I love Roy Williams but he isn't going to the PROs. College coaches make horrible NBA coaches. The best pro guys are former assistants. It's a different game. College game is about recruiting while the NBA is a different game. The last good guy to make the jump I believe was Larry Brown. Pitino, Calipari and others have been busts.

It's not that clear-cut. Making a contested three might be even less likely than the other team missing a free throw depending on just how well they shoot free throws. Anyway Carlisle is much better than most coaches at handling this type of situation. He actually fouls when up three with a few seconds left, instead of allowing a three to tie it. I'm pretty sure the Pacers beat the Mavs a few years ago by doing this, back when we were decent.

I don't think Carlisle would be a good fit for Jason Kidd though. He likes to call every offensive play and his teams run fewer fast breaks than just about any other team.

Most realistic offseason for the Mavs:

*Fire Avery (ldo), and replace him with Rick Carlisle.
*Keep Dirk, J-Ho, JET, Kidd, Bass, Damp, and Stack. You might not love it, but it's realistic.
*Re-sign two of Lue, Wright, Allen, Howard, Barea, and Magliore, and wave goodbye to the rest. Most likely, we'd invite Lue and Allen back based on them getting the most PT this year.
*Bring Reyshawn Terry back from his year overseas. Personally, I love the kid and think he'll be a rotation player.
*Use George and his Bird Rights to sign a one year deal for ~$5 million (he'll take it when he realizes his only value is as an expiring contract), then package that with Eddie Jones's expiring contract. Send them both to a rebuilder who wants to dump someone on a 2 or 3 year deal. Jones will retire if we deal him, and having him off the team is more beneficial than having him on it, so we might as well use his $2 million salary as a trade chip.
*Beg Ron Artest to take the MLE. If not, sign someone else with it...someone who is not a 34 year old jumpshooter. Also, use the LLE to sign another Bass-like project.
*Give it at least one more year, and pray for the best.

dude bd > howard by a lot.

I guess my Spurs' homer biased memory recalling the countless jumpshots that Dallas has made over the years made me overrate them ridiculously. Jesus christ, what a brickfest of a series.

rakes.a.beach, I don't know if Tuq has shipped the monies yet, but double or nothing on Spurs/Hornets?

Is there any reason we couldn't get D'Antoni to coach the Mavs next year? We really need an offensive coach that will get out and run a little bit and he fits the bill perfectly.

Honestly, I'd say Mavs w/Carlisle next season look like a mid-level playoff team that's best-case scenario is sneaking into the 2nd round while the Mavs w/D'Antoni could be a legitimate championship contender.

"Honestly, I'd say Mavs w/Carlisle next season look like a mid-level playoff team that's best-case scenario is sneaking into the 2nd round while the Mavs w/D'Antoni could be a legitimate championship contender."

lol, this is pure gold.

read through kos13's post, and it's really, really good.

one last parting shot at dallas (sorry guys) but... WHY DIDNT FORMER ALL STAR JAMAL MAGLOIRE SEE THE FLOOR???

Well, obviously I don't mean exactly as is. They'd need to add a couple shooters off the bench, maybe even find someone different to start at the 2 and use Terry as the 6th man. I'm just saying that if they're going to keep the nucleus intact, bringing D'Antoni in gives the team a lot higher ceiling.

Alright, well, I suppose you and I just have a much different opinion of D'antoni.

Only good thing you'd get from D'antoni is that he only plays your 6 best players. Guys like George, Malik Allen and (now) Stackhouse won't see the floor.

Avery wanted to get our younger guys some playoff experience.

That's ok for a team that's conditioned to play that way. Dallas isn't anymore.

I'm reading stuff about how the Mavs might go after D'antoni instead of Carlisle. That would be so wrong for both teams. I even like D'antoni more than some around here seem to, but he should stay in Phoenix. They should want him too.

carlisle >>> d'antoni

Wizardplow,

lol. The background on this avatar is only missing "The Max" written in the neon.

i don't want d'antoni because he is the biggest **** whiney douchebag on the planet. I really dislike him....

but.....

he would be perfect for the mavs. They already know how to play defense from playing under Hitler for the last 3 years. D'antoni's coaching style appears to be put the 5 best players on the floor and let them run the **** up and down the court. I don't even know if he knows how to draw up a play or even has a designed offense, which is probably the best possible thing for a team that will likely be centered around Dirk, Jet, and kidd. He also appears to be really good at freeing up guys to play loose. Just look at Boris Diaw. That guy was a sack of AIDS and for whatever reason under D'antoni, he looked like an all star at times.

LOL @ "D'Antoni got outcoached, he's killed the Suns, his rotation is too short, he's gone, but...it would be totally awesome if we got him as our coach".

I doubt he's going anywhere and hope he isn't. I'm able to somehow look past the scores and see the bizarre and unfortunate beats hung on the Suns every postseason that simply didn't happen to their opponent. Maybe they weren't the better team each year but they were never at full strength either, whereas I don't know of any serious injury or suspension that befell the Spurs or Mavs during any of those series.

Not to mention that the current personnel, starting with Nash - even if he looked semi-assy this series and isn't getting any younger - is perfect for the style of play he champions. I'll be damned if I want someone like m'fing Avery Johnson trying to tell Nash how to run the offense.

POKEROMG- Saying they know how to play defense is maybe an overstatement. They didn't play like Pho but they don't crank down on teams. They have zero paint presence and zero foot speed against potent guards.

It is nice and all to grab D'Antoni and think that he is just going to grab it and go but he has to have the soldiers to do it. You can buy a Ferrari but if it doesn't have an engine how the hell does it go anywhere? D'Antoni would be coming to a team with 4 guys on the team under 30--the rest will be over 30--and those guys are: Barrea (awful), Howard (SING IT WITH ME "GO ON TAKE YOUR MONEY AND RUN"), Antoine Wright (lol), and Brandon Bass (the only young gun on the team at this point).

So D'Antoni is supposed to run up and down the floor w/ Dampier? lol. He is supposed run up and down the floor with guys like Stack, Eddie Jones, George and the rest of them? To be honest they needed a guy like Larry Brown. It would have been one constant struggle between him and Cuban and would have never worked but he is the type they need--someone who can break down the roster and build it back up. Not someone to come in here and try to win w/ a bunch of guys that can't win.

I couldn't disagree more. They need someone with more balance this time around. They had their offensive guy with Nelson, then Avery was appointed to help the defense (he's not doing so well with this anymore). I'd prefer to finally see what the Mavs could be with a coach who isn't known for being so much about one side of the game.

kbfc, i didn't see this post and asked you on the spurs/hornets thread. double or nothing sounds good.

just ship the monies to tuq since tuq hasn't given it to me for the hornets/mavs yet. gogogo hornets!

they knew how to play D one season when drill sergeant got them really fired up

Jason Terry was suspended for game 6 in 06' that cost them that particular game forcing them to have to go to SA for game 7. Fortunately for Dallas they had Dirk. Holla.

Also in 03' in the WCF Dirk injured his knee--the series was 1-1--and he was out for the rest of the series. W/o Dirk they took it to 6 games. No way to know what would have happened. But it isn't just Pho, bad stuff happens to a lot of teams.

I meant in series vs. the Suns. There may have been, but I don't remember a key rotation player missing from those teams in any of the last four years. Although this year, not having Grant Hill...I mean, meh. It didn't help but it wasn't nearly the cross to bear that the past three playoffs were.

Re: monies. I'ma be out all day but just let me know how you ultimately want to handle (cash out, deposit for double/nothing, etc.) and I'll respond accordingly later tonight.

Question for Mavs fans because I assume everyone else hate Dirk. But for Mavs fans do you like Dirk?

He is by far my favorite player on the Mavs and the majority of the time he carries us till the final shot were he is like 60% to win/force overtime... But for some reason all my friends(who are Mavs fans, I'm from Dallas ldo) seem to think he is horrible and only remember us losing to Miami... They seem to have forgot how Dirk carried us past the Spurs and basically through the entire playoffs. They also think we should have traded Dirk for KG over the summer. Now KG is awesome and obviously help Boston, but I would not have made the trade. Another one of my friends said that would have traded him for Gasol... which i laugh at. Also, how can people say he didn't deserve the MVP last year?

Sorry needed to rant

Get new friends.

lol everyone else here is a spurs fan, so not an option...