Larry Brown Sports

The playoffs are slowly slipping away for the 27-33 Dallas Mavericks, and as a result head coach Rick Carlisle is starting to show some frustration. Injuries and inconsistent play have forced Carlisle to use 19 different starting lineups in 60 games this season, which is the most in the league and six more than the Mavs used all of last season.

Carlisle met with the media on Friday morning and was asked about all the different lineup combinations he has gone with. We’re merely speculating here, but it sounds like the question rubbed him the wrong way.

Carlisle: “I’m tired of hearing about 19 starting lineups being a lot. I had 31 one year, so you guys can all go f— yourselves.”

— Ross Witte (@RJWitt1041) March 8, 2013

As Ball Don’t Lie pointed out, that stat is accurate. Carlisle used 31 different lineups during the 2005-2006 season when he coached the Indiana Pacers, so the shuffling is nothing new for him. But don’t take his foul language personally.

RT @eks_mavsnba: Carlisle: “…and I mean that in the most endearing way.”

— Ross Witte (@RJWitt1041) March 8, 2013

Since Carlisle has been known to kick a ball into the stands in anger and swear during postgame press conferences, we aren’t really surprised he would take a foul tongue with reporters. Having said that, it’s not every day a coach straight up tells the press to go f*** themselves. Happy Friday, everyone.

Derek Fisher signed with the Oklahoma City Thunder this week, and the move is not sitting well with the Dallas Mavericks.

Dallas signed Fisher at the end of November after point guard Darren Collison got hurt. At the time, Fisher said he would devote himself to the Mavs for the season.

“I told (teammates) today, ‘This is not a pit stop. This is not kind of the final whatever before I decide to retire soon.’ I’m here to give everything I have to help this team right now and continue to build as we go through this season,” Fisher said after his first practice with the Mavericks on Nov. 29.

After straining his knee on Dec. 18, Fisher went against the commitment he made to the team and asked for his release.

“In Tuesday’s game against Philadelphia, I suffered an injury to my patellar tendon,” Fisher said in a statement. “With this news and the difficulty I have been having being away from my family, I have asked the organization to waive me so I can return home.”

The Mavericks obliged and released Fisher at his request.

On Monday, the Oklahoma City Thunder announced they were signing Fisher for the rest of the season. As you would figure, the turn of events is bothering the Mavericks.

NBA.com’s Jeff Caplan says the Dallas front office is “agitated” that Fisher signed with the Thunder after leaving Dallas on the premises of being close to his family.

It’s easy to see why they would be upset. They signed him in good faith and released him in good faith, and now he turns around and signs with another team in what seems like a deceitful move. Of course, this isn’t the first time Fisher has pulled a similar stunt. He asked the Utah Jazz to release him following the 2007 season so he could be close to his daughter, who needed special treatment for a medical condition. Then he signed with the Lakers, which was one of Utah’s competitors in the Western Conference.

Fisher needs to stop playing the family card to get him out of situations he doesn’t find favorable. It’s getting old and it makes him look bad.

Chest bump to Pro Basketball Talk
Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-US PRESSWIRE

The Dallas Mavericks are currently 21-28 and in danger of missing the playoffs if they cannot turn things around quickly. Injuries have been an issue all year. Dirk Nowitzki missed the first 27 games of the season while recovering from a knee injury, and he is banged up once again as he battles a strained muscle in his leg.

Dallas has been one of the streakiest teams in the league this season, as it seems like they lose four straight every time they string together a few victories.The Mavs desperately need to find some consistency to have any chance at getting back on track, and it sounds like they are hoping a little facial hair will help them do just that.

Get used to Dirk with a beard. He’s one of several Mavs who have vowed not to shave until they get back to .500.

— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) February 7, 2013

We have heard of NBA players growing playoff beards, but the get-back-to-.500 beard is a new concept. Defense has been the Mavs’ biggest problem. They rank 28th in the NBA with 103 points allowed per game. Maybe some big, grizzly beards are just what the team needs to start intimidating its opponents. Anything is worth a shot.

The Dallas Mavericks are off to a rough 15-23 start to the season, and at the moment they look like a team that could be destined for the playoff bubble. Two years removed from an NBA championship, Dallas has lost some key players like Jason Kidd and Jason Terry and is dealing with an aging and oft-injured Dirk Nowitzki.

Some feel that the logical thing for Mark Cuban to do would be to start rebuilding, and Dirk would be a valuable trade piece should he decide to go that route. While Cuban acknowledged that there’s close to a “one hundred percent chance” he will make a move before the trade deadline, he said there is no way he’s trading Nowitzki.

“No one’s panicking,” Cuban told the Dallas Morning News. “We’re going to be opportunistic through the trade deadline. We’re not going to trade Dirk. I told Dirk we’re not going to trade Dirk. I told Dirk if I’m going through this [expletive], you’re going through it with me. He actually appreciated it.”

Generally speaking, comments like the ones Cuban made about Dirk would mean nothing. Owners say stuff like that all the time to squash trade rumors and wind up dealing their stars anyway, but I doubt that will be the case in Dallas. Cuban and Nowitzki have always had a genuinely close relationship, and I’d be shocked if Cuban wasn’t open and honest about Dirk’s future with the team. Not to mention, he still thinks his team can contend with him.

“I’m as confident as I can be,” Cuban said. “We didn’t go into this just to be middling. If you look at every team that’s any good now, pick a team. Other than the Spurs, every single one of them had to take a huge step backward.”

With 44 games remaining, there’s no reason to believe the Mavericks can’t turn things around and charge into the postseason. And once the playoffs begin, anything can happen.

Dirk Nowitzki is 34 years old and nearing the end of his NBA career. He has made 11 straight All-Star Games and finally won the elusive NBA title two seasons ago. But the Dallas Mavericks decided to break up their title team because of changes to the league’s collective bargaining agreement and take a gamble that they would land some big-time free agents the next summer.

The Mavericks most notably lost former Defensive Player of the Year Tyson Chandler after the title. They let J.J. Barea, Caron Butler, and DeShawn Stevenson go, too. Former Sixth Man of the Year Jason Terry left over the summer, as did Jason Kidd. The Mavericks missed out on Dwight Howard and Deron Williams — both of whom they hoped to land — and instead ended up with guys like O.J. Mayo, Darren Collison, Elton Brand, and Chris Kaman.

The Mavs are now 13-21, their plan doesn’t seem to be working, and Dirk is questioning the franchise’s long-term plan and direction.

“It’s going to be tough now,” Nowitzki said after the team’s loss to the Hornets Sunday, per ESPN Dallas. “I always liked to think you don’t want to build your franchise on hope.

“We hoped for Deron last year. We hoped for Dwight. Why would he leave the Lakers? To me, it makes no sense. He’s in a great situation. Why would CP3 leave? (The Los Angeles Clippers are) the best team in the league probably right now. They’re probably the deepest team. So are you going to hope that we get something?

“Maybe Cuban has something up his sleeve. Maybe you have to take a chance on a bad contract to get him in here and make something happen. I mean, I don’t know. That’s something we’ll have to see this summer. We’re going to play out this season. I’m going to get better and better, hopefully from game to game, so I can actually close out some of these games. And then we’ll see what happens.”

The veteran forward even wondered aloud if the team should consider trading him.

“Either you break the whole thing up and trade me or you get a bunch of one-year deals and try to be a player next summer. That’s the decision we made, so now we’ve got to fight through it.

“The only reason I would leave — or would have left — is if we wouldn’t have won the championship and I would have been like a Karl Malone and (Gary) Payton going to join Kobe and Shaq in L.A. like they did at the end,” Nowitzki said. “But now I’ve got a ring and obviously want to finish my career here. But I also want to be competitive.”

Dirk is in the third season of a four-year, $80 million contract with the team that includes a no-trade clause. It sounds like he may be willing to waive the clause if things don’t improve in Dallas.

Photo credit: Richard Rowe-US PRESSWIRE

Dirk Nowitzki appeared in his first game of the season for the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday against the San Antonio Spurs, but the result was the same one Dallas has seen for much of the year. Nowitzki’s absence through the first 27 games of the season certainly made life more difficult for the 12-16 Mavs, but the 11-time All-Star said it is the absence of Jason Kidd that has really hurt the team.

“Our basketball IQ obviously went down a little bit with J-Kidd leaving,” Nowitzki said according to ESPNDallas.com. “I think that’s pretty obvious. We don’t make the right play on defense. I don’t think that’s selfishness. Maybe we don’t react quick enough or maybe it’s not natural enough to the guys yet, all the calls, the switching of coverages. You’ve got to pay attention; you’ve got to be smart out there. …

“Offensively, our decision-making has been brutal. We’re averaging 20 (turnovers) a night. It’s impossible to win, especially on the road.”

The Mavericks allowed a season-high 129 points to the Spurs on Sunday, meaning they were pretty much incapable of stopping everything and anything San Antonio threw their way. Dirk should certainly help alleviate some of the team’s struggles when he gets back into the swing of things, but losing a veteran point guard like Kidd is never easy. Dallas was hoping Derek Fisher would help fill the void left by the departure of Kidd, but that didn’t work out.

If the Mavericks are going to contend in the Western Conference this year, they’ll need someone to emerge as their new floor general.

Jason Terry is as good a role player as any in the NBA. For eight seasons with the Mavericks, his steady 30-plus minutes per game and clutch three-point shooting helped make Dallas a contender. Without Terry, the Mavs likely would not have won the championship in 2011, nor would they have gone to the NBA Finals in 2006. But is he worthy of having his jersey retired?

“The bow was winning the championship, but the icing on the cake will be putting that jersey up in the rafters,” Terry told the Star-Telegram on Monday. “If it happens, I’ll be grateful.”

Terry was certainly a leader in his eight seasons in Dallas, but having a player’s jersey retired from any team is pretty rare. You’d have to assume Dirk Nowitzki will eventually have his number hanging in the rafters in Dallas, so is it possible the team would retire two numbers from the same era?

“When you start talking about a jersey in the rafters and stuff like that, he took us to the Finals and was the first point guard to do it, and all those consecutive 50-game seasons,” Terry said. “And then finally winning the championship.

“The credentials are there. Now whether or not that happens, only God knows.”

Depending on Mark Cuban’s policy for retiring numbers, I’d say it’s a long shot. Terry’s importance to the team should not be underestimated, but will he be considered a Mavericks legend when people look back on it in 30 years? If not, that honor is probably just a bit out of his reach.

H/T Sports by Brooks Live

Photo credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE