Category: Dallas Mavericks Blog

Mavs did not want to rush Amare Stoudemire into action

Health has been an issue with Amar’e Stoudemire. His new team, the Dallas Mavericks, are fully aware of this, and saw no reason to rush him out onto the court. But he should made his debut soon, possibly as early as tomorrow. Here’s the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporting:

Rick Carlisle wanted to clear up some things in regard to Amar’e Stoudemire and the reason he has yet to play in a game for the Dallas Mavericks.

“He’s not unhealthy,’’ the Mavericks coach said Friday. “We’re making sure that he’s ready to play for the Mavericks is what we’re doing.’’

The Mavs signed Stoudemire to a free-agent contract on Wednesday for the rest of the season at the prorated salary of $485,670.

He sat out Thursday’s game against Oklahoma City and Friday’s game against Houston. The 6-foot-10 center/forward appears likely to play his first game with the Mavs on Sunday against Charlotte.

Here’s the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporting on Mavs point guard Rajon Rondo and his probable soon-to-be teammate Amar’e Stouemire, who was waived by the Knicks. Once Stoudemire clears waivers he will reportedly sign with Dallas:

Point guard Rajon Rondo did say he and Stoudemire have a close connection which will finally be realized whenever Stoudemire puts his signature on the Mavs’ contract.

“Stoudemire and I have always talked throughout the years of playing against each other,’’ Rondo said. “We wanted to become teammates, and hopefully it will come true soon.

“But him as a player, I think he’s still a dominant big in our game. He’s very powerful, he can finish at the rim.’’

Rondo also thinks Stoudemire will be extremely motivated after he left a New York Knick team that’s the worst in the NBA at 10-43, to join a Mavs team that’s 36-19 and seeded fifth in the Western Conference.

The Dallas Mavericks are 36-19, which is the 7th best record in the NBA this season. But they’re just 4-6 in their division, and a modest 18-14 against other Western conference teams. In other words, the Eastern conference has provided a nice assist to their win-loss record. Here’s the Dallas Morning News reporting:

Key numbers for the Mavericks at the All-Star break include 3-12, their record against the other seven playoff teams in the Western Conference.

For those who don’t think that’s important because the Mavericks went 3-10 after Jan. 1 in 2011 against the other West playoff teams, then marched through the postseason to the NBA title, remember that lightning has a difficult time striking twice in the same place.

So as the Mavericks look at their state of the union, they know the reality of their situation. They can’t assume that things will change against the best teams in the West when the stakes rise.

They need to prove it.

“You’d probably take it, but we’re not happy with it, which I think is a good sign,” Chandler Parsons said of the Mavericks’ 36-19 record at the break. “We’re not content with where we are right now. We want to be better. We want to be a top-tier team, and to do that, we have to start beating these elite teams.”

Here’s the Dallas Morning News quoting a Mark Cuban interview from KRLD-FM 105.3:

What’s your reaction to the Charles Barkley analytics debate?

Mark Cuban: He’s half right; the Mavs have been using analytics since the day I bought the team. The fun story behind that is I took graduate level statistics at Indiana University, and after I graduated, never thought about it again, and then after I had bought the team, I’m watching Jeopardy and who should be on but my old stats prof. And then a month later, we’re in Indiana playing against the Pacers, and who should be in the stands screaming “Hi” to me, my stats prof, Wayne Winston. I met with him and pretty much hired him then. We started using advanced plus/minus to help us, and it started to help us quite a bit…it eventually helped us come back from a 2-0 deficit in the playoffs against Houston, based on what the numbers said. Putting JJ (Barea) in the mix in the championship run had a lot to do with analytics. What happens is when a couple teams are using it, you have an advantage, but now that everyone is using it, that advantage is pretty much gone, and that’s where analytics has gotten to now.

Mavs sign Bernard James to 10-day contract

The Dallas Mavericks announced today that they have signed center Bernard James to a 10-day contract.

James (6-10, 235) was originally drafted by the Mavericks with the 33rd overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft. He averaged 2.1 points, 2.3 rebounds, 0.6 blocks and 7.9 minutes in 76 career games (11 starts) with Dallas.

The Savannah, Ga., native spent training camp with the Mavericks this preseason when he averaged 2.6 points and 4.2 rebounds in 5 games. He most recently played in China for the Shanghai Sharks.

James will wear number 55.

Al-Farouq Aminu playing well for Mavs

The 33-17 Dallas Mavericks are enjoying some solid production from Al-Farouq Aminu these days. Here’s ESPN Dallas reporting:

Al-Farouq Aminu is doing everything he can to earn an exemption from the fickle nature of Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle’s bench rotation.

As Aminu stuffs the box score and provides highlight reel material, it’s almost hard to believe he picked up six DNP-CDs and had a couple other one-minute outings in a recent span of a month and a half. At this point, Aminu is arguably the Mavs’ most indispensable reserve.

His seven-point, five-rebound, two-steal, two-block, two-assist performance in Monday’s 100-94 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves epitomized the Aminu experience of late. He packed all kinds of energy and a few of the night’s most spectacular moments — a fast-break finish of an alley-oop from Raymond Felton, a chasedown swat of Andrew Wiggins and a two-handed slam over Gorgui Dieng — into his 21 minutes.