directions.

Jason Kidd signed a 3 year deal. The Knicks are all in for the next three seasons, (whether you believe we have the talent to win is another story).

The Mavericks, on the other hand, have an aging superstar who will almost definitely be retired, a beyond his prime shooting guard in Carter, and an assortment of other non significant players.

Unless they make some serious trades this may be the last season they are going to compete. In my opinion, the additions of Darren Collison, O.J. Mayo, Chris Kaman, and Elton Brand won’t make them championship contenders for years to come.

Jason Kidd watched as his former team botched the recruitment of Deron Williams a year after they allowed Tyson Chandler to walk away. He chose to end his career surrounded by players who were brought in to win now. Kidd wants another championship, and the Mavs simply could not provide him with one.

Mark Cuban needs to get over it. He can go home to his Mansion, slide into a bathtub filled with his billions of dollars, and belt out the lyrics to “If I Could Turn Back Time.”

The Knicks Lost To This

Whenever Tyler Hansbrough scores more points than both Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, chances are his team’s walking away with the win. Most didn’t see this coming, but some did. It was just one of those NBA games where every logical point tips the scale in one team’s favor, only to have the underdog blow them out. Onto the links:

* When you’re 0-7 from deep and can hardly run up the court, you better be making passes like this. Just kidding…but seriously. Chauncey didn’t play too well in his first game back from the thigh injury, but everyone’s entitled to an off night every now and then. It’s good to see him contribute in other ways.

* A couple of weeks ago, Mark Cuban said Denver got the better of New York in their blockbuster deal. Over the weekend, Carmelo Anthony says whoever acquired him got the better of everyone else.

* Which is a better road to go down? Chauncey, Chris Paul, Toney, other?

* The New York Times game recap.

* No need to check twice, Mr. Billups is just dominating the Linkin’ Center right now! Here’s a recent, very informative Q&A.

* With news breaking late last week that MSG was planning on raising its ticket prices for Rangers and Knicks games, the Daily News’ Filip Bondy takes issue. Especially if they’ll be losing to the Pacers on the reg.

* The season’s winding down now, and before we know it the playoffs will be on us. As talented as New York looks on paper, their inconsistent losses to subpar teams must have D’Antoni nervous.

* Nice piece on Ronny Turiaf and his personal connection to the Wes Leonard tragedy.

* Have we mentioned the Pacers’ best player didn’t dress last night?

* More Turiaf!! An interview with the Seattle Times on his Alma Mater’s tourney chances.

I Want Rubio!

So this is what the Utah Jazz felt like. Last night’s blowout loss is being dissected by writers all over the country today. My take? Simple case of the better team taking care of business at home. Onto the links…

* If you missed the game: The must read Times recap.

* Classic case of adding insult to injury, Mark Cuban picks his shots nicely.

* Looking for someone to blame after last night’s embarrassing loss? How about Rick Carlisle?

* Raising season ticket prices seems like the logical reaction to a lopsided blowout.

* So much for playing nice with the refs.

* The Deron Williams to New York deal that could’ve been is finally dissected.

* Wonderful breakdown on Knicks Now by Kenny Smith and Greg Anthony.

* Is New York a guilty copycat of Miami’s blueprint? Hmmm possibly. But who’s better for the long term?

* If you think the Knicks have a shot at the title this year, someone’s grandmama might agree.

* I strongly agree with the analysis detailed over on The Knicks Blog. Amar’e Stoudemire should be spending the next stage of his career in the mid-range.

* Very funny. Ronny Turiaf misses you, Mozgov.

Don't let the open arms confuse you. If you say something David Stern doesn't like, he'll fine you. No, there's no truth to the rumor that The Beatles wrote "Back In The USSR" about him. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

First off, please, please, please don’t confuse me for a whiney Boston Celtics fan. I actually was excited for them two years ago when they got Kevin Garnett because I felt like KG and Paul Pierce were two guys who deserved a shot and I wanted to see what they could do. Then they both, particularly KG, turned into jerks. So now I’m staunchly anti-Celts. I hope they lose this series, and I’m psyched that the Magic won last night. But Orlando shouldn’t have been helped out so egregiously by the refs.

No, I’m not a conspiracy nut either who thinks the “League” told the refs to extend the series. I just think that the refs and the NBA honchos have let the power go to their heads. It’s insane how afraid the league is of dissention. For those who didn’t watch last night’s game, Kendrick Perkins, the one guy in the league who can do a decent job defending Dwight Howard solo, got two technicals and was tossed. The first happened when he was helping Paul Pierce up, but their grip slipped so his arm went back a bit into Orlando’s backup center Marcin Gortat. Gortat responded, slapping the ball away, and they got hit by double technicals. I understand that one. At the time, particularly from certain angles, it looked like Perk just maliciously elbowed Gortat on purpose. But upon video review, you can see it was more of an accident.

To read the rest of this, go to my original post on the main FanSided page.

Yeah, Dirk is annoyed about losing, but that has nothing to do with why he's opting-out of his contract (source: Yardbarker.com)

ESPN reported that Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki is likely to opt-out of his contract, ostensibly add his name to the free agency pool, and as an unrestricted free agent at that.  What does that mean for Knick fans?  Quite possibly not a damn thing.  Even if he 100% wants to return to the Mavs, he’d still do this for contractual reasons, so it doesn’t imply he’s contemplating leaving in the slightest.   What’re the contractual reasons?

Opting out to sign a new deal, for starters, would lock in terms based on the NBA’s current collective bargaining agreement through the life of the next contract. Under the league’s current system, Nowitzki is eligible for a four-year maximum contract from Dallas worth $96.2 million once he opts out. The most he could receive from another team is a four-year deal worth $93.1 million.

Signing a three-year extension to the last remaining season on his current contract, by contrast, would expose Nowitzki to potential after-the-fact reductions to his annual wage if league owners are successful in their attempts to lower the value of maximum salaries in the next collective bargaining agreement.

[...] Another motivation for Nowitzki to opt out as opposed to signing an extension is the ability to secure a no-trade clause.

If Dirk played for anyone else besides Mark Cuban, I’d say this also was a good maneuver to put pressure on management to improve the team, but Cuban’s already made public his plans to go after LeBron.

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Evaluating players before the draft is not easy, but at least you know who you are talking about. Predicting who is going to get picked when is harder. Everyone has their own ranking system, but the big question is whether a team is going to pick the best player available or pick the player who best addresses the team’s needs.

The other question is, what on earth was that GM thinking? The most recent “what was he thinking” award goes to the Minnesota Timberwolves, for using the 5th and 6th draft picks on point guards (Jonny Flynn and Ricky Rubio), followed by having one of them (Rubio) make noises that he would never play for the Wolves, and creating a situation where the other, Flynn, felt unsure of the team’s commitment to him, and for good reason.

So for me to say who will make which pick is guesswork, because every year there are inexplicable decisions made, and there are players drafted in the top 20 whose name you hear when he is selected, but then never again. Comparing mock drafts, I have seen players’ names move twenty spots or more.

Mostly, I’m seeing mocks that describe players, not why they will be picked or what the team is thinking. I already wrote about the players likely to be drafted in the first round, so instead, lets’ discuss what the team should do, not what they will do, because many teams have a weird tendency to pick the same type of player over and over regardless of the results. (Lakers trying to find a point guard, Bulls drafting post players, Houston drafting 3’s, Warriors drafting skilled bigs, etc.) Redundancy makes sense for some teams, but for others it’s stupid. I’ll take those case by case.
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Big summer franchise movies are assembled much like a NBA franchise team. You’ve got the executives who care more about the bottom line (“Let’s sign Allen Iverson — he’ll put butts in the seat” or “Let’s hire Scarlett Johansson — she’ll add sex appeal!”) rather than whether they create a high quality product. They hire the actors, or ball players. The thing is, it’s then up to the coach, or director, to make something out of this collection they were force fed, with their name being on the line. When a movie sucks, how often do you hear, “Man, that studio executive did an awful job?” And days after the Chicago Bulls were eliminated from the playoffs by the Cleveland Cavaliers, it was coach Vinny Del Negro who got the axe, not GM John Paxson.

For the rest, click here.

Dirk looks like he needs a lot of help. A LOT. And "a lot" can be spelled "LeBron." (source: Yardbarker.com)

When I recently wrote my little primer on how to root in the playoffs as a Knicks’ fan, I gave short shrift to the Dallas Mavericks.  That’s ‘cuz I didn’t think they’d suck this hard.  I also didn’t put much stock in the idea that LeBron James could go to the Mavs.  Now I’m worried that with Dallas crumbling quick, that could become a very real possibility.

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(source: Yardbarker.com) Like a little girl in puppy love, New York hopes we're the one LeBron's eyeing.

Seems ESPN has launched ESPN NewYork.com today and decided to promote it by rehashing the ol’ Will LeBron James Go To New York story.  There’s a surprisingly large amount of Nothing New, mixed in with Shameless Sensationalizing, Idiotic Conclusions Based On Personal Feelings, and just Awful Math.  That said, there were maybe a couple of Intriguing Bits to me, but it might all feel redundant to y’all.  Without further ado:

Idiotic Conclusions:

The worst part was where the sportswriters speculated the percent chance of LeBron going to one team or another.  Let’s start with Mark Stein saying there’s a 10% chance that LeBron will go to Dallas.  10%???  10% means 1 in 10!  You’re going out tonight and your choosing between your ten favorite restaurants — that gives each one a really good shot at being chosen.  Thankfully, of the four other Dallas writers, they all only gave it a 1-3% chance.  I like Stein’s writing a bunch, but his thesis his based on this you-can-substitute-LeBron’s-name-with-anyone statement:

I firmly believe LeBron likes the thought of playing with Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd, trusts Mark Cuban to be an owner who will always spend whatever it takes to contend and loves the city of Dallas and Cowboys football

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