Points in the Paint 02.28.09: Trade Deadline Thoughts, Dirk

Posted by Rob Bonnette on 02.28.2009

Me vs. Andrew over Dirk Nowitzki!

Hello there everyone and welcome to a belated Points in the Paint. This time around I recap the trade deadline and duel over Dirk Nowitzki! Enjoy!

The Trade Deadline: Overrated!

OK, so the trade deadline came and went, and the biggest deal was……..Rafer Alston going to Orlando. That's a sharp contrast to last season, where we saw Shaquille O'Neal and Jason Kidd dealt, along with Shawn Marion, Ben Wallace, Larry Hughes, and Mike Bibby. This season it seems that no one really want to deal any big names. Amare Stoudemire was supposed to be the big name moving this year, but once Terry Porter was replaced as head coach that went away. Vince Carter was reportedly floated in some offers, but nothing came of that. Shaq was floated again, but he stayed as Sun along with Amare. Other than the previous week's swap of Marion and Jermaine O'Neal, no big names went anywhere. What happened? Call it buyers remorse. The names that were showing up in the rumor mill all have pretty big contracts that go beyond this season, and with the economy the way it is no one wants to take on those kind of liabilities. Nobody wants to be stuck with an over $10 million obligation for the next two or three years if they don't have to. This is probably a forecast of what to expect in free agency this summer; there are going to be a lot of guys looking for $10 million a year and accepting $5 million. But that's for later; my bigger point to make here is that the trade deadline is wildly overrated. Yes, we do have some big names getting dealt some years but for the most part these guys don't affect the end result of the season itself. The last big name guy who was dealt around trade deadline time and went on to win a title that same year was Rasheed Wallace in 2004; before him, you have to go back to Clyde Drexler in 1995. That's two in thirteen years. And before that you have to go back to the Adrian Dantley/Mark Aguirre trade (which may not have even been a trade deadline swap) in the 1988-89 season. Three in twenty years? That clearly is no trend, and no indicator of a practice to be repeated.

The trade deadline as a major event is a media generated phenomenon, like the NFL Scouting Combine; the only thing that happens there is that a few guys get overvalued and then go on to underwhelm. Jason Kidd was supposed to be a big boon to the Mavericks floundering season last year but ended up getting circles run around him by Chris Paul in the first round of the playoffs. Shaq did nothing of any consequence for the Suns in their first round defeat by the Spurs. And Ben Wallace probably didn't get the Cavs any further than they would have gotten without him. Does anyone think Jermaine O'Neal will make the Miami Heat any more than a second round loser at best? Now would a healthy Amare Stoudemire made a difference in Cleveland? Maybe, but maybe not. He would been the starting power forward, but that would have put a major defensive liability on the court and taken minutes from two guys who are better defenders at that position in Wallace and Anderson Varejao. It may have been a net neutral in terms of impact, but you don't make a blockbuster trade for that. The evidence is clear that trade deadline deals for big name players usually don't result in titles, but the media hypes it up every year because they need content, the same way the NFL Combine gets a ridiculous coverage even though it usual accomplishes one thing every year: wrongly changing someone's draft stock up or down due to their 40 time. That's it. Other than that, it really doesn't do anything to make a would be superstar into a bum, or vice versa. And when the trade deadline fails to result in any huge transaction, we get the complaints about it being a dud this year, which is just stupid.

Me vs. Andrew on Dirk Nowitzki!

My fellow 411 writer Andrew Tobolowsky has challenged me to a duel over the topic of one Dirk Nowitzki. Tired of my constant Dirk-bashing, Andrew has provided some really good evidence to confront me, and has demanded that I meet him in cyberspace to take ten paces, turn and fire! Like Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr (if you want to talk gun packing VPs, Dick Cheney has nothing on Burr)! OK, no one is going to get killed here, but the disagreement is every bit as heated. In short, I think Dirk is a great player that turns into a jump shooting pansy who folds when it matters most. Andrew thinks otherwise, that Dirk is actually underrated and should get more credit for carrying good but not great teammates in the playoffs. I don't totally dispute the points he made, especially the one about teammates, but allow me to present mine more fully.

Dirk's a big game choker: I looked at five games in recent memory where the Mavericks were in a must win situation; in all five, Dirk came up short and the Mavs lost. Now I'll be the first to admit that there big losses where Dirk played well, along with some big wins where he did so. But in several games where his team needed him to play great and get them across the finish line, he failed. Here we go:

Game 4 vs. Miami, NBA Finals: This is the game after the Heat rose from the ashes to get back in the series. Going in, I figured that game three was the Heat's last hurrah and that they would bow out over the next two games. That is, after all, what I'd gotten used to over the years in the Finals. The seemingly overmatched team usually gets one win in somewhere to maintain some respectability. I thought game three was that game for the Heat. I was wrong. In game four, Dirk's chance to drop the hammer on Miami and claim a place alongside Kobe, Lebron and others as the current masters of the game, Dirk went 2 for 14 from the floor (14.3 % shooting), scored 16 points, and grabbed nine rebounds. That is abysmal. You don't get that kind of game from Tim Duncan or Kevin Garnett in that situation. Garnett may only get the 16 points but he impacts the game at the defensive end in ways that Dirk can only dream of. Duncan absolutely would have dropped a 25/15 on the Heat and sealed their fate.

Game 5 vs. Miami, NBA Finals: After watching game four, I figured that whoever won game five would take the series. Not a big risk I'll admit. Dirk played betted better than in game four: 20 points on 42 percent shooting and eight rebounds. And the Mavs lose again. So in two games that we needed to take control of the series back from an inferior team, Dirk blows it. A real NBA icon, whether it be present day or all time, doesn't do that. Michael Jordan would have put in a bullet in the Heat after game three. So would Magic, Kobe, Shaq, you name it. Once it's obvious you have the better team, which was the case after the Mavs blew the Heat out in game two to take a 2-0 lead, you finish them.

But wait…there's more! The following season, the number one seeded Mavs faced the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the playoffs. The Warriors had given the Mavs fits during the regular season, but I dismissed it figuring that they'd learned from their Finals experience and crush the upstart Warriors. Boy, was I wrong. In game one, where you are supposed to demonstrate your superiority and show the eight seed that they won't be around long, Dirk and the Mavs laid an egg. He goes 4 for 16 from the field and finishes with 14 points. Yikes. Then there was game three where the Mavs had a chance to get a 2-1 series lead and take control back; Dirk has a good game with 20 points and 12 rebounds but is unable to get his team a win. And then in game six, a must win game to save the Mavs season, Dirk serves a 2 for 13 shooting performance and finishes with 8 points. The Mavs lost those three games by an average of 18 points.

I picked these games for a reason: game four in the Finals was the time for the Mavericks to get a commanding 3-1 lead over a team they were clearly better than and put a figurative end to the series. Game five was a shot to get a 3-2 lead going back home for games 6 and 7, where the road team never sweeps. In a seven game series, games three through five are often the most crucial ones. All of them offer a chance too take control of series and possibly end it. The Mavs had the better team with the best player on the floor, and went 0-for-3, with said best player (Dirk) having on good game (game three), one OK one (game five), and one awful one (game four). Anybody think Kobe or Tim Duncan or Lebron would turn in a three game streak like that, barring injury? Dirk blew it in the games where his team most needed a King of the World performance and a victory. Yes he had big games where he played well (game seven versus the Spurs in the same year they went to the Finals, for example, and that 50 point game versus the Suns), but those were against a Spurs team with an injured Tim Duncan who physically could not guard Dirk (they had to put Brent Barry on Dirk a few times, for crying out loud) and a Suns team that had a 6-foot-8 Boris Diaw trying to play center and were so soft defensively that they made the Mavs look like the Pat Riley Knick teams. When you're flirting with icon status like Dirk was, you win those games I mentioned AND you turn in big performances. You don't turn into a seven foot jump shooter and go 25 percent (or worse) from the field…..especially since you contribute little to nothing at the defensive end on a good night. Yes, I know he's only human and that I've never suited for anything remotely as challenging, but we're judging his performance here. To have two series back to back like that (2007 NBA Finals, 2008 First Round) when you're being measured against Tim Duncan, Kobe, etc, just kills your credibility.

My view isn't that Dirk is a bum; I did my own quick list and ranked no worse than eighth among guys in the league right now (I got Kobe, Lebron, KG, Paul Pierce –Andrew will hate that, Wade and Duncan ahead of him, and I'm 50/50 on Chris Paul vs. Dirk). My view is that Dirk is a great player, and has all the skills to carry a team far into the postseason, but doesn't have that extra ‘you can't f@#! with me!' attitude you need to overcome adversity in big games. The only time he prevailed in a ‘man up' situation was that game seven against the Spurs, and even then he wasn't being guarded by the guy who normally would do it. I also don't like that he is constantly well defended by guys he should torch. He's been flustered by the likes of James Posey, Udonis Haslem, Bruce Bowen, Stephen Jackson, even Tracy McGrady. The mere fact that the opposing team felt OK guarding him with those guys says something. Do you think the Lakers would guard Duncan with Trevor Ariza, or even an excellent defender like Kobe? Uhh……no. Would Boston guard Lebron with Rajon Rondo? Not really. But playoff opponents of the Mavericks have no reservations about employing similar physical matchups against Dirk, and have had success with it. What would we say about Lebron if Rondo put him on lockdown for a whole series and forced him into 25 percent shooting more than once? We'd seriously question Lebron's awesomeness wouldn't we? In my opinion, nothing Dirk did before 2005-06 is subject to real scrutiny; he was an All Star who put up numbers and whose team lost in the first or second round of the playoffs to better teams. Nothing to apologize for. But that stretch from the 2006 Finals to the 2007 first round changed my perception of him; he was brushing up against Icon status and turned into a shrinking violet. He's an All-Star, but no more. I wouldn't even put him the Hall of Fame yet.

Your move, Andrew!

That's all for this edition. Next time we look at the stretch run. Until then….