Josh Gets 'The Boot'

A home-game, gameday, pre-game regular feature, scrabbled together after visiting with coach Rick Carlisle, with a Mav or five in the locker room and with assorted other Mavs-associated sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore me – and then topping it off with a Gerald Green Honorarium Arena Hot Dog.

   The very latest -- filed by DB.com from just outside Mavs locker room at the AAC -- on the suddenly-serious injury status of J-Ho. … along with a slap on the wrist to Howard haters and nonsensical conspiracy theorists:

  We’ll do this in our old radio style, with three … that’s right, three … things:

   Thing No. 1: (Ding!) Josh Howard’s ankle is apparently not responding well to treatment, so doctors have ordered him to “shut it down’’ indefinitely and have fitted him with a protective walking boot.

   Howard has in recent days tested the ankle by participating in shootarounds, and he even did so Tuesday morning. But the injury will preclude him from participating in tonight’s Spurs-at-Mavs showdown and for the foreseeable future because, coach Rick Carlisle says, there continues to be “pain and swelling.’’

    Dallas will have played 20 games with Josh missing 11 of those.  

   Thing No. 2: (Ding!) The notion that Dallas is somehow “better’’ without Josh Howard might be born of dislike of his bad-behavior summer. But it is a notion devoid of any basketball logic. The Mavs are 11-8, with nine wins in the last 10 games, and much of that success has come without the benefit of Howard.    But he’s a 20-points/8-rebounds guy, he plays defense and he plays hard, he is liked by his mates and early in the season he was demonstrating a knack for being able to run on the wing alongside Jason Kidd.

   There will be an adjustment period when he returns, maybe. But you are not “better’’ without 20 points and rebounds. That is so apparent that we feel a bit foolish even having to point it out.

   Thing No. 3: (Ding!)  Speaking of feeling foolish. …

   We won’t name the media outlets who have embarrassed themselves by suggesting the following; we’ll just dismiss the speculation and leave it at that.

   Anybody who writes that Josh is sitting these games out because “there’s a trade brewing and the Mavs are saving him as they await the finalization of a deal’’ should have his credential revoked. Howard has been unavailable since Nov. 18; there are really media members out there who think a professional sports franchise orders an All-Star player to remain in street clothes FOR THREE WEEKS in anticipation of a trade?

   That circumstance does occur when a trade is pending. The player sits out on a Friday night and gets traded on a Saturday morning.

   But a “pending’’ trade that “pends’’ for three weeks? Or, if we're talking about a Dec. 15 deal (as some have speculated), a 27-day fake injury?

   No team attempting to succeed would do that. No player with any pride would agree to it. It is literally unprecedented. We're not saying J-Ho might not someday be traded, just that he's not being stored in a 27-day cooler in anticipation of a deal.

   Josh Howard is out. Josh Howard is out because he’s hurt. (No surgery needed, no structural damage, but still hurt.) Josh Howard will return when he’s no longer hurt. And barring a non-conspiratorial trade that comes to fruition at some future point in his career, Josh Howard will make the Mavs better when he does.

638pm dec 9 2008