Tuesday's All-Access Pass
 Come To Practice With Miffed Mavs
Mike Fisher -- DallasBasketball.com - Posted: 2004-01-06 00:00:00.000


By Mike Fisher -- DallasBasketball.com
      A familiar face. A foreign place. A road-trip disgrace.
      All part of your All-Access Pass to Tuesday’s Mavs practice at American Airlines Center:
     

  • Jump hook after jump hook after jump hook. Dirk Nowitzki hasn’t used it much in games, but he hasn’t given up on it, either. The jump hook – almost always featuring The UberMan starting in the left block, then sweeping through the lane and shooting right-handed – was a focus of Nowitzki’s after-practice extra practice. Working against assistant Morlon Wiley, Nowitzki put in an additional 40 minutes, capped off by more repetition: coming off an imaginary right-baseline screen and catching and shooting 3-pointers.
         
  • Whatever Dirk is doing is working. In the last dozen games, he’s at almost 22 points and 11 rebounds per.
         
  • The other guys were long gone by the time Dirk got in his extra work. Maybe the media setup forces their hand; reporters aren’t allowed to graze for stories in the locker room, instead waiting along the practice court baseline for whomever comes by and is in the mood to cooperate. Honestly? The mob might just be enough to cause an athlete to pass on hanging around.
         
  • Before the guys shoot their traditional practice-closing free throws, eight Mavs engage in a rather spirited game of four-on-four. It’s Shawn Bradley, Travis Best, Marquis Daniels and Jon Stefansson vs. Morlon Wiley, Tony Delk, newcomer Mamadou N'diaye and. … Tariq Abdul-Wahad!
         
  • Tariq Abdul-Wahad lives!
         
  • We’ll keep sniffing around regarding Tariq’s inactivity, because something fishy is going on here. He looks pretty damn healthy to us. Only a few years ago, when he was healthy, he was a real player. Even now, he’s as good as some of the guys the Mavs have relied on this year. There is something here – personalities, politics, something – that bears further research.
         
  • We feel bad because we didn’t get to Tariq to pose some of these questions to him. One newspaper beat writer did get to Tariq, though; he high-fived him as he passed, an odd and maybe even inappropriate sight to these ink-stained old eyes.
         
  • Well, my eyes aren’t actually ink-stained, but you get the idea.
         
  • Everyone wants to talk to Antawn Jamison about playing against his old club the Warriors on Wednesday. Honestly, I don't crowd into the pack; knowing Jamison, he's unlikely to say anything volatile or controversial. ... and isn't that the point of all of us crowding around him, to get him to say something volatile or controversial?
         
  • At the top of Tony Delk’s reading list: a book called ‘Way Of The Peaceful Warrior.’ It seems like that’s a book he should ship to Nick Van Exel in Golden State, eh?
         
  • Things to like about Mamadou N'diaye, from the foreign place of Senegal: He speaks nice English, and apparently a handful of other languages, too, so he’s no dummy; he is the proud owner of a “hard face,’’ a tough, angular face, kind of like former teammate Dale Davis’ (and we like our shot-blockers to have hard faces); coaches indicated to us that he showed himself Tuesday to be a quick learner.
         
  • Things to NOT like about Mamadou N'diaye: Nellie gave no indication he plans to play him any time soon; if he’s much thicker than Keon Clark, we couldn’t see it; and in that 4-on-4 game against Bradley, he appeared to be the inferior player.
         
  • Nellie looked dapper in a plaid dress shirt and snappy jeans. But the tell-tale sign: hat head. You can’t fool us, Nellie. You’d been playing golf.
         
  • Did we mention that in the last dozen games, Dirk is at almost 22 points and 11 rebounds per? A suggestion, we think, that the ankles are fine.
         
  • The familiar face belongs to Nick Van Exel, the subject of a few Nowitzki quotes that speak volumes. Said Dirk: “It’s going to be great to see him. He was a great friend for two years, and he did a lot for the organization. I wish him luck (Wednesday as Golden state visits Dallas), but hopefully we’ll win. … But we can’t whine about who we don’t have. … I still think we’re a better team and a more athletic team that we were (than before the trade of Van Exel).’’
         
  • Allow us to translate: Van Exel’s talent and leadership are missed. But Walker and Jamison have enough skills to make Dallas better than it was with Nick. So let’s move on and start playing like it.
         
  • If this basketball thing doesn’t work out, Jon Stefansson has the scruffy baby face, the shaggy blond hair and the fit youthfulness to be one of them there Pearl Jam/Oasis/Red Hot Chili Peppers guys.
         
  • An email from a national big-shot colleague who knows his hoops wants to know if there is any “get rid of Nellie’’ vibe. The answer is no, based on our belief that any time Nellie doesn’t have Mark Cuban’s ear, Donnie does. Still, any time a national big-shot colleague wonders about such a thing, our ears perk up.
         
  • Numerous Mavs people described the Monday loss at Utah in epically negative terms. Really, the body language, the facial expressions. … it was like something nasty was stuck to their shoes.
         
  • Here’s hoping they work at getting it removed as diligently as Dirk was working the jump hook and the catch-and-shoot trey.