The Boss Speaks, Field Trips, and Other News

From the homefront:

- Mark Cuban spoke on Randy Galloway's radio program earlier today, giving an extended interview. Among the subjects covered, reputation-rehab for Josh Howard, failures in leadership over the past season, failed trade scenarios (among them one where we gave up Dirk and J-Ho for Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, the idea of which has Mr. Fish over at DallasBasektball.com crying into his beer), votes of confidence in Coach Carlisle, and the work between him Jerry Jones to get the NBA All-Star game to the new Cowboys stadium in Arlington (which would be mega-awesome with cheese). Podcast here.

- Coach Carlisle's in Orlando at "predraft camp," checking out the stuff. The Mavs have a second-round pick, 51st overall. There's plans to go to Italy, where the European draftees will be gathered -- because of financial issues, that's most likely where the FNGs are coming from this year. Little help from the Basketball Gods would be good there, neh?

- A remark from Mr. Cuban's interview clarifies a lot to me -- "Guys were breaking plays a lot. They didn’t trust the play-calling . . ." No wonder Avery Johnson was damn near throwing a coniption fit over by the bench, and no wonder the folks on the floor had this bad habit of standing around looking confused. He's also saying that Dirk's the one who broke rank there originally. Good in that the Organization's been screaming for him to take up a leadership role for the last five or six years; bad because such behavior could be construed as childish and counter-productive. I'm erring on the side of goodness, mostly in light of Johnson's actions since he was fired (revisionist and egotistical would about cover it). It could also be inferred that the disconnect between the coach and the players tainted Jason Kidd's adaptation to the team, which made all the other chemistry problems worse.

- The NBA has decided to impose fines on players for "flopping" -- exaggerating impact when one is fouled. Sort of like screaming bloody murder when your sister gets a good lick in during a pillowfight. Discouraging melodrama that doesn't come from the game itself is a good thing. Several years of following figure skating has me good and sick of manufactured melodrama.

- And finally, Dirk landed in Germany last week, prepping with the national team. And get this, the inconsiderate bastard got a girlfriend. Wah!
-BJ