Dallas Mavericks Blog – Page 52 – NBA Blog

Mavs get their man in Shane Larkin

To hear the Dallas Mavericks say it, Shane Larkin is real close to being the second coming of JJ Barea.

Following a whirlwind day Thursday during the NBA Draft, the Mavs pat themselves on the back after they wound up with Miami Hurricanes point guard Shane Larkin. The same Larkin whose father, Barry, is in the Pro Baseball Hall of Fame.

The same Larkin who averaged 14.5 points and 4.6 assists while collecting ACC Player of the Year honors this past season. Larkin also was the ACC Tournament Most Valuable Player and a second-team All-American while leading the Hurricanes to the NCAA Sweet 16 and staking his claim as being one of the country’s best point guards.

“One of the things that’s really unique about him is from an analytic standpoint he’s one of the best guys we’ve seen coming out of college shooting off the dribble,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “And he can also get to places and get other guys involved, so I just think he’s good and he’s going to get better.”

Reported by Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Blog)

Dirk Nowitzki reaches out to Dwight Howard

Houston’s James Harden and Chandler Parsons aren’t the only Texas residents in the NBA who have gotten a head start on recruiting Dwight Howard.

Dirk Nowitzki has also been in touch with Howard, although the Dallas Mavericks star indicated that he hasn’t been too aggressive with his recruiting efforts.

“I reached out to him and told him we’d love to have him,” Nowitzki said Thursday night. “That’s really about it. It’s not like we call each other every day.”

Grinning, Nowitzki added, “I haven’t written him a letter. We’ve just had a little phone contact, and that’s about it.”

Reported by Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas

Mark Cuban funding research on flopping

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is funding research into the practice of flopping.

Cuban is paying Southern Methodist University $100,000 to conduct an 18-month study to investigate whether or not video or other motion capture techniques can differentiate flops from genuine player collisions.

“The research findings could conceivably contribute to video reviews of flopping and the subsequent assignment of fines,” SMU biomechanics expert Peter G. Weyand said in a statement.

Cuban wrote on Twitter: “Is it a flop? Let the scientists figure it out . im paying for the research to find out.”

Meanwhile, NBA commissioner David Stern has requested the league to expand its anti-flopping rules.

Reported by the Sports Xchange

Jason Kidd retires from basketball

One of the greatest, most fun-to-watch point guards in this era of professional basketball is saying goodbye and moving on to greener pastures.

New York Knicks Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations and General Manager Glen Grunwald announced today that 10-time NBA All-Star guard Jason Kidd has retired from playing professional basketball.

“Jason’s value to the Knicks and the National Basketball Association cannot be quantified by statistics alone,” Grunwald said. “Everyone here in New York saw firsthand what a tremendous competitor he is and why Jason is considered to be one of the best point guards, and leaders, the game has ever seen.”

“My time in professional basketball has been an incredible journey, but one that must come to an end after 19 years,” Kidd said. “As I reflect on my time with the four teams I represented in the NBA, I look back fondly at every season and thank each every one of my teammates and coaches that joined me on the court.”

“Veteran leadership on and off the court was a huge factor for our team that recorded 54 victories and an Atlantic Division crown,” Head Coach Mike Woodson said. “Jason provided an incredible voice inside our lockerroom and I considered it an honor to say I coached him.”

Kidd, 6-4, 220-pounds, holds averages of 12.6 points, 8.7 assists. 6.3 rebounds and 1.93 steals with Dallas, Phoenix, New Jersey and New York. These Springfield-caliber career numbers have solidified his place among the greatest of the great in NBA history. On the League’s all-time leaders lists he ranks: second in season-appearances (19), sixth in games played (1,391), third in minutes (50,111), second in assists (12,091), second in steals (2,684), third in three-point field goals (1,988), 50th overall in rebounds and first overall amongst guards (8,725), 71st in points scored (17,529) and third in triple-doubles (107).

He appeared in 158 postseason games, averaging 12.9 points, 7.8 assists, 6.7 rebounds and 1.91 steals and led the Dallas Mavericks, along with current Knicks All-Star center Tyson Chandler, to the 2011 NBA Championship. He also is a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist, leading Team USA in 2000 at Sydney and in 2008 in Beijing. As a member of the New Jersey Nets, Kidd appeared in back-to-back NBA Finals in 2002 and 2003.

Kidd is a 10-time NBA All-Star (1996, 1998, 2000-04, 2007-08, 2010), a five-time All-NBA First-Team selection (1999-02, 2004) and earned All-NBA Second Team honors in 2003. He was named to the NBA’s All-Defensive First Team four times (1999, 2001, 2002, 2006) and Second Team five times (2000, 2003-05, 2007) and was the 1995 Co-Rookie of the Year. On Apr. 30, Kidd became the first-ever back-to-back recipient of the Joe Dumars Trophy presented to the 2012-13 NBA Sportsmanship Award winner, an honor voted-on by all current players.

In his first and only season with the Knicks, Kidd provided trademark backcourt leadership and stability both as a starter and off the bench. Recording averages of 6.0 points, 3.3 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.64 steals in 76 games, the San Francisco, CA native became just the third Knicks player to celebrate his 40th birthday in the orange and blue (joining Kurt Thomas and Herb Williams).

Read NBA fan reaction and share your opinion in this basketball forum topic.

InsideHoops.com editor Jeff Lenchiner says: The immediate guess is that J-Kidd, assuming he still wants to earn a paycheck going forward, may dive into coaching. I won’t be surprised if he’s an assistant coach somewhere next season.

Mark Cuban has two-year plan for Mavericks

Mark Cuban’s goal is to make the Dallas Mavericks a championship team again within a two-year window.

After Dallas missed the playoffs for the first time in 12 years, the owner vowed the Mavs would have a “quick rebuild.” The pending pitch to free agents this summer — including Chris Paul and Dwight Howard — is that the franchise can take a significant step forward next season and then have the salary-cap space available again in 2014 to make more major upgrades.

“We want to be a championship team. We’ve never said we have to be a championship team this year,” Cuban said Saturday on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM during his first interview since the Mavs’ season ended. “We want to be a better team, a top-seed team. If we get the top free agent, that doesn’t leave us a whole lot of flexibility to add a lot of players, but we have a good nucleus around them. We know we’ll have a good team, but we won’t know if we have a great team.

“If you look at this like a two-year plan, then we think we’re on a track to have a great team by the end of next year.”

Reported by Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas

Mavericks prepare for draft lottery

The Mavericks’ next order of business is to get ready for the draft lottery and president Donnie Nelson, who will represent the team in New York for the lottery along with longtime assistant GM Keith Grant, has a plan for the lottery.

“I’m going to wear the same outfit I wore for Game 6 in Miami,” he said, referring to the night that the Mavericks won the title against the Heat in 2011. “Same boots. Same shirt. Same cologne. Everything.”

— Reported by Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News

Major changes likely coming for Dallas Mavs

Eight or nine players from the Mavs’ final roster will be free agents, depending on whether O.J. Mayo exercises his option to return for a $4.2 million salary or tests the market for the second straight summer. Almost to a man, they say they’d like to be back in Dallas, but that’s not the way the business works.

The Mavs, depending on Mayo’s decision and the salary cap figure the NBA sets, will have somewhere between $13 million and $18.7 million in spending money this summer — unless they create more space with salary-dump deals. They need significant upgrades to have a serious chance of competing at the level they had become accustomed to over the previous dozen seasons.

“I’ve been saying it all season long: It’s a big summer for us,” said Dirk Nowitzki, who is the only player guaranteed to return to Dallas next season. “We’ll see what Mark and Donnie can come up with. They’re always geniuses at making stuff happen. We need a big summer, obviously, to compete again for the championship and not for the eighth seed.”

— Reported by Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas

Mavs coach Rick Carlisle rips O.J. Mayo

Rick Carlisle bolted a couple of steps onto the court, right in the path of O.J. Mayo dribbling up the sideline, to frantically call a timeout midway through the fourth quarter.

After the referee blew the whistle, Carlisle shot a disgusted stare toward Mayo. The Dallas Mavericks coach appeared to resist the urge to rip the ball away from his 25-year-old shooting guard, who had two sloppy turnovers and a weak foul on a made layup in the minute and a half before that uncomfortable moment.

“I called that timeout just to get you out of the game!” Carlisle screamed at Mayo in the huddle, according to one player.

Just in case Mayo didn’t get the message, Carlisle made his criticism loud and clear during his postgame news conference after the Mavs’ 103-97 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. Mayo had a miserable performance against his former team, scoring only two points on 1-of-6 shooting and committing four turnovers before watching crunch time from the pine.

“I just want to see him show up,” said Carlisle, who was as harsh publicly with a player as he’s been since calling out Lamar Odom at the end of the his strange midseason sabbatical. “I just want to see him show up and compete. He didn’t compete tonight.

“And I tell you, with all the time we’ve put into helping him develop and bringing him along, in the biggest game of the year — an opportunity to be a winning team — for him to show up like he did tonight, I was shocked.

“Look, sometimes guys have bad nights, so make sure to put that in there, too.”

— Reported by Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas

Dirk Nowitzki reaches 25,000 career points (with video)

Dirk Nowitzki didn’t even wait to shower before shaving off his beard.

After becoming the 17th player in NBA history to score 25,000 career points, he was even happier the Dallas Mavericks got back to .500 for the first time since mid-December, allowing him to shave off the facial hair he and his teammates had vowed to leave untouched until they evened their record.

Shawn Marion had 21 points on 10-of-16 shooting, Nowitzki scored 19 and the Dallas Mavericks beat the New Orleans Hornets 107-89 on Sunday night.

Brandan Wright and Vince Carter added 16 points off the bench for Mavericks. They had lost by double digits in their three previous chances to even their record.

”It’s been too long,” the clean-shaven Nowitzki said. ”My wife stopped kissing me somewhere in February. It feels good to shave again.”

Nowitzki reached the 25,000-point mark with a midrange jumper over Hornets’ center Robin Lopez in the second quarter. Teammates said he reached for the razor almost as soon as he entered the locker room after the game.

— Reported by Guerry Smith of the Associated Press

Mavericks sign guard Josh Akognon

The Dallas Mavericks announced today that they have signed guard Josh Akognon, presumably just for the remainder of the 2012-13 NBA season.

Akognon (5-11, 185) originally signed a 10-day contract with Dallas on April 3. He made his NBA regular-season debut against Phoenix on April 10 and recorded two points and one assist in 4 minutes.

A native of Petaluma, Calif., Akognon began his collegiate career at Washington State before transferring to Cal State Fullerton. As a junior, he led the Titans to a Big West regular season title, Big West Tournament Championship and an NCAA Tournament appearance for the first time in 30 years. As a senior, Akognon was named Big West Conference Player of the Year after averaging 23.9 points per game. He went undrafted in the 2009 NBA Draft.