Shot Clock Geekery

I was just digging through some of Mark Cuban’s blog posts from the last several months and found an article that I had missed before: An NBA Fun Fact

This may only be interesting to programmers and hard core NBA geeks, but Cuban points out a very interesting fact about how the NBA Shot Clock works.  Very interesting.

This also highlights another point worth mentioning.  If you are a fan of the NBA, you should read any basketball related article in Cuban’s blog.   You may not agree with his opinions very often and you may not like what he says, but there is almost always something interesting in his basketball articles.

 

 

Mavs Post-draft Musings

Mike Fisher of DallasBasketball.com has a solid, if not groundbreaking, take on the why’s and why-not’s of the Mavericks (in)activity on draft day.  You can read his take here.

In short, despite being “in the war room”, Fisher doesn’t really know why the Mavericks didn’t jump up into the late first round or earlier into the second round to grab some of the sliding talent.  But his guesses seem pretty sound as usual.  

One point he doesn’t make is that most of the players available at that range were in fact sliding.  And I think that is an important consideration.  Their draft stock was falling quickly and many teams, essentially every team, passed on them repeatedly.  Sure, most fans like to see their team take some gambles and be aggressive.  But sometimes, when everybody else is running the other direction one would be wise to flee as well.

And lastly, we have to wonder if any of the guys in play at that point of the draft really fit into the Mavericks plans.  If you go back and read Mark Cuban’s blog entry at the end of the season you can see that the Jason Kidd trade was a significant milestone in the team’s life cycle.  Not only did they send away their young and talented point guard Devin Harris, but they put an emphasis on the life span of the current construction of the team.

Kidd’s sizable contract represents two really important facts.  Cuban will spend big money over a short period of time to try to win an NBA championship and Cuban has prepared the team for a major overhaul in the near future.

So, when you look at the rookies available in this draft (in the part of the draft the Mavs could have reasonably moved into) you have to ask if they work in the current plan?  Apparently, the answer is no.  Is Darral Arthur or CDR likely to contribute more this season than the players you already have or you can likely sign?  The answer is probably not.  Could they contribute two or three years from now?  Probably a few of them could and would.  Some will essentially flame out by then.

Now, consider what happens when Cuban IS ready to totally re-make this team?  What are the chances that one or two off-seasons from now Cuban can reach out and add three or four young players (possibly rookies) in a single off-season?  As he proved several years ago, and the Trailblazers proved over the past two drafts, in one or two off-seasons any committed owner can rebuild his team as long as they are not overly constrained by the salary cap.

And Cuban has worked hard in recent years to get this team into the magical balance of committed enough to win now but not over committed to have no flexibility later.

My guess is that two years from now fans will hardly recognize the Mavericks compared to this season’s roster AND fans will be excited about what they see.  Even if it isn’t as strong of a contender as they (arguably) have today.  The next generation Mavericks are not that far away.  Cuban has wisely left himself room to completely change this franchise then without giving up hope now.

 

 

 

Del Harris: Next Phoenix Suns Coach?

Confession: I didn’t come up with this idea first.

My friend Scott G. pointed this out to me.  I asked “If D’Antoni is going to Chicago and Mark Jackson is going to New York and Rick Carlisle is going to Dallas, who is going to be the next Phoenix coach?  They already had Paul Westphaul.”

His answer?  They probably want a “players coach” given their personnel but they want somebody with experience since they think they have a chance to contend now.  Del Harris.

Oh my.  Unfortunately, I think that is a great guess.  

DallasBasketball.com has mentioned several times the Del wants back into a more active role in coaching next season, that there appears to be at least one opportunity that Del expects to be available as a head coach and that Del is almost certainly not coming back to the Mavericks bench as an assistant to Carlisle.

So, Del is going somewhere.  Obviously, his buddy Don Nelson could use him in Golden State and Del Harris has been around long enough that he could probably join just about any franchise he wants by calling one of his many contacts. 

But Del in Phoenix might make a LOT of sense.

He has coached and worked closely with Nash and Shaq.  He has a lot of experience, a really good relationship with players and quite a bit of respect in the league. What better way to return to the head coaching position than to take over Phoenix’s high powered offense?

After getting dumped in LA for Phil Jackson just as Kobe was coming of age, Del deserves an opportunity like that.

I would be really happy for Del Harris if he landed a nice gig like Phoenix.  The fans are great, the expectations are high but not as stressful as NY or LA.

But I would be sad to see such a powerful resource leave Mavsland for the Suns.  You know Cuban would pay just about anything to keep Del in Dallas rather than join a Western Conference rival.  But I also believe Cuban would let him go if he knew that was what Del really wanted to do because Mark respects him that much.