The Mavs had the pick-a-seat event yesterday - which was basically an open house and an evening practice at Reunion Arena. Of course, I took the 3 hour drive up for it. The following is from memory, so I might have mis-remembered is some places. One of the cool things that they did in the afternoon (okay, the only cool thing they did - even the pretzel I had was stale) was a tour of the Mavs' locker room. For some this would sound silly, but I'm silly. Anyways, here's my crude ascii drawing. -----door------------------------------------------------------------ | W | || | JJ | Tarp || Popeye | Kidd | Harris |Dumas& |Hodge| | e R | || Williams ----| | i o | ] ----| | g o | ]TV Mash| | h m | ----| | t |Scrubs |Scrubs | | Rooks | Wiley || Davis |Smith| |------------------------------| W |-------------------------------| | a | Showers l Training Room | _____l__________________________________| Except for the corners, the slots were the same (despite what the drawing looks like). The corners were a little bit roomier, but the entrance was smaller. Each slot had a wood bench against the wall and a big cushioned chair facing the bench. Tony Dumas and Lorenzo Williams share a slot. Besides Wiley and Williams, all the camp invitees were shoved into two slots. It was a lot smaller than I expected, especially the weight and training rooms. Practice impressions: That new 3-point line is short! #10 was the first player to appear on the court. I later found out that it was Jervaughn Scales. He came out to shoot around about 7 minutes before the next player appeared. During the pre-practice shoot-around, Mark Aguirre (yes, Mark Aguirre) was at one end of the court with some of the big guys (Popeye, Doug, Jamal, Williams and some of the invitees) practicing post-up moves. Apparently, Aguirre has been tutoring the kids on the tricks of the trade for inside moves, with Motta's blessing. (BTW, Aguirre is officially retired.) Later Rolando Blackman showed up, as a spectator. Ro, Mark, Brad, Roy, and Motta. To bad Derek is in New York and Sam is in Seattle, else it would have been a real Reunion. It was kind of strange to see Aguirre and Motta talking all friendly like. But, as I said to my dad, that was a long time ago. BTW, Ro is still hoping to get picked up somewhere by a contender. Motta told him to stay in shape because you never know when that call is going to come - remember what happened with Byron Scott last season. The first drill involved the players dividing up into three-man teams, with three teams at two baskets - two at the corners and one at the top of the key. The player would shoot, run down the ball, and pass to the next player on his team, who would shoot, run down the ball, ... They kept track of how many baskets each team made and there were shouts of victory from the team among the 3 that had the most points. I liked the competitiveness. Kidd's team (sorry, memory fails me) and Popeye, Hodge, and Harris seemed to have been the overall winners. Popeye shot well all night. They later did the same drill with two-man teams and three baskets. Mashburn and Dumas seemed to have been the winners there. [I didn't focus on any one group; I was trying to watch everything.] The fast break drill was _fun_ to watch. There were 4 teams of 4 or 5 players (the 5th player would rotate in) and there would always be 3 teams on the court. | | Here team 2 is on offense. When team |O 1 2 3 O| 2 makes or misses, team 1 gets the 4 | | ball and runs down court where team 3 plays defense. Team 4 rotates in and 2 out. Team 1 makes/misses and 3 runs down the court to face team 4. Constant motion. If the ball flies out of play, a coach is ready to toss in a spare ball in to keep the practice flowing. Who says Motta can't run. Another drill was to run offensive plays without the defensive players. Just going through the motions. I admit it, this was kind of boring to watch. The good news was that they were pretty effective at it. Then came the next drill - putting the defensive players in. Their effectiveness fell dramatically. I don't think I ever saw the dreaded #3 play run successfully. These were semi-scrimmages as they had refs calling the fouls. We'll probably see a lot one of the teams from this drill - Kidd, Jackson, Mashburn, Popeye, and Tarpley. They were pretty effective on both offense and defense. Player impressions (remember, this was just one practice): Jason had a really fancy pass that bounced of the recipient's head - the pass was quite impressive though. He had a couple of other tricky passes that met with better success. The fans were oohing and aahing. His shooting was good in the shooting drills, but not that good during the others. He also had a major block from behind on Jim, who was going in strong for a jam. Doug was hot. He was hitting everything, even an off-balanced base liner. The other players started razzing him about how hot he was and he was just grinning from ear to ear. Terry did not look that good. He seemed hesitant to shoot and did not get some of the rebounds that he usually does. I think it was just a poor practice for him. He did grab a ball after practice and practiced shooting. Popeye looked great. He seems to have developed a good shooting touch in addition to grabbing all those rebounds. And he kept passing out some great assists. Jamal just loves the new 3-point line. His new build is impressive. He also hung around and signed autographs afterwards [and was about 3 feet from me as I had a seat next to the tunnel]. It was nice to see Roy again. He seemed relaxed and the players seemed real friendly with him. He made a couple of nice layups and finger rolls, but no power jams. Jim had a nice practice. Nothing stands out in my mind right now; I guess I was too busy focusing on all the new (and old) faces. He also hung around after practice to sign autographs. Tony looked good in the shooting practices. Nothing stands out from the other drills. He gets a _lot_ of lift on his jump shots (as my dad kept pointing out). A good two feet. Sean hit some nice outside jumpers. (What is it with big men and outside shooting?) #50 (Richard Rellford - F) looked good and made some nice baskets and rebounds. I really don't have anything exciting to say about the others. I didn't have a roster list with me, so I wasn't sure who some of the players were. Anyways, it was really fun to watch the practice and to see the players up close. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves and the hustle was obviously there. Ya gotta love the attitude. Yeah! Basketball season is finally here! The Maverick Dancers never made their scheduled apparence. Words just can not express how disappointed I was. patricia