The miles curse strikes again

this is the most ponderous and interesting topic when it comes to the Mavs, at lest since the late 90’s. When Don Nelson came here, he made a bunch of moves that did not pan out, the Mashburn and Jackson deals netting virtually nothing, really, and in the Nets deal cost them a good player in Cassell. His picks were not too hot, Anstey, etc. Then Donnie came over, and together they turned picks into Nowitzki and Nash, they later draft Howard, and they turned basically nothing into assets like Jamison, and even upon losing Nash for nothing they turned those manufactured assets into Terry and Harris. Then Nellie leaves, they have a decent season, and they do make a nice add in Diop, but as they have success in 2005-2007, they to almost nothing to add assets. At the same time, and this is where things get a little subjective, but I think that it’s pretty clear that Avery gained a lot of leverage with Cuban and used it. Additions tended to be almost exclusively older circle, triangle and square pegs that Avery thought he needed to plug in his perceived circular, triangular and square holes. He was basically allowed to make the first round pick, Ager, the draft after their finals appearance, and, yes, that too followed his pattern, because he needed someone that size to guard “the Dwayne Wade” types.

I think that it’s pretty clear that Donnie took a back seat, and I think that anyone can see Avery’s way of thinking at work if they look at the picture. So did Donnie start sucking? Hasn’t he been pretty darn good here, even while dealing with an owner who wants to be in the middle of personnel calls, until Avery took power? Or was it all Nellie? And if you think that, how do you explain that Nellie didn’t really do anything until Donnie was here, especially considering that both Dirk and Nash were Donnie motivated moves?

The fact that he appears to have been on board with the Kidd trade concerns me quite a bit, but of course Cuban has made it clear that things were in pretty awful shape by that time last year. I’m not sure that Shawne WIlliams (a Carlisle target) or Gerald Green can really play, but he did find Bass last year, and it’s just nice to see them add some guys who could actually be assets and grow the roster, rather than who are one year stop-gap types who can barely walk.