The site achieved what it was made to do, see Avery Johnson out of Dallas. Add that to the guy I said I’d like to see as coach, Rick Carlisle, most likely getting hired and I think it was a pretty good two month run.

Big thanks to all the regular commenters that really kept the site going. It’s been a blast reading all of your comments. The site ended up getting 23,000 unique visitors from 110 different countries, which is just amazing to me.

I’m going to leave the site up and comments will still be enabled, so feel free to continue chatting amongst yourselves. Be sure to check out these excellent sites for all your Mavericks and NBA news:

DallasBasketball.com

Mavs Moneyball

The Dallas Morning News Mavericks Blog

Hardwood Paroxysm

True Hoop Blog

It’s been fun. Go Mavs.

However, no other news site is reporting this as of right now.  ESPN.com said that he’s coming back for a second interview today but didn’t mention being hired already.

Go check out the Miracle Worker post on DallasBasketball.com about how much Avery loves him some Avery. If you’re really a guy of “honesty and integrity” do you need to say so during your going away speech? Should your actions be able to speak for you?

Also check out the story on DB.com about the Mavs short list for coach. That short list apparently only includes Van Gundy, Carlisle and D’Antoni right now.

Rick Carlisle was the first person to interview for the job.

The Miami Heat may be interested in Josh Howard. Would Shawn Marion interest anyone?

The Atlanta Hawks have somehow forced a game seven against the Celtics. I don’t think anybody expected them to win one game, myself included, but this is a great story. It would be amazing if the Hawks could somehow knock the Celtics off Sunday afternoon.

I’m going to be out of town all weekend so no new posts, unless a coach is hired. I’ll be back Monday with an update on the status of the site. It’s not going anywhere, just getting a little bit of a name change.

Saturday Morning Update 

The article about Carlisle linked above is now saying he is being brought back to Dallas for a second interview.  Looks like the Mavs may not even wait until the playoffs are over before naming him the new coach.

And the Rockets lost last night.  Seeing the Rockets go out in the first round again should make everyone around here a little happier.

Jeff Van Gundy, Del Harris and Paul Westphal have all said they’re not interested in the job. 

Rick Carlisle is coming to town for an interview very soon. 

Flip Saunders and Mike D’Antoni are both going to be canidates if they leave their current teams.

Yesterday on ESPN radio Donnie said his name is on the list, but at the very botton and that he hopes it doesn’t come to that.

The list is quickly being whittled down.  With the Mavs having interest in Saunders it’s going to be at least two or three weeks before anyone would be named.

“For me, personally, I feel like it’s another wasted year,” he said. “I’m in my prime right now. I’m almost 30 now, so I feel like I wasted another great opportunity to win the title and bring it here to Dallas.“

Along with that statement when asked about next year he said “if I’m here” three times, including this telling comment.

“Come back a better player, a better person, if I’m back, give it another try.”

I hope that’s his guess as to what the team may try to do this offseason and not what he’s hoping will happen.  I don’t think Dirk is the kind of guy to ask for a trade or anything but it doesn’t sound like he’s very happy right now.

I know some of you don’t have the highest opinion of Dirk but it would be a catastrophe if he were to be traded.  He was the only player to be consistently solid through the playoffs and became much better once Jason Kidd came to town.  If you can improve the supporting cast this offseason, which this site’ll be getting into in the coming weeks, and give them a full season together there’s a chance they could do something next year.

He also had some comments on Avery’s last season and it doesn’t sound like he enjoyed the way the team was being coached.

“I mean, we probably could have opened it up more, a little more free-flow, let Jason create and not just make him a weak-side spot-up shooter. But, you know, Avery had us believe in his system.”

And what is he looking for for the new coach of the Mavericks?

“Obviously, we’ve got to bring a coach in that brings out the best out of what he’s got here,” Nowitzki said. “Open up the offense a lot more, run. But still a guy who knows how to coach defense in the league.

“You don’t basically want to go back to the Nellie days where we just run and gun and have fun and we got scored on every time down, either. That’s obviously not the solution to get where we want to get to.”

No one from the current staff.

No college coach without NBA experience.

Someone that plays a more up-tempo game, but is not looking to score 140 points a game.

No one on the current roster is untouchable, as far as trades go.

So does that change anyone’s idea about who they could be looking at?

I’m liking the idea of Rick Carlisile right now.  He had some good seasons with the Pistons and Pacers before Ron Artest turned into a moron and completely derailed the Pacers.  I just think it’s important to get someone new in here.  Someone that is in no way connected to Nellie, Avery or Cuban.  It’s time to completely flush out the old regime and bring in a brand new one.

This site isn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon so be sure to keep checking back.

I wish Avery the best as he moves on from Dallas.  There’s no doubt that he will be a head coach again, probably very soon.  I think he’ll make a good coach somewhere too.  It’s just that he’s not the right person for this team right now and what they need to do. 

Under Contract
Jason Kidd - $21,372,000
Dirk Nowitzki - $18,077,904
Josh HOward - $9,945,000
Erick Dampier - $9,550,000
Jason Terry - $9,075,000
Jerry Stackhouse - $7,000,000
Brandon Bass - $826,269

Player Option
Eddie Jones - $2,000,000

Free Agents
Devean George - Bird Free Agent
Antoine Wright
Juwan Howard
Malik Allen
JJ Barea
Jamaal Magloire
Tyronn Lue

When a team over the salary cap, which includes the Mavs, makes a trade the incoming value of players cannot exceed 125% plus $100,000 of the outgoing value. The ESPN Trade Machine is a great tool to see what trades would or would not work. It’s also a great way to waste a couple hours at work.

Avery’s choice of which players would be his “pets’’ and which would be in his “doghouse’’ was once thought to be the result of his knowledge of psychology. We now believe it was more about which players stood up to the coach’s screaming and which did not. The feisty Jerry Stackhouse made it clear more than two years ago that he would not; we are told Stack was inches away from a physical altercation with the badgering coach before he was pulled away by teammates. And the next thing you know, Avery is a “Stack guy.’’ (And yes, Mavs fans, that is the genesis of Avery’s BrokeStack Mountain love for his veteran.) Avery and Stack are respectful friends. But Stack not taking Avery’s crap is part of how they got that way.

That article alone should be enough to show anyone why Avery has to go. He’s lost this team and that’s a hard thing to get back.

Also coming out this morning is the real reason Avery cancelled practice Monday. Apparently he was upset that Josh Howard held his birthday party Sunday night and that a few of the players attended. Should Howard have held the party after such a bad loss Sunday night? That’s debatable.  But being pissy about a couple of your men, as Avery would put it, is no reason at all to cancel practice the day before an elimination game.

At this point if anyone cannot see why Avery has to go I don’t think there’s anything that would convince you. Hopefully Cuban is not in that group.