These Mavericks never were built to last in the playoffs, not after they acquired Antoine Walker and Antawn Jamison to go with Dirk Nowitzki, Michael Finley and Steve Nash.
There were too many scorers in the lineup and too many outside shooters and way too little inside grit.
The Mavericks have been a pretty team the last few seasons, forever stuck on trying to outscore opponents in a free-flowing game. They have not been a team that frightens the Lakers, Spurs or Kings.
Walker and Jamison only added to the one-dimensional nature of the Mavericks.
The Mavericks do not play a lot of defense. They sometimes struggle to convert in the halfcourt set. They sometimes neglect to rebound the ball. This is who they have been. This is who they are now, only not the same team because of the glut of scorers.
There are not enough ball touches for all of them. There is a higher degree of difficulty in two or three of the five establishing a good shooting rhythm.
The Mavericks are where they are now, down 3-1 in the series with the Kings and ready to be eliminated, because they have not scored at their customary rate of efficiency. They dropped the series-turning Game4 at home because of some dreadful 3-point and free throw shooting.
The Mavericks have so many shooters now that each one almost has a greater tendency to fire away with abandon. If a player does not take the first shot that is remotely available, he is not likely to see the ball again for several possessions.
This is no way to get easy baskets or stretch the opposition’s defense. This is especially no way to be in the playoffs.
But this is how the Mavericks were conceived this season because of the fat wallet of owner Mark Cuban.
He wants a championship right now, darn it, and he is not about to let the maturation process evolve.
The Mavericks missed going to the NBA Finals by two games last season. They even might have made it if Nowitzki had not succumbed to a knee injury in the series with the Spurs.
Not that the Mavericks were a complete team last season. They got a break after Chris Webber went out with a knee injury in their series with the Kings, and they found a certain comfort. Scoring was not the issue then. The Mavericks just had no one to compete with Tim Duncan in the three-second lane.
You did not have to be a basketball personnel guru to predict the principal focus of the Mavericks last summer. They wanted someone large and tough to join the fun. None of their plans worked out, however, and so they opted to add more of what they already had.
It was subtraction by addition, and it showed all season. The Mavericks never quite felt comfortable with one another. They just had too many similar players, with each one looking to hoist a 20-footer.
Coach Don Nelson is the one most likely to be out of a job because of it. Look at all the parts. Why couldn’t the master tinkerer find the right rotations and develop a continuity with the team? That is the indictment, and a highly debatable one.
The Mavericks were flawed enough already that two more scorers only magnified their warts and altered their one quality. It was not necessarily the fault of the five players or Nelson. There are only so many minutes to spread around in a game. There are only so many shots in a game.
The Mavericks did not need Walker and Jamison, no more than the Lakers need another Kobe Bryant, if another one existed.
What the Mavericks needed, besides a genuine power forward or center, is patience.
Nowitzki, the team’s lead player, is all of 25 years old. Finley is 31, Nash is 30, both with two or three quality seasons left in their bodies.
Win or lose, the Lakers are threatening to implode after the season, the Kings have as many questions hanging over them as the Mavericks, and Duncan and the Spurs are having to adjust to a re-made roster.
As the Mavericks have demonstrated this season, sometimes the best move is the one that is not made.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.