Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Dirk Nowitzki is hurting. It's obvious. Watching him right now is like watching him during his rookie season - limited to just a jump shooter and nothing else. He isn't rebounding well and he can't seem to get any lift on any of his awkward fade-a-ways. It's painful to watch.

But he had to come back. Worse than watching Dirk struggle with his knee was watching the Mavericks struggle without him. The New Jersey Nets were a perfect bounce back game after being ransacked in Chicago. They didn't have the defenders to throw at Dirk. Sure, they have Kim Kardashian's boyfriend but not even her intoxicating derriere sitting in the front row could provide ample defense (or distraction).

Except it did. Once again, Dirk struggled to get any lift on his jumper. He was short. He was off-left. He was off-right. He even had an air ball (which makes me struggle to recount any previous Dirk air balls.) It looked like the Mavericks were doomed to once again fall to an inferior opponent because Dirk's teammates failed to step up. The saving grace was that Dirk realized he was struggling and forced himself to the free throw line (eight times, in fact)

After Devin Harris shot something that only in theory could be described as an actual basketball shot, the Mavericks had one more chance. I honestly was worried. Usually this is Dirk time. Give him the ball at the high post, right at the free throw line. Let him back his defender down and draw the double. Or drive facing the basket, spin and fire. We've seen it before, and it's glorious. But for once I wasn't so sure. Dirk was 6-for-23. He was flat. I almost wondered if the Mavericks should use Dirk as a decoy and get an open look for someone else.

How stupid am I?

Dirk, of course, promptly took the ball and used one of the best pump fakes the NBA has ever seen and rattled home the game winner with exactly six seconds left on the clock. New Jersey couldn't recover as their final possession could of been best watched with the the Benny Hill song playing in the background. It might be a one-point victory over one of the worst teams in the league. It might have been one of Dirk's worst shooting nights. But don't down yourself in the negatives. Just know that Dirk is the Dallas basketball messiah and his resurrection in the final seconds on a cold night in New Jersey was, well, biblical. Let's just hope he's back for good this time. And never doubt his crunch-time abilities again. Lesson learned.

Hallelujah.

***

Be our friend! Join The Rice of Passage Facebook page! 

Want to tell me how dumb I am? Follow my dumb thoughts? Then check me out on Twitter

Take Dat Wit Chew: The Rice of Passage Podcast Episode 1

The last few weeks have felt like a straight arm to the groin for Mavericks fans. Naturally, you would want to extend that pain by listening to a couple of guys bitching about the state of affairs in Mavland.

You might ask, "Why would Josh choose to do a podcast with someone who seems determined to steer the conversation away from the game every chat?" It is quite simple really, I own a microphone. Two of them, in fact. I may not have extensive basketball knowledge, but I can talk to people that do and I guess that makes me more qualified than any of you. Anyway, Josh and I will try to throw up a new episode every Sunday for your listening enjoyment/enragement.

We need you. Please listen or at the very least put it on in the background while smoking meth or buying your wife a lovely piece of salted pork. Any comments or questions you have will be greatly appreciated. We aren't above begging, but I would like to avoid it if at all possible. So open your earholes and let us in.

Download the .mp3 file directly here!

Grasping at Straws

Nostalgia is a tricky thing. It can be a warm security blanket that reminds you of the glory days, when times were better and men were men. But when those distant memories revert to the present, the result is usually not as good as you remember.

Case in point with the Dallas Mavericks reportedly on the verge of landing one time nemesis Peja Stojakovic after his contract has been bought out from Toronto. Peja, as many dedicated Mavs fans remember, was the sharpshooting wing from the arch-rival Sacramento Kings back when the Mavericks and Kings played nationally televised games on Christmas of who could score 130 points first. Ah, the good old days.

Obviously, Dallas needed to make a move to acquire some sort of wing player that could make shots. Sasha Pavlovic, you were nice against the Lakers, but after watching the debacle in Chicago, it's clear Dallas needs someone a bit more proven and a bit more...uhm...good. But is Peja the answer? If this were 2004, yes. Now? About as definite a 'maybe' you can get.

I think the first thing that needs to be debunked is that Peja isn't a worthless player. I feel that Twitter was giving Peja a bad rap last night, as if the Mavericks had genetically cloned Steve Novak from the bottom of their roster, gave him a new hair cut and a fake mustache, and trotted him to the world as the answer. As awesome as that might be, it's a little better than that. Peja is still a quality contributing player in the NBA. If you can give a mulligan to this year (due to injuries and his rotting time spent in Toronto) Peja was still shooting at a decent clip well past his Sacramento years. In his first full, healthy season in New Orleans, Peja knocked down 44 percent of his threes, while scoring over 16 points a game - much similar to what Caron Butler was doing this season. I was even surprised how productive he was in Indiana for half a season after being traded from the Kings, scoring 19.5 points per game and shooting above 40 percent from three.

Once again, this is not to say Peja is in All-Star form. He's not. He's been ravaged by injuries and still is a bit of a one trick poney. He isn't a facilitator - at all (career assist number of 1.8). With the age rising and injuries to go along with it, his respectable rebounding numbers have fallen off. And by no means is he even close to a defensive weapon. There was a time when you could say Peja was no-brainer All-Star but fans have to realize that those times have passed. Peja is at the point of his career where he is best suited to being a role-player. Someone who plays 15-20 minutes, can knock down a couple of threes and be on his way. If Peja is brought in (and on any contract more than a couple million) and plays 30 minutes a night and starts, you're going to start to see his flaws exposed. That's what being a role-player is. You have your niche, but if overexposed, that niche becomes a crutch and teams counter the one positive you bring to a team.

Two things bother me the most about the Peja reaction: The two extreme sides (the ones that are stuck in 2004 and think the Mavs have added an All-Star and those that think the team just brought Jon Barry from his talking head position) and then that this could be the last move Dallas makes this season. I still feel Dallas needs to make a "splash" move (such as acquiring a Kevin Martin/Danny Granger level player, as slim as those chances may be) to become a true title contender. But who knows. The last player the Mavericks took a gamble on that had succes in New Orleans before breaking down in his next stop turned out pretty well.

***

Be our friend! Join The Rice of Passage Facebook page! 

Want to tell me how dumb I am? Follow my dumb thoughts? Then check me out on Twitter

Relief

While I was thinking throughout the day on Wednesday about how I should critically attack the Mavericks through the written word, the unthinkable happened - they beat the back-to-back defending champions. Pretty decisively (enough to have a 16-point lead at one point). In the fourth quarter. This is great. It ends the worst streak the Mavericks have been on since Dirk's hair looked like this. It showed Jason Kidd and Jason Terry have pulses and that Dallas can beat one of the best teams in the league even without Dirk being, well, Dirk. But there's a caveat: the Mavs didn't play all that particually well on defense. As Rob Mahoney points out, it's nice to see the Mavericks win and against a great team, but holding the Lakers to a 120 points per 100 possessions isn't going to cut it. Dallas was hot from deep, played some decent defense in the third quarter and stopped the bleeding.

In a way, the Mavericks during the six game losing streak were having an erection lasting longer than four hours. On Wednesday they went an saw the doctor to get it taken care of. But that doesn't mean another four hour erection isn't on the way. Dallas still has their problems and if you can forgive the worst analogy I've ever written (or the best), the Mavs still need to string together consecutive competitive games before we can finally declare them "back." As Mark Followill said on 1310 The Ticket this afternoon, tonight against Chicago will be the real test to see if the Mavs are back. After all, he said, if this team couldn't get up to play the defending champs at home after a rough stretch, then nothing would.

Last night was a great night for a Maverick fan. But it wasn't the solution to the last week or so of problems. As some have mentioned, it was almost expected. There's still the issue of the small forward spot (Peja?), why Shawn Marion can't start, is DeShawn Stevenson coming back to earth (yes) and how is this team even doing this well with a starting point guard hitting 33 percent of his shots entering last night's game?

There will be a time and place for all the criticisms of this Maverick team to be laid out over here and to plan for what to do before the trade deadline. And by no means have the Mavericks fixed any of those after last night's game. But it was a nice change a pace. Instead of listening to talking heads and writers squawk at the sinking ship that is the Mavericks, we were temporarily relieved. Consider me thrilled.

***

Be our friend! Join The Rice of Passage Facebook page! 

Want to tell me how dumb I am? Follow my dumb thoughts? Then check me out on Twitter

Once More, with Feeling?

I have a fond memory of Devin Harris. I remember when his lanky 6-3 frame came into the American Airlines Center for the first time. It was my last season being a season ticket holder for the Mavs, which was Harris' rookie season.

I specifically remember one play about halfway through his rookie season, against the revamped and Steve Nash led Suns. Harris stole the ball with the Mavs down three, late. He sprinted past a backpedaling Nash, leaped towards the rim and contorted his body as Joe Johnson smacked him to the ground. Harris splash landed a row or two into the baseline seats as the ball did a victory lap or two before rolling into the basket. And one. Tie game. Holy cow. I was sold.

Harris might not have been the prototypical passing point guard, but he was the only other paint presence that the Mavericks had from 2004-2008 besides Dirk Nowitzki. Harris averaged 4.2 shots at the rim per game from 2007 to 2008 (farthest Hoopdata goes back to tracking his time in Dallas) and I can take an educated guess that the number stayed the course before that to his rookie season. Harris was a slasher, score first point guard in the mold of Tony Parker. Except he was bigger than Parker - more athletic with an ability to defend elite guards. Who can forget Harris' insertion to the starting lineup in the epic 2006 playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs in Game 2? Harris scored 20 points, got the the free throw line nine times, and seemingly flipped the momentum switch back in the Mavericks favor, essentially neutralizing Tony Parker and helping Dallas win the series.

Harris fell out of the loop during the 2006 Finals (and we'll speak no more of that series, thank you.) After the embarrassing first-round flameout to the Warriors in 2007, the 2008 season started with a rather blah feeling. Well, at least to Mark Cuban. And when Cubes is feeling antsy, no one is safe. Harris was shipped away along with the Mavericks near-foreseeable future assets to bring in Jason Kidd. After a rough opening stint, Kidd has emerged as the Mavericks second-most important player, bringing up the games of everyone around him (including Tyson Chandler, Dirk, Jason Terry, Shawn Marion, etc.)

But now there are reports that the prodigal son might return. The fabulous reporting Mark Stein says that if Carmelo Athony heads to New Jersey, Harris could make it to Dallas. To get Harris from Denver (if the Melo trade even goes down) Dallas would almost assuredly use Caron Butler's expiring contract as Denver is desperate to get under the luxury tax. There are plenty of questions to consider: How would Harris (who requires to be the primary ball-handler to get to the rim and control his offense) mesh with Kidd in the same back court? During Harris' best year in New Jersey - 2009 - Harris had a 28.4 usage percentage. To put that in perspective, Dirk's career average of usage percentage is 27. So, for Harris to be at an "All-Star level" (and I use that term loosely), Harris has to be in control of the ball more so than Dirk. Remember, when Harris was first here, the team's primary point guard was Jason Terry, who we all know is much more effective the less time he's using the ball.

Another thing I wonder is what kind of Devin Harris would the team be getting? Since his All-Star season of 2009, Harris has been plagued by injuries and sputtered to averaging a little under 17 points last season and this season. His highest field goal percentage in New Jersey has been 43.8. He still hasn't learned a three point shot. He apparently doesn't make his teammates any better (although that's tough to do in New Jersey these days.) The one thing that makes Maverick fans sleep well at night is his free throw attempts. Harris has averaged a clean seven free throw attempts per game so far in New Jersey, including a career-best 8.8 attempts per game in 2008-2009. In that same season he also shot a smidge under six shots at the rim per game, a great number for a guard or anyone else that isn't Dwight Howard or Tim Duncan. Heed that stat, however - that number has decreased all the way to 3.8 - a seemingly average number that almost has to deal with his injury woes.

One last nugget about our former friend: his defensive rating hasn't been anything to write home about. Harris has always had the reputation for being a great individual defender, but it's a reputation that is thrown around loosely. Remember, Caron Butler was supposed to be a "rugged, tough" defender, and his defense has been barely average in his time in Dallas. I wanted to take into the account that Harris has played on some bloody awful defensive teams in New Jersey. So I compared his individual defensive rating to his overall team's defensive rating during his seasons in New Jersey and here's what I found:

Devin Harris Defensive Rating             New Jersey Nets Team Defensive Rating

         2008-2009: 111                                                  2008-2009: 111

         2009-2010: 112                                                  2009-2010: 110

         2010-2011: 110                                                 2010-2011: 108

Interesting. New Jersey's defense as a whole was worse when Devin Harris was on the court, not off it.

Now, this isn't to say Devin Harris would make Dallas a worse team if he was brought over (as long as Caron Butler and J.J. Barea were the only trade casualties and not Roddy Beaubois) , but to say that there are better options out there for the Mavericks if they decide they need to take an opportunity of a shrinking championship window.

(Advanced stats courtesy of Hoopdata.com)

***

Be our friend! Join The Rice of Passage Facebook page! 

Want to tell me how dumb I am? Follow my dumb thoughts? Then check me out on Twitter

An Ode to Caron

Oh Caron. How we hardly knew ye.

Caron Butler has been a very maligned player in his short time with Dallas. In fact, I'm one of his biggest opponents. When the Mavericks acquired the forward from Washington last year, I believed at worst, the Mavs had simply exchanged Josh Howard for another with a better contract and a longterm solution at center.

How fast things change. After the first week or so of 2010-2011 campaign people were wondering if DeShawn Stevenson was actually the best player acquired in the trade. It was an honest argument. Brandon Haywood is a shell of his former self (which is really saying something), Butler looked incapable of making layups and Stevenson simply could not miss from deep. When the Mavericks switched gears after the loss to Chicago and ripped off 17 of their last 18, we saw a new Caron. Or at least, I thought.

It looked like Caron had that swagger back. He looked mean and angry on the court. Like any man that wanted to cross him was a fool. He was fitting in on the sidelines and in the locker room. He even put this in JJ Barea's locker. He was a hero.

As I came to write this piece - a eulogy or sorts - for Butler, I was surprised at the stats. Butler is scoring at a worse clip than last year. He's rebounding less. His assists are down. His turnovers are up. I even dug deep into advanced stats, hoping to find something that would prove my eye test right. There wasn't much. His assist and rebounding rates are down, turnover rate up. He's actually shooting worse from 16-23 feet range. Where, oh where, could I find some stats that would back up my claim that Butler was becoming a positive force for Dallas? I found it in something Butler has usually been poor in - three point shooting. Butler was shooting a career high 43 percent from deep, which raised his overall FG% to 45 (higher than last year) and bumped his effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage up as well.

(Note: eFG% makes three pointers worth more in FG% and TS% is the same except it weights free throws as well)

All in all, I was a little disappointed in my quarry of justifying my first positive thoughts in Caron Butler. I've come to the conclusion and agree with Mr. Dwyer - Caron is merely an average player, fitting into a system that needs an average player at that position.

Regardless, I still feel cheated with Caron's injury. Come to think, just a couple of weeks ago, the Mavericks were riding high. They just defeated Oklahoma City in OKC (no easy task) without Dirk (a really uneasy task). Dirk's injury wasn't serious, and it looked like the Maverick's were world beaters. I was personally at that OKC game (part of my friend's yearly ritual of making it up there for Mavs/Thunder). I remember turning to one of my buddies as we walked back to the hotel room and telling him "Man, this team is different. I can't put my finger on it, but we might do something special this year. I think we're the best in the west."Was I a few beers in? Of course. But it was an honest opinion that other people shared. How fleeting something as being atop the NBA world can be. What's worse was Butler continued to get better. In the seven games before he was injured, Butler averaged just a tick under 20 points per game. That's like Jason Terry but a four inches taller Jason Terry! Regardless of what the stats said, Butler was getting better and contributing to a team that was looking poised to make a deep playoff run. My eye test was making me a *gasp* fan of Caron Butler.

None of this matters anymore. Butler's time in Dallas is officially done. There is little to no chance that the Mavericks resign Butler after his contract expires at the end of the year (assuming he even makes it to the end of the year as a Maverick, which is now very much in doubt). With his time over, many will remember his open-shot-into-contested-shot pump-fakes, his mindless dribbling, his love of the long two pointer and missed layups. I'll remember him for the two-week stretch where the Mavs were world-beaters and Butler seemingly, got it.

(Advanced stats courtesy of Hoopdata.com)

***

Be our friend! Join The Rice of Passage Facebook page! 

Want to tell me how dumb I am? Follow my dumb thoughts? Then check me out on Twitter

Cruel and Unusual

Caron Butler grasped his right knee as he held it close to his chest. The pain was obvious. The man known as 'Tuffjuice' looked like someone shot him in the leg. When Butler was able to get up and walk off to the locker room on his own will, he probably fooled a lot of us during the game. Maybe it isn't that bad, maybe he'll come back soon, maybe it's just Dirk all over again.

Judging from the postgame comments in the Mavs ugly loss to the Bucks, Butler might not be around for quite a bit. Combined with the worrisome Shawn Marion injury (his thigh and hammy nagged him quite a bit last year) and Roddy Beaubois' seemingly amputated foot (seriously, he broke his foot in early August. All was said that three months at the latest. It's been four going on five now with absolutely no timetable whatsoever) the Mavs are in serious trouble.

The only light at the end of the tunnel is Dirk's injury is not serious and he is supposed to be back when the Mavs come back to Dallas after today's game with the Cavs. But combined with a three game losing streak, it's obvious that this is the lowest of the low for the Mavericks right now. A team that looked just as poised to beat any other team in this league less than a week ago now looks like it will limp into the playoffs for another first round embarrassment.

Needless to say, this is about as stinko as it gets. Dallas has been free of the injury bug for a majority of the Dirk era, save for a few ankle sprains and broken faces. The only time I can remember injury potentially hurting a Maverick team like this one was when Dirk went down with a brutal sprained knee injury in the 2003 Western Finals against San Antonio. Hope shouldn't be lost just yet, however. Butler still hasn't been diagnosed and Mark Cuban is not one to let his team rot away if the injuries to Marion and Butler due turn out to be incredibly serious. But what to do? With Butler's injury, it will be almost impossible to move him. That leaves Brendan Haywood and JJ Barea or dumping one of the French Towers.

An interesting possibility would be Kevin Martin, the awkward, yet silky smooth (if that makes sense) shooting guard for the Houston Rockets. Being able to package Haywood and JJB to acquire him of course is a pipe dream - one that I've been wishing for since Josh Howard was put on the trading block. Martin looks even more salivating this season, with the 20 plus points and the very interesting record he's on the verge of completing. Would Houston be dumb enough to take on Haywood? I'm not too sure, unless they are that desperate for a center with Yao Ming on the cusp of retirement.

If Butler is done for the year and the Mavericks make no move to replace him, it'd be hard to be excited for the year. A lineup of Kidd, Stevenson, Marion, Dirk and Chandler is all well and good, but that vaunted Dallas depth would be nixed especially is Jason Terry keeps trying to build himself a second mansion with all the bricks he's collected over the last week or so. Don't get me wrong, I've ripped Butler a fair number of times on Twitter and over here. But losing 'Tuffjuice' for the season would be hard to swallow.

***

Be our friend! Join The Rice of Passage Facebook page! 

Want to tell me how dumb I am? Follow my dumb thoughts? Then check me out on Twitter