The Assassination Of Devean George By The Coward Donnie Nelson
February 13th, 2008. Wednesday. Raining.
The Dallas Mavericks are tootling along with a 34-17 record. They're pretty good, and perhaps they know it, because they're suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to do something stupid.
A veteran team with only one good young player decides on a plan to get older and worse. The Mavericks decide that Jason Kidd is a significant upgrade over Devin Harris, and work out a variety of scenarios that see them trade Devin and two future first round draft picks for Kidd. They're wrong, but they work hard at it anyway, determined to obtain a player that puts them further away from the hump that they're already sliding away from. Two years ago, it would have been a steal. But not now.
Eventually, they stumble upon a scenario that both they and the Nets can agree upon. Dallas agrees to trade Harris, the picks, cash, DeSagana Diop, Maurice Ager, Jerry Stackhouse and Devean George to the Nets in exchange for Kidd and Malik Allen. The fillers are largely meaningless; outside of Harris, only Diop is a significant player for the Mavericks, and even then he sucks more ass than most people care to acknowledge. The core of the deal is Harris for Kidd, and both teams seem pretty happy with that. The fundamental pieces are together, peripherals of the long-awaited deal are finally in place, and everyone's a winner. (Except Dallas.)
Things then get a bit weird. Through a hitherto little-known technicality, one of the least important components of the deal - backup forward George - has the power to veto the trade. George re-signed with the Mavericks in the previous offseason to a one year contract, and Dallas will have early Bird rights on him when his contract expires. However, if George gets traded, the recipient team will lose his Bird rights if they trade for him, which reduces George's chances of getting handily paid next season. [Let's pretend for a minute that such chances existed.] I don't really understand the purpose of the rule, but it exists, and it applies to Devean. As a result, players on one year contracts who will have early or full Bird rights at the season's end are given the right to veto any trades that they may be in, so that they aren't powerless to prevent having their Bird rights taken away from them. And that's the power George wields.
The rule wasn't really written for situations like this. I'm not really sure who it does apply to, really, but it definitely wasn't for this reason. Yet it applies anyway, and therefore, to a chorus of anger and giggles, George exercises his right to veto the trade and emphatically pisses on Mark Cuban's strawberries for at least 72 hours.
Vetoing the trade doesn't endear George to the Mavericks fans. They boo him lustily, already aggrieved by his crapness and his club's weird affection for him. It also doesn't help that he plays 33 minutes later that same night, and scores 0 points on 11 shots. But technically and morally, he did no wrong. He did what he had to do, and looked for himself. He merely made some people look bad while doing it.
(It also doesn't really hold up the Mavericks, who rework the trade later in the week anyway, substituting Stackhouse and George for Keith Van Horn and Trenton Hassell. With Antoine Wright also coming back in the reworked version, it's a better deal anyway. But I digress.)
Fast forward to this month.
George saw out the season with the Mavericks, sucked horribly, yet re-signed with the team for two more guaranteed years anyway. The inexplicable love that Donnie Nelson and Devean George feel for each other can never be topped, or properly understood. But it's about to change when Nelson tries to trade George again. And this time, he succeeds.
Two weeks ago, George was traded to the Raptors as a peripheral part of the Shawn Marion deal. Along with Antoine Wright, he went to Toronto as the afterthought backups to the also-acquired Hidayet Turkoglu, a move which showed the Raptors putting on a fine demonstration of creative financing, if not a good idea of how to build a team. (And if you don't think there's not an I-TOLD-YOU-SO post coming on that subject, then you're very much mistaken.) However, as far as Devean George was concerned, there was another caveat.
Now, it's possible that they are not vengeance-driven horrible bastards. It's possible that they just did this without considering the possible side effects down the road. But here's the thing; when re-signing George this past summer to a two year $3.2 million contract that paid $1.6 million in both seasons, Nelson and Cuban added a somewhat rare clause to the contract that called for George to get a $200,000 bonus if the Mavericks win a certain number of games this season. I don't know what the threshold was, but I'm guessing it was 50 wins, since that's what they won last season (such predictions are calculated during the moratorium using the team's record from the previous season as the basis). Since the Mavericks can be realistically expected to achieve that next year, George had himself a $200,000 bonus.
But then he was traded to the Raptors. They didn't win 50 games last year, and thus the CBA cannot consider them likely to do it this year either. As a result, George loses $200,000. And though he's subsequently been traded to the Golden State Warriors in a shameful deal for Marco Belinelli, the same applies; George has lost his bonus.
Revenge.
Of course, the fact that the Mavericks had given George a combined $5,943,370 to play with them over the last three seasons means the last laugh is still firmly on them. Their inability to realise that they were paying to retain a man with scoring the scoring efficiency of Willie Green, the rebounding of Jason Collins and the oft-misrepresented defense of Andres Nocioni means that they're the real victims here, the victims of their own silliness. But, still. Vengeance is sweet.
(EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that they above is too confusing. Fair enough. Here's the gist of it, reworded; based on last year's win total, the Mavericks were expected to win 50 games. As a result, George's cap number was raised to $1.8 million. Now that he's a Warriors, it's been knocked down to $1.6 million again. But George was only going to be paid $1.6 million UNTIL the 50 wins happened, at which point he'd get the bonus. The basic point remains, though; by not now being a Mav, George loses $200,000. That is all.)
The site went down for a few hours due to some problem with GoDaddy's Tomcat servers parsing information properly or some shit. The site's content was still there, but it just wouldn't let you see it. This problem has happened before, and by God, it'll happen again. That's what you get when you make cutbacks on running costs in order to be able to afford to run a website out of your own pocket without earning a single penny back in advertising revenue due to your carnal philanthropic desire to give the viewing public what they want. The tradeoff is occasional downtime. And run-on sentences.
Maybe one day we'll redesign the site in a new format, into one less archaic, more flexible and more reliable. Maybe we'll use a new URL. Maybe we'll use new automation and all that jazz. Maybe one day we'll have a focus group to plan all of this. Maybe all this has already happened. Who knows?
More importantly: Conway Twitty!!!! (And some signings news as well.)
- It has been announced that Demetris Nichols has re-signed with the Chicago Bulls. This news may have appeared on this site before. While I don't claim to have been the first to know this news, or to have tapped up Nichols himself or anything (giggidy), I'm still going to use it as some leverage for when I next need you to believe me on something. You are hereby forewarned.
- Devean George has agreed to sign with the Dallas Mavericks for the third time, after almost doing them a favour when he voided the first Jason Kidd trade back in February. It's also been announced that the Mavs don't plan on extending Kidd, which doesn't seem like a bad idea given how quickly Kidd's decline has become. However, the side effect of that is that the Mavericks are now in grave danger of having traded Devin Harris and two first round draft picks in what amounts to little more than a salary dump and Antoine Wright. That won't be pretty if it happens. Trading Kidd's mahoosive expiring at some point this year might not be a bad idea.
- Hey Bulls fans! Do you remember back when we had P.J. Brown's expiring contract, and were trying to use it as the main ingredient in a trade for Pau Gasol, but the deal was doomed to fail when outgoing Grizzlies General Manager Adam West decided that he wanted every decent young player in the Western world in exchange for Pau, rather than the salary savings offered up by Brown's contract? Do you remember how bitter we were when this didn't go down? Do you remember how much that bitterness was reaffirmed when, twelve months later, the Grizzlies changed their minds and traded Pau to the Lakers for what was, primarily, salary relief? Do you remember how we lambasted the Bulls' sexy General Manager John Paxson for not turning Brown's contract into at least someone useful? Do you remember how we particularly rued not trading for Donyell Marshall and Shareef Abdur-Rahim? Well, a quick update. Donyell was just waived by Oklahoma City with a year of his contract remaining, and he is basically done. Shareef is even more done - he has two (count 'em!) seasons remaining on his contract, coming off of a season in which he had 6 games, 10 points and 9 fouls total, and the cost of him not playing well will be $12.8 million over those two years. In hindsight, maybe now we can see why the Bulls were right not to deal P.J's expiring salary for any old shit, and were right to just let it expire and use the salary saving themselves. This rings particularly true when you consider how, right now, we're trying to tightrope the luxury tax while re-signing Ben Gordon. Food for thought there. (Also: the New Jersey Nets copped a lot of stick when they voided their agreement to trade for Shareef because of knee trouble found in his medical, despite Shareef having only missed I think one game the previous season with a knee problem. In hindsight....it looks like they were right.)
- From Donyell to Dorell: Dorell Wright re-signed with the Heat for a certain amount of money over a certain amount of years. For a few years now, Pat Riley and company have excitedly spoken excitedly about how excited they are about their new exciting athletic and exciting lineup, just to then resort to form and use old farts such as Alonzo Mourning, Antoine Walkerand Jason Williams to win either the lottery or the NBA Championship. It was a cute act which got Smush Parker some guaranteed money. However, since most of the old guard has gone now, their vision of an athletic lineup is about to come to fruition, whether they like it or not. (Giggidy.) As things stand, the Heat's non-golfing front 9 are to be Mario Chalmers, Daequan Cook, Dwayne Wade, James Jones, Dorell Wright, Michael Beasley, Shawn Marion, Udonis Haslem and Mark Blount. Apart from Haslem and Blount, that's a lineup of all good jumpers, if not all good jumpshots. And even Blount moves pretty good for a centre. Deeper down the bench, there are yet more good atheltes to be found, with players such as Yakhouba Diawara, Marcus Banks, Joel Anthony and Stephane Lasme. The Heat have finally found an identity. Good for them.
- Speaking of the Heat and players and stuff, Earl Barron signed in Italy with Fortitudo Bologna. He wasn't young or athletic enough to fit in, I guess.
- JamesOn Curry didn't sign with Hapoel, but instead signed in France with Pau Orthez. The French league is never a particularly good place to sign if you want exposure, so I'll assume that the money's good.
- Luke Jackson is supposedly going to sign with the Blazers, and, for those who didn't know or care before now, Luke Jackson went to college at Oregon. So there's some ties there. Jackson's NBA up to now has sucked elephantitis testicles, but he's not entirely useless (or he wasn't, at least). It's getting harder and harder to say this after so many chances up until now, but maybe THIS is the time that Jackson finds his niche and is able to fashion out a career as a bench contributor. There's some ability in there, somewhere. Then again, if you saw him play for Miami last season, then you won't foresee such a breakout as being imminent. (Fun Luke Jackson fact: he's only played 724 minutes in his NBA career, and he's about to turn 27. But he did score 30 in a game once, despite only scoring 252 NBA points in his career. Fun fact. The downside of this - take away that one game, and Jackson is a career 33% shooter. Eep.)
- Petteri Koponen isn't going to sign with the Blazers this year, as he has signed with Virtus (not Fortitudo) Bologna instead. The contract is for four years, but has an NBA escape clause after each year. So he'll probably come over when Sergio Rodriguez buggers off. (I like Sergio Rodriguez. I think we all do. But he probably shouldn't have come straight away. Giggidy.)
- Theo Ratliff has re-signed with the Philadelphia 76ers, his former team of a few years ago. Theo will replicate the lynchpin role that Calvin Booth recently vacated, that of the crappy third string centre who'll only play when necessary, and who will block shots and foul with comparable frequency. It's a vital role for any team.
- Some bonus trivia for you here - former Pistons centre Ratko Varda is still alive and bricking, this week signing for Zalgiris in Lithuania (the only Lithuanian team that you've ever heard of.) Also, in even more bonus news, former lottery pick Sharone Wright is also still hanging about the world of professional basketball despite disappearing from these shores about 28 years ago. (And by "these shores", I mean the NBA.) Wright, whose NBA career was emphatically derailed by a serious car accident, has toiled away in the lower leagues of basketball since then, continuing to make a living. Now 35, he finds himself playing for the Eiffel Towers Den Bosch of the Netherlands league, where he's signed through to be an assistant coach for the next four years, and for whom he also still plays a bit. But I have no idea why there's a Dutch team called the Eiffel Towers. It's not like the Netherlands is short of its own cultural landmarks that can be used to flesh out their professional basketball club's names. Although admittedly the "Eiffel Towers" is a bit more romantic than the "Opium Dens". (Note to Dutch people: only joking! Lovely country. Nice people. Great accents. And those mid 90's Ajax teams were so legendary that I once wrote an English essay about them. And Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman once signed my Ajax shirt. Both of those are true stories. Go Ajax. Go the Nedderlandsch. By the way, I've never actually been to the Hetherlands before, and am relying on the word of others for my opinion of the country's natural beauty. It's a bit like what I do with any opinions I have on O.J. Mayo.)
- So, in the last post, I talk about how the Boston Celtics free agents aren't expected back. I wasn't speculating or breaking news, merely regurgitating the news offered up by various Celtics beat writers. What then immediately happens? Eddie House and Tony Allen re-sign. Ter-bloody-riffic. Can't I be allowed to self-own without the assistance of others? I say enough dumb shit of my own to kick my own arse many times over. I don't need the incisive input of others to further drag me down, too. Dammit. The lesson, as ever: screw Danny Ainge.
- Speaking of the Celtics, they were also reported to be in the running for Golden State Warriors free agent forward, Matt Barnes. But Barnes has apparently (and I'm using that word at all times now) committed to sign with the Phoenix Suns for the minimum. How the hell did that happen? How did a decent player go for the minimum, when we're still only in the first month of free agency, a month that has seen inferior and comparable players go for the full mid level exception? How have Matt Barnes and his agent not managed to turn his career resurgence into a single multi-year contract yet? How did Steve Kerr manage to pull off such a good move? And why couldn't the Celtics wade in with at least their bi-annual exception? The lesson, as ever: screw Danny Ainge.
(Note: Rumour has it that the Celtics are pursuing Dallas Mavericks forward Devean George, who isn't expected to re-sign with Dallas for obvious reasons. (Also note: for those unaware of the obvious reasons, here they are: 1) Devean George is a bit crap, and 2) Devean George vetoed the original Jason Kidd deal, which, while rather inconsequential in the end, was definitely a bit embarassing. Double bracket.) George isn't a bad backup plan for the Celtics, despite me just calling him "a bit crap". But I still don't see why you wouldn't offer offer just a teeeeeny bit more for Matt Barnes, luxury tax ramifications be damned. You just won a title, for God's sake. Why such tight purse strings?)
- Josh Childress has balls of steel. Depending on who you believe, it's all but a done deal that Childress is going to sign with Olympiakos in Greece, in what is either the biggest deal ever signed by a European team, or close to it. There are people scattered all around the internet who can write, will write, and who are writiing considerably longer articles about what this move will mean for the long term future of the NBA, and particularly the perils and pitfalls of restricted free agency, something which I personally hope dies a miserable death. (Through a combination of the draft, restricted free agency, and being traded, some NBA players can go their whole careers without ever being able to choose their place of employment. How is that fair, even with the massive salaries that they get?) I, however, can't be bothered. But I will commend Childress for his testicular fortitude - trapped in a situation without any real leverage, he managed to find some, a victory for humanity and oppression everywhere. And for Europe, obviously. (By the way, for those who love to say things like "Childress won't fit in in Europe because he's not a very good shooter".....there's more to European basketball than shooting, you know.)
- Nets forward Bostjan Nachbar has also gone to Europe, signing with Dynamo Moscow (that's in Moscow) for three years. The weird pile-on effect from the Childress move is the subsequent over-analysis of the decision for every player who signs in Europe, such as Nachbar and Carlos Delfino. Suddenly, every European signing is symbolic of the demise of the strength of the dollar, or of a systematic failure of the NBA machine. But caught up in that overexuberance are two key oversights:
1) Nachbar and Delfino both started out in European leagues, so going back there isn't all that alien of a concept.
2) They are average NBA players at best. Average to fringe NBA players have occasionally signed in Europe for a while now. It is a direct by-product of the NBA teams signing and drafting so much European talent for themselves - there are only 450 spots in the NBA for about 600 deemed to be worthwhile players, and so some people are going to lose out.
Things are changing, but Bostjan Nachbar isn't a symptom. But, hey, don't let that stop you from overthinking it if you want.
- Primoz Brezec of the Toronto Raptors also signed in Europe, for Lottomatica Roma of Italy. But no one cares about that.
- In a shock NBA-to-NBA transaction, the Orlando Magic signed and traded Keyon Dooling to the Nets, in exchange for nothing significant at all. This represents the first bit of profitable Creative Financing™ of Magic GM Otis Smith's career, so maybe he's learning. As for the Nets, they now have 18 players under contract, but I'm sure that they can find it within themselves to cut Maurice Ager and Keith Van Horn. It is, however, the final nail in the coffin for my Andres Nocioni trade idea. Damn shame.
- Finally, I can bring you big news of two further European signings. Tamar Slay signed with Avellino in Italy, and Boise State's finest Matt Nelson signed with Mahatman Gandia in Spain's lower leagues. This interested me unil I realised that Boise State's finest Matt Nelson was not THE Matt Nelson. I know you feel that pain.
GregOstertagsHairline.com: the NBA website that answers the question that not a single person cared enough to ask.
The Mavericks have one of the worst young cores in the NBA. With only Devin Harris, Juan Jose Barea and Maurice Ager as the only returning players under the age of 26, and with only one of those playes able to crack any NBA team's rotation, Dallas enjoys (if that's the word) almost nothing in the way of prospects. There's Josh Howard of course, but he's 27 now, and while DeSagana Diop is still only 25, you're an optimist and an idiot if you think there's some skills in there that he's merely kept hidden for 6 years.
(Incidentally, did you know that Mavericks training camp signee Jamal Sampson is only 24 years old, despite being around for what feels like a million years, and that commonly accepted youngster Diduer Ilunga Mbenga is about to turn 27? Me neither. These things are worth noting. That is, they are worth nothing if you're really bitterly pathetic like me. If you are, hooray! We should hang out.)
Dallas tried to add to this somewhat this summer. Without a first round draft pick, they picked Nick Fazekas high in the second, thus once again insuring that they have a tall white forward who takes 85% outside jumpshots and who doesn't move well on defense. It's a recent trend that began with Keith Van Horn, was last year handled marvellously by Austin Croshere, who now passes the mantle onto Fazekas.
Fazekas figures not to play much, though, after the unheralded signing of Brandon Bass seems to have given the Mavericks a backup power forward worth a damn. After two years of bland nothingness with the Hornets, Bass was allowed to leave unchallenged when Dallas picked him up. Since then, despite it only being preseason, Bass has shown signs of being a capable player, and being only 22 he can join (or rather, "be") Dallas young core.
But then, who gives a shit about a young core when you've just won 67 games the season before? To add young talent is nice, but all Dallas really needed to do was to keep the core that they had, maybe add one or two pieces, and try all over again. They did this, adding some perimeter defense in Eddie Jones and Trenton Hassell, while bringing back Devean George and Jerry Stackhouse for some more depth. The Mavericks can boast now one of the NBA's deeper teams, and they still rock the core that resulted in the 5th best record in NBA history last year (it was something like that, at least. I forgot what it was exactly).
They didn't blow it up, and under no circumstances should they have done. Watch as they now decimate the roster in a trade for Kobe.
Next year:
Much has been made of the Mavericks historic capitulation to the Warriors in round one of the playoffs last year, which set all kinds of trends that I can't rememeber. But what a lot of people tend to overlook was the sheer bad luck of it all. If any other team claims that eighth seed, Dallas polishes them off with no problem at all. Yet Golden State offered up by far and away the biggest matchup problem of them all, and it's them who Dallas drew.
The Mavericks did not help themselves by somewhat wilting under pressure, and Avery Johnson by his own admission did not make the correct adjustments.
None of this, however, means that the right way for the Mavericks to go is to start thinking "yes, what we need right now is the sub-30% clutch shooting of Kobe Bryant", or "we can never with win Dirk, let's trade him".
They have a formula, and it's one that works. It worked last year to the tune of 67 wins, and while regular seasons don't account for anything in the playoffs (as Golden State showed), it does serve to prove that this Mavericks team can beat all comers. All, that is, but one.
To solve Golden State (and believe me when I tell you that I realise how stupid it is to imply that a team's season rests on one matchup versus one solitary mediocre opponent), Dallas doesn't need to revamp their roster, but make some adjustments and not get rattled. They didn't, and so they lost. But were that situation to happen again, that's all it takes to avoid that drama again.
Dallas is arguably the best team in the league. The Spurs have the title and claim that crown, but Dallas is up there. They should once again finish with the best regular season record and win the Western Conference.
This year, they just need a better stroke of luck, and a dose of fortitude. If that happens, they may win the title. They're one of very few teams that are good enough.
Sham is a miserable and self-effacing little bastard, whose basketball opinions are often riddled with bias, insecurity, and rank immaturity. He has also never played the sport, and the only game he has ever been to see was a Ware Rebels game back in 2001. The night bus didn't show up and he had to walk the 9 miles home. It was after this that his passion for basketball really took off.
He considers himself to be Britain's foremost NBA expert, an arbitrary title that carries with it no basis in fact, or any worldly significance. He also wrote this section of the website in third person narrative, purely for reasons of arrogance.
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