Mark Cuban has painted his team into a corner, and now that they are in that corner the only way to get out of that corner is to get rid of arguably the best player in the league. How can I say the Mavs have the best player in the league and yet they have to get rid of him to be successful? Because of horrible GMing on Mark Cuban's part. Because of Cuban's impatience and trying to win as quickly as possible and, due to his ignorance about everything basketball, he didn't know what he had and therefore didn't understand how to build around it..
The problem with the Mavs right now, the problem that they can't fix, is that Dirk is the MOST UNconventional and REVOLUTIONARY player in the NBA.. maybe even in NBA history.. yet he is surrounded by the most conventional team and coach imaginable.
Because Dirk is a big man that plays like a guard you can't build a team around him in the conventional manner. For Dirk to be his best he needs a center next to him that does the things that Dirk doesn't do very well. Things a conventional bigman does. Such as low post scoring and shot blocking.
I've devised a little system to illustrate how the Mavs need to be constructed. Let's say that a star represent a players value -- their talent level -- and let's say there are 3 colors of stars: red, orange and yellow.
red represents the highest talent level
orange represents a moderate talent level
yellow represents an average talent level
A conventional team is built in the model of the Shaq Kobe Lakers..
Shaq-red
Kobe-red
everyone else on the Lakers more or less average - yellow
So you have a great inside player and a great outside player. This creates a dynamic that makes the sum greater than the parts. The Spurs have the same kind of dynamic.. but a tiny bit different..
Duncan-red
Manu and Parker-both would be orange stars..
This creates the same kind of dynamic of Shaq and Kobe.. but with 2 orange stars equaling Kobe's red.
You have the same thing with Shaq and Wade in Miami..
Shaq-red
Wade-red
everyone else yellow
The Mavs as currently constructed have a system like this..
CC Dampier/Diop yellow
PF Dirk-red
SF Josh yellow very slightly orange
SG Stack yellow very slightly orange
PG Terry yellow very slightly orange
This is a one man team. This is how teams can swarm Dirk and the Mavs are exposed as a one-man-team. if Anything.. the talented players on the Mavs are guards. But they aren't very good, so when teams take Dirk out of the game they are putting the ball in these poor scorers hands, these redundant players that do the same things Dirk does, but much worse.
If Dirk was a conventional power forward you would want another red star perimeter player like a Kobe or Wade to complement him, but because Dirk isn't a dominant post player this isn't correct. So this is how Dirk needs his team built..
CC red
PF Dirk-red
SF yellow
SG yellow
PG yellow
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