1. There is a ridiculous argument being made by those who oppose this trade that Jason Kidd's numbers are down this year. Seriously? The man is almost averaging a triple double! In the history of this league, only one player (The Big O, Oscar Robertson) has averaged a triple double over the course of a season. As far as I know, no other player has come even close to this feat in the 45 years since Oscar did it. How can ANYONE, especially supposed basketball experts who make their living off the sport, say his numbers have gone down? If this was baseball we'd be asking Kidd to piss in a cup right now. No player has his stats go up like that in his mid 30's. Sure, his field goal percentage is down and his turnovers are slightly up. But Kidd has never been a shooter and will not asked to be one here. And as far as turnovers go, take a look a the NBA's turnover leader board here: Turnover Leader Board Almost all of the players high on that list are either point guards or else their team's main distributor. Point guards turn the ball over more because they have it in their hands more. His TO/gm average is slightly higher than his career average while his assists are up. The real thing to look at here is his assist to turnover ratio which is still one of the best in the NBA.
2. Marc Stein wrote a column today proclaiming his exubberance for the Kidd trade and why he felt the Mavs did themselves a major favor. Here's the link:
Daily Dime
For those of you unfamiliar with Stein, he used to be the Mavs beat writer for the Dallas Morning News before ESPN snatched him away. He is, without question, the best NBA writer that the so called "leader in sports" has up in Bristol. Even more so is his knowledge of the Mavs because he still lives here part time and follows the team much more than the average national guy. When some of the knuckleheads at ESPN like John Hollinger say this deal is a bad one for the Mavs, bear in mind that they don't watch every Mavs game and probably only catch the occasional nationally televised game. They see a roster made up of guys that won 67 games last year, not the team that has looked terrible for the majority of the season.
3. Speaking of idiot so called experts who don't know a BLEEPING thing, Peter Vescey reported today in the New York Post that Avery Johnson pressued the Mavs management to trade Dirk Nowitzki this off season. There are so very many things I could say about this story but most of them involve words that wouldn't make it on network TV or radio so I'll be brief. There are only two things that anyone really needs to know about this story and they are a.) Peter Vescey and b.) New York Post. The Post is BARELY one step above Star Magazine and the other tabloid crap you'll find in the grocery store. And Peter Vescey is the poster boy for the Post. He is a PROVEN plagerer and liar. Put aside the fact that he hates Cuban because Cuban publicly and embarrassingly called him out for a bald faced lie he wrote in a story a few years back. That's beside the point.
Vescey, who has pretty much been kicked out of every media group he used to be a part of, is the type of guy who rolls out of bed after drinking too many appletinis, realizes he hasn't written a column for the next day, thinks to himself through a drunken haze "wouldn't it be a great story if..." and then proceeds to write a factual column based soley on his internal hypothetical and site "anonymous sources." He's a sham, a fake, a phoney, a dirty, lying son of a gun with absolutely no ethics or morals. How this guy still has anything to do with the NBA is beyond me. Pay no attention to the idiot behind the curtain.
4. Finally, I want to piggy back a point concerning the Kidd trade that I heard earlier today that I hadn't thought of. While I raved about the mental toughness and smarts he brings to the team, I neglected to mention one thing that might be almost as important: He wasn't around for the two biggest chokes in NBA history and that's an intangible that cannot be over looked. When the Mavs roll into Oakland to play the Warriors in a couple of weeks, whether they want to be or not, a lot of the guys on this team will be intimidated or at least under a great deal of pressure to put up a big game. Kidd won't. Kidd will look across the floor at the Warriors and see them for what they are, a decent team that, should the playoffs start today would be on the outside looking in, who the Mavs are better than. And that's it, and that's important. To have a real leader who hasn't endured the mental beatings the Mavs have taken in the last couple of years, is huge.
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