It's hard to believe in hindsight how much of a mistake Cuban made when he was unwilling to spend $60 mil on Nash this offseason but was willing to spend $73 mil on Dampier instead.

you can't blame him too much, it was just one bad deal out of an entire summer full of them. TO his credit, Dampier has been having some good games lately.
The dallas team this year has looked just as good as previous years, so that's a positive too. Can't say anything bad about Nash obviously, but who knows? There's always a limit to good things, and maybe it was time to rebuild around a different core. In just a few years, nash won't look nearly as good or brilliant if he begins to get injured more frequently and wears down faster as he already is.

Posted by Bonn1997:

Mark's definitely made plenty of good moves in addition to some poor ones. I don't want to make it sound like he's awful. But I still can't understand him being willing to spend $73 mil on Dampier (who's at least as much of a long-term risk as Nash) but not $60 mil on Nash.

because they drafted Devin Harris who they believed would be the future PG for them...that's why they chose to go w/Dampier & shore up their frontcourt...once they took Harris w/the pick, the other moves would seem logical follow ups...they also acquired Jason Terry & Darrell Armstrong as well...i can't kill Cuban for making those moves if his scouts told him that Harris would be their future PG.

well, nash is a 6'3 PG. dampier is a 6'11 C. the mavs haven't had a real starting center for years, they let nash go and pull up two other points with some real skills. a lot of GMs would do that. the money is staggering, though.

Interestingly enough the Mavs have a better recod right now than they did at this point of the season last year.

Well first of all Steve Nash did not really change all that much. He just has a different style of players around him. It's not like Steve Nash of this year is really any better than the Steve Nash of last year, or the Steve Nash of the past 5 years. He's just on the Suns, where it's a perfect fit for a pass-first, distributing point guard who has a nice little shot to compliment his passing. It was a good point about their drafting Harris, but also don't forget about Jason Terry. He's not just someone filling in at the point.. he's a very good point guard. I think he's a lot better than people give him credit for, since the league is stacked with high quality point guards.

Basically, even though Dampier is really under-achieving, I still think the Mavericks are better off than they would be with the alternative. As good as Nash is performing this year, I think Dampier's added value to the Mavericks this year is higher than the added value of Nash instead of Terry. I'm sure no one is going to agree with this, but I really just don't think Nash would be such a big improvement over Terry on the Mavericks. I'm not saying he isn't better, but he would not be close to the player he is on the Suns.

This was a little easy for cuban, with nash they were not winning a championship, plain and simple, why do you think the year nick van exel was there he was the man running the show in the playoffs instead of nash, steve is a good fit for the suns, but if they meet the mavs in the playoffs, the mavs would win,they have enough size, size that can actually play some ball, although I am not a dampier fan, having dampier was meant more so for the playoffs than getting more regular season wins...

Posted by Marv:

tkf i'm with you on this. I wouldn't judge this move at all until after the playoffs.

I don't need to wait for the playoffs to know that I'd rather spend $60 mil on an MVP candidate than $73 mil on a decent role player

Posted by Bonn1997:

Posted by Marv:

tkf i'm with you on this. I wouldn't judge this move at all until after the playoffs.

I don't need to wait for the playoffs to know that I'd rather spend $60 mil on an MVP candidate than $73 mil on a decent role player

i thought cap figures meant nothing to you as long as the team was winning? Dallas is doing fine w/the team they put together for this season.

I don't see what the argument is. Dallas was putting out 6'7" and 6'8" centers all last year and couldn't beat any team with a real center because of it. Antoine Walker and Danny Fortson were playing center for them last year!

I absolutely think they should've resigned Nash, but if it was between Nash and Dampier, I can't fault them either. Devin Harris was a great pickup with the #5 pick. Dampier is a top 5-7 center. He's not putting up as much numbers because EVERYONE who goes to Dallas has their numbers, minutes and role dropped, so, of course, their numbers go down a little. Point is that Dampier is the first legit center they've had in a while and it's really paying off.

The trade you should be knocking them for is how they gave up Fortson for Booth. Fortson's been real good for Seattle.

Posted by Solace:

I don't see what the argument is. Dallas was putting out 6'7" and 6'8" centers all last year and couldn't beat any team with a real center because of it. Antoine Walker and Danny Fortson were playing center for them last year!

I absolutely think they should've resigned Nash, but if it was between Nash and Dampier, I can't fault them either. Devin Harris was a great pickup with the #5 pick. Dampier is a top 5-7 center. He's not putting up as much numbers because EVERYONE who goes to Dallas has their numbers, minutes and role dropped, so, of course, their numbers go down a little. Point is that Dampier is the first legit center they've had in a while and it's really paying off.

The trade you should be knocking them for is how they gave up Fortson for Booth. Fortson's been real good for Seattle.

How about re-signing Nash and drafting Al Jefferson instead of getting Dampier? Jefferson's probably about as good as Dampier already right now (he just gets far fewer minutes) and then you get to keep Nash.

[Edited by - Bonn1997 on 02/17/2005 07:56:05]