What's Next?

Both the Phoenix Suns and the Dallas Mavericks have once again fallen short. Both teams were met with high expectations and summarily shown out of the playoffs after the first round. Phoenix by the defending champion, the San Antonio Spurs, for the third time in four years, and Dallas by the New Orleans Hornets, led by playoff rookie, Chris Paul. Needless to say the swift five game exit of two of the largest players in this year's trade market definitely brings murmurs of speculation out into the open. Already, Avery Johnson has been fired from the head coaching position in Dallas, and there are questions as to Mike D'Antoni's staying power in Phoenix as well. Well, that's a lot to deal with, but let's look at this piece by piece:

Dallas Mavericks
Now, the despite the fact that Avery Johnson took the Mavs to the Finals in 2006 then a 67 win record in 2007 are very impressive feats in and of themselves, two consecutive first round exits from the playoffs merits some blame to go somewhere, and the onus of the scapegoat happens to land on Avery Johnson. You could arguably say that Mark Cuban created this dilemma for himself, but the fact remains that someone has to go, and it's easier to get rid of a coach than the players. So the question remains, what went wrong?

We can always try to trace things back to the Jason Kidd trade, how the Mavericks sacrificed their future for immediate results. They offered up a young point guard (Devin Harris), a stop plug in the middle (DeSagana Diop) and two draft picks for a 35 year-old guard clinging to his youth. There's always the argument that Jason Kidd just never melded together with Avery Johnson's system and Avery Johnson never figured out how to incorporate Jason Kidd. There's the point that coming in halfway through the season with a completely new point guard to run the offense is very difficult for both the team and the point guard, that Jason Kidd was expected to do too much in too little time.

I want to go a different rout though, it's not the coaching, it's not even the trade for Jason Kidd, the fact that the Dallas Mavericks failed once again, is simply because that the team was constructed improperly. The fact is that I never considered Dallas a championship contender before Jason Kidd, and I certainly didn't consider them one afterwards, so to call the Jason Kidd a failure is a little premature because it didn't really bring them any closer to the championship, I would generally call it a wash.

So what's wrong with this team? Didn't they make it to the Finals? Didn't they win 67 in a season? The answer is yes and yes, but what amounts to their embarrassing forfeiture of a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals in 2006 and their embarrassing upset by the 8th seed Golden State Warriors in 2007, is simple, the Dallas Mavericks aren't built to win championships. The fact is, is that their roster inherently is faulty, and the owners aren't willing to admit that. If we look at the roster, even just the starting lineup, there's already a obvious glaring problem with it, let's take a looksee;

PG - Jason Kidd
SG - Jerry Stackhouse
SF - Josh Howard
PF - Dirk Nowitzki
C - Erick Dampier

Now the glaring issue is that you have a dynamic point, a second rate center, a role player, and your two all-stars are perimeter players. So what happens is that you have team that would sooner settle for a jump shot rather than drive to the hoop. They have no finisher outside of Jason Kidd, their bench is stripped thin with little left other than Eddie Jones, Devean George, and Brandon Bass. The fact is that their lack of an interior game both on the offensive and defensive end has been and will continue to be their downfall time and time again. They're softness inside was the reason for their early exit last year, as an undersized Golden State abused them in the paint. The fact of the matter is that any team built around Dirk Nowitzki is bound to fail. Nowitzki cannot and does not thrive as a go to guy on a team. His game is fairly one-dimensional, he's an oversized shooter, a monstrous SG that can rebound. As much as his post game has improved, that's still what Nowitzki's known for, his shot. He'd make a great second option, and I think, that being able to share that burden and of having someone else (a post player) as the go to guy will help him to thrive even more. Shooters make big shots, but it's the post that wins games.