Monday Mavs Donuts: Avoiding A Trade Strikeout

    Monday Morning Mavs Donuts ... Was Dirk participating in Dallas' offensive effort or was he "drifting''? ... Down goes Chris Paul. ... Ranking Andre Miller's 52 ... How the Mavs can avoid a deadline-month trade "strikeout'' ... Avery Johnson NOT on a list of coaching prospects -- and the Devinish reason why ... Oh, and there's a game tonight, against a Utah team that is hot, good and traditionally tough on visiting Mavericks. ...

    DONUT 1: Recently we reflected on the latest chapter in “Mavs Looking Hard At Trade Options’’ by explaining the Mavs’ dilemma: Do they refrain from swinging for an extra-base hit now in anticipation of hitting a grand slam in the summer?

     But I neglected to provide my answer to what I’d do.

    To stick with the baseball analogies:

     If you wait for the perfect pitch, you might pass on three good pitches and next thing you know you strikeout.

    DONUT 2: From one of the NY rags:

   The Nets have worked up a short list of coaching candidates and Jeff Van Gundy has made it, which comes as no surprise. Team president Rod Thorn has long admired the ex-Knick coach, who likes his TV gig very much. There's speculation that Mark Jackson, Van Gundy's TV partner who was convinced he was going to get the Knicks job until it went to Mike D'Antoni, is also on the list. As long as Devin Harris is a Net, Avery Johnson isn't making any list - short, long or in-between.

    Hey, wait, though ... I thought The Lil' Johnson was always telling everybody that he's "like a father'' to Devin?

    DONUT 3: Historical perspective on Andre Miller’s 52 points (if not on Dallas’ history-making inability to come up with a solution): The list of players with 50-plus points vs. the Mavs, all-time: Kobe, Kobe, Duncan, Bird, Bernard King, Dantley and. … Andre Miller.

    DONUT 4: OK, another Mavs swap thought: Why does anyone think Josh needs to be retained to make a Summer of 2010 sign-and-trade happen?

    Let’s say you deal J-Ho now. For Mike Miller or Caron Butler or Kevin Martin or Iggy or Mario Chalmers or Kirk Hinrich or Jose Calderon or whomever. Then, next summer comes, and while you no longer have Josh to dangle in tandem with The DUST Chip, guess what you do have?

    Mike Miller or Caron Butler or Kevin Martin or Iggy or Chalmers or Hinrich or Calderon or whomever.

   Looking at it this way, trading Josh Howard NOW makes you better NOW and LATER.

    And let me repeat – because I know some people will misread all this as a Josh Bash and they will cite his fine 17-point effort in Saturday’s 114-112 OT loss to Portland and say, “Leave J-Ho Alone!’’ – among the reasons the Mavs will spend the next two weeks closely analyzing Howard’s trade value is because he has some trade value.

    Barea will be evaluated the same way. So will Gooden. Their talents AND their contracts will cause their inclusion in discussions. Very real discussions.

    DONUT 5: There’s a game, tonight, you know. A late-night chance to right the ship. It’s in Utah (not easy) and it’s against a Jazz team that is expected to be without Carlos Boozer and maybe without Kirilenko. (Easier! Unless you take into consideration what just happened with a Brandon Roy-free Portland team.)

    It's an 8 p.m. tip against a Utah team that is hot (five straight wins), good (28-18) and winners of four straight home meetings with a Dallas team that has lost two consecutive games.

    DONUT 6: Let’s clear this up: In the final six minutes of the loss at Phoenix, when Dirk didn’t touch the ball, it wasn’t because Nowitzki “drifted around the perimeter’’ or whatever. Watch it again: Dirk is setting up to participate in the Dallas as he always does: On virtually every play in that six-minute span (condensed to two minutes in this video, and thanks to TrueHoop for it), Dirk is either fighting for position down low, or, more frequently, setting a screen up top in order to trigger a pick-and-roll/pop that is supposed to result in him getting the ball.

    That’s not “drifting.’’ That’s Dallas’ offense.

    And it works.

    If you give him the ball.

    (P.S.: Except Saturday against the Blazers, when the Mavs ran the same stuff, got Dirk five shots in the last five minutes of the game, and he made just one. But still. ...)

   DONUT 7: Salon has a possible explanation for what it politely terms Haiti hater Paul Shirley’s “weird racial energy.’’

   DONUT 8: Chris Paul is hurt and might miss a month or two. Ouch.

   DONUT 9: Lots of praise here for the Mavs from an NBA scout, who says Dallas is a really fine West team. … relative to the Lakers being much more fine than everyone else, of course.

   DONUT 10: You can follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/fishsports. It's good -- and good for you.

   DONUT 11: You take former Rangers catcher Gerald Laird, his Yankees prospect brother, and NBA’er Eddie House’s wife – and her claim that the Laird’s grandpa touched her inappropriately -- and what do you get?

   Maybe a new NBC sitcom?

    DONUT 12: Nobody puts Baby in a corner. And nobody puts TCU student Amon Carter IV’s butt cheek under a branding iron. 

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711am feb 1 31 2010