Are things not hunky-dory in Dallas?

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As with the Celtics, it's too early to draw any definitive conclusions, but
does any of this sound familiar? I found this column VERRRY interesting. -
Mark

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/basketball/7149360.htm
<http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/basketball/7149360.htm> 


New Mavs arouse yearn for yesteryear
Randy Galloway commentary
The Mavericks? Disorganized, confused, painful to watch, and the worst sin
of all for a Big Nellie team -- boring.
What are we seeing this week?
Is this simply the price of future progress? Or the work of a mad basketball
scientist who misread his test tubes?
Very early overreaction:
Undo everything.
Bring back Nicky. And even Raef. Re-sign Raja and Adrian.
Bring back the emphasis on the Big Three.
The Big Three made the Mavericks a big deal. Made the Mavs the most
entertaining team in the world. Made the Mavs a winner. Made the Mavs a
happy brotherhood, and a beautiful offensive machine.
Hasn't Michael Finley, leader of the Big Three, earned the right to shoot
himself out of a slump? How long does the happy brotherhood last if Finley
is getting eight shots a game, and a newcomer from a bad Boston team is
jacking at will? Even if Antoine Walker is hitting, which he has been, how
does this make the Mavs better in the long run?
Scoring wasn't exactly the problem.
But the trade parade of August created a new problem.
And the trade parade didn't solve the old problem. And it won't solve the
old problem. Not now, and certainly not in May, when the playoff mentality
of pack 'em in, half-court hell, always takes over.
Defense? Rebounding?
They used to be the old problems. Return us, please, to the days when those
were the only problems.
OK...
That's a wrap on that rant. I feel better already.
What's done is done.
Now, what does Nellie do about all this?
The Mavericks' home opener is Saturday against Utah. Next week, Miami,
Washington and Toronto come up real quick.
This is a fortunate stretch of schedule that possibly allows the Mavs to
sort things out, and also get a win streak going.
No disrespect intended, but consider these upcoming opponents as
"scrimmages."
The Mavericks need scrimmages.
As Don Nelson has pointed out, and as his floor leader, Steve Nash,
confirmed again Thursday, training camp is still going on.
Nash admits to "feeling rusty." The Mavs, as a team, look very rusty. The
best rust-remover is about two hours a day of five-on-five practice-floor
monotony.
But Walker and guard Tony Delk have been around less than two weeks. Antawn
Jamison and Danny Fortson, plus guard Travis Best, are also newcomers.
The Mavericks have little time to scrimmage. Instead, they do walk-throughs.
It's teaching, not practicing.
'We started all over," Dirk Nowitzki said. "We spend a lot of time [in
practice] standing around, because everything has to be explained to our new
guys.'
That's one way to legitimately excuse away the standing-around embarrassment
of the opening-night road performance against the Lakers.
The Lakers, of course, have newcomers. Why did they look so good in that
opener? Shaq, for one thing. And they were playing the Mavericks for another
thing. They were playing a team not even close to being ready to begin a
season.
Even with an eventual win against the Warriors, the Wednesday-night
follow-up was much worse than what happened in LA. Considering the class of
the competition, the Mavs went from embarrassing to disgraceful.
Still, it was a W. And it was a scrimmage. Maybe they can milk more of both
over the next four games. If you snooze, you lose. Lose valuable ground in
the Western Conference.
If it's any consolation, the San Antonio Spurs have also looked awful this
week. That's a key foe, obviously, in the West. Another might be the
Timberwolves, another rebuilt club also panned for its play, albeit a W, in
the opener Wednesday night.
But the Mavericks have changed more than players.
The personality of the club suddenly appears different, and that's a spooky
unknown factor.
It seems Antoine Walker is quickly assuming a leadership role, or at least
attempting it. He's a shot monger, that's for sure. The Mavs have never had
a problem with the often touchy issue of shot distribution. But now? Stay
tuned.
Walker is also a chatty fellow. One reason the Celtics wanted him gone was
his chatty personality. Management didn't want him as a dominant
personality. But after two games, he's talking a lot on the floor. Again,
how does that eventually go over, particularly with the Big Three?
As the departed Nick Van Exel said about his former teammates before
Wednesday's game in Oakland, "Everybody over there is so nice. There's not a
mean-hearted person in that locker room."
At the moment, however, there's a lot of confused people in the Mavs' locker
room.
The good ol' days (last season) never seemed so good.