Donnie On Mavs Trades: 'We Won't Go Down Looking'

DB.com Checks Nelson's Mood With Exclusive Visit With Dallas GM

By Mike Fisher -- DB.com

Donnie Nelson is sitting anxiously in the driver’s seat of his nondescript pickup truck – the one with the collection of John Deere gimme caps on the dashboard -- and his point-tipped right boot is perched above the accelerator. The engine is running and it is more than metaphoric when I say that the Mavs GM/Urban Cowboy is wishing to ride Ol’ Paint off into the sunset … or anywhere else he can escape my probing questions regarding the team’s needs as the NBA trade deadline approaches.

Finally – after many Donnie taps on that gas pedal and many Donnie fistbump-handshakes, both intended as nonverbal punctuation marks to indicate his desire the end this parking-lot Duel In The Sun – I break the code. It is a baseball analogy that aligns the tumblers.

“Last year, the Kidd trade was a swing for the fences,’’ I say, adding, “forgetting the critics, it would’ve been easier to not take that swing. Which brings me to this year: If you take that swing last year, doesn’t it logically follow that you take another swing this year?’’

Donnie is a sportsman and an educated man, a wordsmith who I think likes analogies. So he warms to the question.

“Let me put it this way,’’ Donnie says, and he takes his cowboy boot off the gas pedal. “We will step back into that batter’s box. And we won’t go down looking.’’

That is neither a guarantee of a brilliant trade or a trade at all. I do, however, take that remark and the rest of my conversation with Donnie and other members of the Mavs organization as confirmation that the Triangle of Trust is not gun-shy as a result of last February’s trade of Devin Harris-for-Jason Kidd that hasn’t had the desired top-tier-contender effect.

In this decade during the Cuban/Nelson Era, the Mavs have charged down every possible path in search of a title. Youth. Experience. Manic change. Stability. The moving, re-moving, and moving again of puzzle pieces. (DeSagana Diop’s participation in 2008 “notable transactions’’ may be the only category in which he ever leads the NBA.)

We are at the midway point of the NBA season and the Mavs have no traction. They have a decent record and they have strengths; an MVP-caliber star in Dirk Nowitzki and a Sixth Man of the Year leader in Jason Terry and a Hall-of-Fame point guard in Jason Kidd and, if Josh Howard can round back into form (after a year-and-a-half wait) a Four Horsemen collection of talent. They have pedigree; 8X50 and there is enough about their present pace to suggest they’ll flirt with 50 wins against this season. And they have a not-unenviable position in the Western Conference standings; one hot streak and they can vault into the milk-and-honey top four.

They have strengths and pedigree and positioning. But they do not have traction.

“Well, everything is relative,’’ Donnie tells me. “In the West, nobody is doing what the Lakers are doing. So the rest of the field – and it’s a good field – looks the way it does because the comparisons are made to what LA is.’’

But it’s too early and quite foolish to concede. A playoff berth gives a team a chance and a top-four seed in the West gives a team more than a chance. It gives a team momentum. Traction. A chance to hit a home run.

The full-fledged return of Howard would help. “Josh is a guy we believe in,’’ Donnie recently told the media at-large. “He’s an important weapon who makes us that much more dangerous. …’’

But one more piece via trade would help, too. The so-far results have proven that. The upcoming schedule – visits to Detroit and Boston this week, games against Orlando and Portland and Utah to start February -- will probably prove it, too.

The Mavs have their eye on the ball that is the Summer of 2010, as owner Mark Cuban acknowledged this week.

"If there's just a deal I can't pass up, I'm not going to be religious about cap room," Cuban said. "If I could trade Dirk for Kobe, LeBron and someone else, you'd have to consider it. When teams call about players, they all want bargains. We don't give bargains. We try to get bargains."

In other words, they try to hit home runs.

I think the Mavs will step back into the batter’s box. I think Donnie Nelson will step on his accelerator. I think Dallas will not go down looking.

1215pm jan 20 2009