Somewhat surprising, there hasn't been much in the paper or radio about Motta "resigning". No career summary that normally accompanies a coaching change. It is like Motta's resignation is just a footnote in the team sale. For the coaches the Mavs will be looking at, if you are a betting person, Paul Westphal would get the best odds. The best coach for the Mavs to try to get, IMHO, would be Rick Pitino. He would also be the toughest to get with the sweet deal he has with Kentucky. It would take a lot of dollars, possibly giving him a small percentage of the team, and giving him total control of the team to lure him here. The Mavs do have a little bit of an inside track with Pitino in that his favorite son Jamal Mashburn is here. And, unlike New Jersey who Pitino turned down, the Mavs have three extremely talented young players and lots of maneuvering room. If the new owners want to improve their public image dramatically and prove that they are willing to spend the money to build a winner, they should do what ever it takes to get Pitino. FYI, Pitino went 38-44 in 87-88 and 52-30 in 88-89 with the New York Knicks. [Gar Heard, who I also said the Mavs should look at, was a Mavs assistant coach from 87-93 and was the interim coach after Adubato was fired. He has since been the head assistant coach in Indiana. He played in the league for 11 seasons and is most famous for the "shot Heard around the world" - the 30-foot fling at the buzzer that sent game 5 of the Boston-Phoenix series into triple overtime. If the players act up on him, he'd be willing to knock their heads together. But since he is not a "name", he probably won't be considered.] Say what you will about Donald Carter, but he has a heart of gold. Every game he had 4 _courtside_ tickets given to people (normally a family) that arrived very early and were sitting in the upper level. The seats were on the baseline on the visitor's side of the court next to the basket. Carter did not want any publicity for this. I've also seen Mavs personnel at sparsely attended games bring fans down in the second half to fill the empty expensive seats. George McCloud finished second in the Most Improved Player award voting. McCloud received 23 of the 113 media votes. Gheorghe Muresan (Was) won the award by receiving 50 votes. The next most votes for a player was 6. Jamal Mashburn was on ESPN's UpClose on Thursday for about 10 minutes. he spent the first several minutes trying to recruit Rick Pitino for the new coach. He also mentioned that Paul Westphal would be a good choice for the Mavs' new coach. He said that the rehab is doing fine, but they are taking it slow and not rushing things. He talked about the feuds. He said that the problem between he and Jackson was purely on the court. Jackson was still recovering from the ankle injury. Mashburn said that both players withdrew to themselves as the team and Jackson kept struggling. He also said that a lot of the problems amongst the 3 Js was due to all three wanting to win but each having different ideas of how to do it. He didn't go into the Jackson-Kidd problem as Mashburn wasn't very involved with the team once his injury occurred. The Mavs finished the season tied for the 5th worst record with Minnesota. The league held a drawing to determine the order for the draft amongst the tied teams. The Mavs, of course, lost. So Minnesota gets one more number for the lottery and if neither team wins the lottery, Minnesota will draft ahead of Dallas. Keep in mind that the Mavs have _never_ drafted lower than their record (else O'Neal would be here) since the league started the lottery. Here is the number of numbers each lottery team is assigned and percentage chance of winning the number 1 pick [Vancouver and Toronto can not receive the first pick, but can draft #2 or #3]: Team Numbers % chance of #1 1. Vancouver 250 --- 2. Philadelphia 200 33.73 3. Toronto 157 --- 4. Milwaukee 120 20.24 5. Minnesota 77 12.98 6. Dallas 76 12.82 7. LA Clippers 44 10.79 8. New Jersey 29 7.42 9. Boston 18 4.89 10. Denver 11 3.04 11. Golden State 7 1.18 12. Washington 6 1.01 13. Charlotte 5 0.84 I've been advocating trading Tony Dumas this summer for a little while due to the fact that he will probably bolt once his contract is up in two years. His recent altercation with his girlfriend has added fuel to my desire to trade him. Since we probably would not a good, young player in return for Dumas, here is my idea: trade Tony Dumas and Terry Davis for a 2nd round draft pick. Yes, this is purely a cap move - but wait 'til you see the numbers. You have to give up something [Dumas] to get a team to take Terry's 2 mill salary off our hands. In addition to the trade, re-sign Lucious Harris as the back-up shooting guard. If you make this trade, renounce the rights to Lorenzo Williams, Scott Brooks, and David Wood, and Lucious Harris counts 150% of his 95-96 salary until he is re-signed, these are the numbers I came up with [assuming my understanding of the new rules is correct]: Harris earned $725,000 this season, so counts 1,087,500 against the Mavs' cap until they renounce the team's rights to him (150%). Projected [I don't know for sure] what Terry and Tony will make in 95-96: Davis 2,280,000 [1,920,000 this year], Dumas 1,092,000 [910,000 this year] base = 2,284,500 + 3,500,000 = 5,784,500 round down = 5,700,000 (the 3,500,000 is what David Moore said the Mavs would be under the cap if they renounce the rights to their free agents, the 2,284,500 is Dumas + Davis - Harris) yearly salary contract total per year avg base 5,700,000 2 yr 6,840,000 12,540,000 6,270,000 3 yr 8,208,000 20,748,000 6,916,000 4 yr 9,849,600 30,597,600 7,649,400 5 yr 11,819,520 42,417,120 8,483,424 6 yr 14,183,424 56,600,544 9,433,424 7 yr 17,020,109 73,620,653 10,517,236 8 yr 20,424,131 94,044,784 11,755,598 That should be enough to go after a big name free agent. [Hmm ... Juwan Howard? Just dreamin'] If we re-sign Lucious for 1.5 mill (ie some team makes a go a Lucious before we get our big name free agent) we would still be able to offer a 6 year, $8,771,000; 7 year, $9,779,000; or 8 year, $10,930,000 contract. And if the Mavs renounce their rights to Lucious, you're looking at a 6 year, $11,373,000; 7 year, $12,679,000; or 8 year, $14,172,000 contract. patricia