They lost, they didn’t improve, they get swept in the first round, do nothing to improve. If they roll out the same roster again this year, we probably won’t be a playoff team… which may be for the best, maybe we get lucky in the lottery, maybe Cuban finally figures out Donnie Nelson is incompetent.

The decision to resign Terry to such a large deal (for his talent level) was a poor one. If that ultimately falls on Cuban, so be it.

Minor point, but in ‘06, I desperately wanted them to draft Craig Smith instead of a useless player like Ager.

Similarly, in ‘04, we could have easily had Kevin Martin instead of Podkolzine—a player believed almost universally to be useless.

The Kidd trade will have to be vindicated this year, one way or the other. As of now, the failure of the team simply cannot allow it to be called successful. I wasn’t very concerned about the draft picks, but one guy I would really like to see here, Batum, slipped a bit, and we could have had him with our 1st this year. If he becomes what I think he will, that’ll sting.

You could look at the accumulated missteps, and easily -and arbitrarily- assign blame. I understand that sentiment. The truth, though -as it seems to me, anyway- is that in basketball, sometimes you just run out of time.

Teams have windows, and somtimes yours closes before you can take full advantage. It happens quite frequently. I’m not convinced that a smarter man would have Kobe or Lebron playing next to Dirk right now. There wasn’t feasibly much more that could be done.

Admittedly, the agony of the present situation is increased because of how close this team came to a title, but shouldn’t that tell you something? This team DID come that close. I don’t think the ultimate failure should mitigate the relative gains made under Cuban, Nelson, and Johnson.

If we have to suffer for another 5 years, then that is the price of not winning when it was within reach. Nobody can be blamed for that except the collection of men on the floor.

saying they won’t sell out this year?

they were just in the 007 club mingling with the rest of the shiny shirt crowd

That’s what’s happened every place the elder Nelson has left. Milwaukee? They fell apart. Golden State? They fell apart. The Knicks? They went to a championship 3 years later, but otherwise have been mediocre at best for the last 12 years. All three of those have in common that they lost creativity in acquiring players, like you say the Mavs have done, and ultimately paid the price. But yet the Mavs have stayed afloat and Donnie has done a fine, although not quite finished, job so far…

Not that I disagree, but I want to hear a good argument.

How will this team perform differently under him?