Dallas Mavericks Blog – Page 80 – NBA Blog

Texas Legends name Nancy Lieberman assistant general manager

Nancy Lieberman has been a collegiate National Champion, an All-American, Olympian, the first woman to play in a men’s professional league, WNBA player, Hall-of-Famer, WNBA head coach, and the first female coach of a men’s team under the NBA umbrella. Today, the team’s first head coach has accepted a new position as the Legends’ Assistant General Manager.

Lieberman led the Legends to a playoff berth in their inaugural season last year – becoming only the third coach in the NBA or NBA D-League to lead an expansion team to the play-offs. Now, she will have an opportunity to contribute to even more success from the front office.

“Nancy took on a tremendous challenge in becoming our head coach,” Legends owner Donnie Nelson commented. “And she embraced that challenge like she has throughout her life. She was everything I could have hoped for as a head coach.”

Lieberman’s path from the coaching bench to the front office mirrors Nelson’s successful move of the same nature in 2001. After nine seasons as an assistant coach in the NBA, Nelson moved to the Dallas Mavericks’ front office, where he is now President of Basketball Operations and General Manager of the NBA champions.

“I have no doubt that Nancy will be successful in her new capacity,” Nelson added. “Her experience as a coach will only make her a stronger asset in the front office.”

Lieberman’s 31 years in professional basketball have been filled with firsts, including her role as the first woman coach of a professional men’s team in the NBA or NBA D-League. She was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996.

“Coaching with the Legends has been a dream,” Lieberman commented. “The players did a tremendous job throughout the season. Their respect for the coaching staff, work ethic, and team-first attitude was everything I wanted to see in a team. That being said, I have always been very intrigued with management at the NBA level. The opportunity to work with Donnie in this capacity is too great an opportunity to pass up. I am looking forward to continuing to build the Legends organization and strengthening its reputation as the standard-bearer in the NBA D-League.”

The move not only moves Lieberman into management with a team under the NBA umbrella, but also will allow her to spend more time with her son as he finishes high school.

“My family is tremendously important to me,” Lieberman added. “The challenge of balancing my family life with my professional aspirations has long been one that I have embraced. I truly believe that every woman can attain both their personal and professional goals. My position as Assistant General Manager allows me to balance my schedule while maintaining my professional goals. I look forward to working with Donnie, Del, and Spud as we move towards our goal of winning an NBA D-League championship.”

Lieberman joins basketball legends Del Harris (1995 NBA Coach of the Year) and Spud Webb (1986 NBA Slam Dunk Champion) in the Legends front office. Lieberman, Harris, and Webb will play an integral role in a national search for her replacement as Legends’ head coach.

“Nancy has left big shoes to fill on the sidelines,” Nelson concluded. “She will have a lot of valuable insight for the next head coach. I’m excited as our team only gets stronger with Nancy taking on this new responsibility.”

After coaching the team, Nancy Lieberman taking Texas Legends front-office job

Marc Stein of ESPN reports:

After a groundbreaking season coaching NBA hopefuls, Nancy Lieberman is moving to the Texas Legends’ front office.

The women’s basketball pioneer told ESPNDallas.com that she will be switching to the personnel side of the D-League team’s operations starting next season, after taking the expansion Legends to the playoffs as the first female to coach a men’s team under the NBA’s umbrella.

Lieberman said Sunday night that she debated the switch for weeks after the Legends’ season ended in April, ultimately deciding that her long-held goal of “making it normal” for a woman to coach men at the game’s highest level would have to be temporarily placed on hold for family reasons.

“I have one son and he has one senior year,” Lieberman said, referring to son T.J. Cline, who plays basketball at Plano West. “It’s not to say I’ll never coach again, because T.J. goes to college in a year, but I felt like this was the right thing to do right now. I don’t want to have any regrets as a mom. I want him to look up and see me in the stands.”

Coaches in the D-League generally work on one-year contracts, but Lieberman, 52, had been promised the option when she took the job of choosing whether to stay on as Legends coach or move into management after the 2010-11 season.

Jason Kidd wants to play three more years

ESPN Dallas reports:

Jason Kidd has some time to enjoy himself after a long playoff run that resulted in the Dallas Mavericks’ first NBA title. What better way than joining the likes of Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and former Stars Mike Modano and Brett Hull?

When asked of his future plans Saturday during an on-course interview with Jimmy Roberts during the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship at Lake Tahoe, Kidd had this to say:

“Hopefully I got three years left. I have a year on my deal and then I would like to get past 40 and then watch the young guys play.”

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More Mark Cuban Shark Tank season 3

Entertainment Weekly reports:

Shark Tank is giving Mark Cuban a promotion.

The Dallas Mavs owner stole the show during a trio of guest appearances on the business-based reality series last season. Now ABC and executive producer Mark Burnett have signed on Cuban for nearly all of season 3.

InsideHoops.com editor says: I actually watched and enjoyed this show last season. I’ve only seen four of five episodes of it, but it was fun. It isn’t the type of show that demands your full attention, but it made great background filler off DVR for me while doing some late night work some nights.

Dwyane Wade still feeling sting of NBA Finals loss

ESPN reports:

Wade has spent some time with teammates since the Finals defeat, traveling to James’ hometown of Akron, Ohio, last week to take part in a different camp for high school and college players. But time hasn’t done much to ease the frustration of the Heat blowing large leads late in two the first four games to allow the Mavericks to take control and win the series going away in six games.

More than the lockout or China or where he might consider playing next season, that is something Wade still wakes up thinking about.

“The sting is still there, no question about it,” Wade said. “It was a failure for the Miami Heat. It was a failed year for every team except for the Dallas Mavericks. They had the best year. But the things we did aren’t erased, we had a darn good year. If we’d won the championship it would’ve been a pretty amazing year. It wasn’t pretty amazing but it was pretty good.”

Rudy Fernandez to stay with Mavericks

The Forth Worth Star-Telegram reports:

The Spanish sports site Marca.com has reported that swingman Rudy Fernandez, acquired by the Mavericks in a draft-day trade, will honor his NBA contract and stay with Dallas rather than sign a lucrative contract overseas with Real Madrid.

Fernandez is scheduled to earn $2.18 million next season and would be a restricted free agent the following season with an option for $3.18 million. Fernandez, who was born in Spain, was being courted by Real Madrid with a six-year contract reported to be worth close to $4 million a year.

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NBA says NYTimes.com blog was based on inaccurate info

The following is an official release from the NBA:

The information from Forbes that serves as the basis for this article is inaccurate and we do not know how they do their calculations. Forbes does not have the financial data for our teams and the magazine’s estimates do not reflect reality.

Precisely to avoid this issue, the NBA and its teams shared their complete league and team audited financials as well as our state and Federal tax returns with the Players Union. Those financials demonstrate the substantial and indisputable losses the league has incurred over the past several years.

The analysis that was posted this afternoon has several significant factual inaccuracies, including:

“(The NBA) is a fundamentally healthy and profitable business”

• The league lost money every year of the just expiring CBA. During these years, the league has never had positive Net Income, EBITDA or Operating Income.

“Many of the purported losses result from an unusual accounting treatment related to depreciation and amortization when a team is sold.”

• We use the conventional and generally accepted accounting (GAAP) approach and include in our financial reporting the depreciation of the capital expenditures made in the normal course of business by the teams as they are a substantial and necessary cost of doing business.

We do not include purchase price amortization from when a team is sold or under any circumstances in any of our reported losses. Put simply, none of the league losses are related to team purchase or sale accounting.

“Another trick…moving income from the team’s balance sheet to that of a related business like a cable network…”

• All revenues included in Basketball Related Income (“BRI”) and reported in our financial statements have been audited by an accounting firm jointly engaged by the players’ union and the league. They include basketball revenues reported on related entities’ books.

“Ticket revenues… are up 22% compared to 1999-2000 season”

• Ticket revenues have increased 12% over the 10 year period, not the 22% reported.

“17 teams lost money according to Forbes … Most of these losses were small…”

• Forbes’ claim is inaccurate. In 2009-10, 23 teams had net income losses. The losses were in no way “small” as 11 teams lost more than $20M each on a net income basis.

“The profits made by the Knicks, Bulls and Lakers alone would be enough to cover the losses of all 17 unprofitable teams.”

• The Knicks, Bulls and Lakers combined net income for 2009-10 does not cover the losses of the 23 unprofitable teams. Our net loss for that year, including the gains from the seven profitable teams, was -$340 million.

“Forbes’s estimates — a $183 million profit for the NBA in 2009-10, and those issued by the league, which claim a $370M loss…”

• Forbes’s data is inaccurate. Our losses for 2009-10 were -$340 million, not -$370 million as the article states.

“The leaked financial statements for one team, the New Orleans Hornets, closely matched the Forbes data…”

• This is not an accurate statement as operating income in the latest Forbes data (2009-10) is $5M greater than what is reported in the Hornets audited financials.

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Will Mavs search for a backup power forward?

Jeff Caplan of ESPN Dallas reports:

A summer ago the Dallas Mavericks made hard pushes for free-agent power forwards Al Harrington (chose to sign with the Denver Nuggets) and Udonis Haslem (re-signed with the Miami Heat).

Obviously, a guy named Dirk Nowitzki has the position pretty well locked down, but could the Mavs again be in the market for more of a traditional power forward — perhaps a Carl Landry, Chuck Hayes or short-time Mav Kris Humphries — to back up Dirk? Remember, for much of the season small forward Shawn Marion shifted between the two forward positions.

Or, did the little-used, yet ever-ready Brian Cardinal, also a free agent, secure his return to the team next season and potentially bigger minutes after filling such a vital role in the NBA Finals?

For starters, scratch high-priced free agents like Kenyon Martin and David West off the wish list. The Mavs will not be dipping into the deep end of that pool, and there’s obviously no reason for entrenched starters to join Dallas.

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Coach Jim Cleamons takes job in China

Xinhua reports:

Former Los Angeles Lakers’ assistant coach Jim Cleamons had been hired by the Zhejiang Guangsha of the Chinese Basketball Association league (CBA) on Sunday, local reports said.

Guangsha’s general manager Ye Xiangyu told media that Cleamons had arrived in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, on Saturday.

“There were several offers from teams of the National Basketball Association (NBA), but Mr. Cleamons finally chose the Guangsha,” Ye said.

Dallas Mavericks exercise options on Rodrigue Beaubois, Dominique Jones

The Dallas Mavericks announced today that they have exercised contract options for guards Rodrigue Beaubois and Dominique Jones. Per team policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Beaubois (6-2, 182) played just 28 games for Dallas in 2010-11 after missing 54 with a fractured left foot. He averaged 8.4 points, 2.3 assists and 1.9 rebounds in 17.7 minutes per game in his second season.

Jones (6-4, 215) averaged 2.3 points, 1.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 7.5 minutes in 18 games as a rookie. He also made 10 appearances for the Texas Legends of the NBA Development League and averaged 18.7 points, 5.2 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.6 steals.